Not all of the building blocks that make up our neighborhoods are brick and mortar. There are woods and meadows — green space to ease the eyes and refresh the soul. When my mother came to Indianapolis from the gritty industrial city of Akron, Ohio — Rubber City — she was struck by the number of open parklands, one of which was Ellenberger Park not far from her new Irvington home. She found what others had discovered decades before, a parkland where “spring [wild] flowers bloom earliest” and “a pretty grove of trees” in which to picnic.
Lying along the bank of Pleasant Run and south of St. Clair Street between Ritter Avenue and Ellenberger Parkway, West Drive, Ellenberger Park [Woods] has been a favorite recreation area for Irvingtonians many years before the land became an official park. This vast natural area was an open botanical classroom for Butler University students who also “plucked from its wealth of wildflowers, or visited it by moonlight, properly chaperoned, and participated in a marshmallow roast.” Nearby residents would also tell of being “aroused from their sleep by blood-curdling yells” and witnessing a “procession of white-robed” figures “carrying a casket” in the moonlight among the trees during the season for fraternity initiations.
The land encompassing Ellenberger Woods was the south portion of John Ellenberger’s farm. A native of Pennsylvania, Ellenberger came to Warren Township in 1853 and rented the Sandusky farm, the future site of Irvington. Five years later, he bought eighty acres north of Pleasant Run and built his home at what is now 5602 East 10th Street. Ellenberger was a successful farmer and eventually his holdings stretched to 240 acres. A deeply religious man, John Ellenberger was a kind, sympathetic, and obliging neighbor to Irvington.
Around 1907 Irvingtonian George Cottman, the Father of Indiana Local History, began advocating for the addition of Ellenberger Woods to the Indianapolis city park system. Echoing what many had known for years, landscape architect George E. Kessler saw in Ellenberger Woods “a piece of beautiful natural woodland” that should not be encroached upon “with the arts of man.” On March 16, 1911 Ellenberger Woods became an Indianapolis parkland and the first improvement was the placement of a changing tent near the Pleasant Run “swimmin’ hole” close by the foot bridge. Soon a large meadow “devoted to athletic sports” was transformed into baseball diamonds, tennis courts, and a 9-hole golf course. These changes to the “Woods” altered the “simple life” that earlier Irvingtonians had enjoyed. However, some restraints were placed on ball playing when Irvington citizens objected to Sunday baseball calling the games a “bedlam of boisterousness.” Thankfully moratoriums pass, and Ellenberger Park has been the home field to countless amateur, school, and church ball teams. From baseball to football to soccer, Irvington and East Side youth have experienced victory and loss in the dust of the diamonds and the turf of the gridiron.
Over the last 105 years Ellenberger Park has been the place Irvingtonians have gathered to celebrate significant events from Fourth of July pageants as a community to a child’s birthday as a family. Since 1929 on the hottest days of summer, a cacophony of voices waft across Irvington from the swimming pool atop Ellenberger hill as young people frolic in the cool refreshing waters. Similar sounds are heard in the winter snows as the hill is populated with sleds and dishes wearing the white blanket thin to an icy brown streaked covering. Sharing the hilltop for over four decades was the ice rink; first open-air and then enclosed. Only memories linger now from the challenges youth hockey league players had in “putting the biscuit in the basket.”
Throughout the decades music in the park has been a tradition in Ellenberger Park. Among the bands entertaining Irvingtonians and other citizens were the Indianapolis Police Band in the ‘teens and the Indianapolis Concert Band in the ‘30s. Today Irvingtonians look forward to the annual summer concert of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
To the west in the park, blankets may be found from spring to fall spread here and there across the woodland floor as couples and families enjoy a picnic lunch in the cool shade of giant trees. In recent years the Irvington Farmers Market has been a popular attraction, drawing thousands to this area of Ellenberger Park.
In 1922 the park board decided to honor Dr. Henry Jameson, a longtime president of the board, by changing the name of Ellenberger Park to Jameson Park. Irvingtonians strenuously objected to the name change and within four years the Ellenberger name was restored. Today the Friends of Ellenberger Park is “dedicated to promoting and enhancing” the programs and services of the park. More information can be found at the organization’s web site: ellenbergerpark.org and on its Facebook page.
