The end of May 2016 we will commemorate the 100th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” and the 150th Memorial Day, the decorating of the graves of the fallen. Thousands will gather at the Speedway Oval to cheer on the fleet, the swift and at cemeteries across Indiana and to remember the valiant, the selfless.
Every day, thousands of vehicles cross the intersection of Emerson Avenue and East Washington Street without giving much thought to a patch of green on the northwest corner called Brown’s Corner Park or Brown’s Triangle. On this site 90 years ago, May 31, 1926, a tablet embedded in a large boulder was unveiled honoring the memory of Second Lieutenant Hilton U. Brown, Jr. “who lost his life at the battle front in the Argonne” on November 8, 1918. Over a thousand citizens gathered to hear former Butler University president Thomas Carr Howe, Sr., Governor Ed Jackson, and others pay tribute to this fallen son of Irvington and all who had made the ultimate sacrifice in what had become known as World War I.
Hilton Ultimus Brown, Jr., son of Hilton U. and Jennie Hannah Brown, was born on August 9, 1894 in the house that stood atop the hill opposite this lot. He “played at mimic warfare on these grounds” and received his elementary education at the Irvington School, IPS No. 57. Brown continued his studies at Shortridge High School and at Butler College where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Brown was a newspaper correspondent when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the First Officers Training School at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in August 1917. The following month he went overseas to France where he was assigned to Battery D, 7th Field Artillery, 1st Division. Hilton U. Brown, Jr. was awarded the Croix-de-Guerre posthumously and lies with his fallen brethren in the American-Sedan Cemetery, Beaumont, France.
The giant old rock on which the plaque is affixed was a Butler campus landmark that had stood at the southeast corner of Butler and University Avenues near the athletic field “upon which (Brown) had played…before he joined the colors.” It was a popular resting spot for students, especially couples, who paused upon it “during the balmy days of many springs and many summers.”
Brown’s Triangle was also the site of the Phi Delta Theta house before it was moved west across Pleasant Run to its present location at Pleasant Run Parkway and East Washington Street. (It’s the house with the stone cross in the chimney.) Designed by Indianapolis architect Frank B. Hunter, the bungalow-style chapter house was built in 1908 and was the first Greek house built at the Irvington campus. It was moved in September 1915 after the Indianapolis park board had bought the triangular piece of land.
In addition to the Hilton U. Brown, Jr. memorial, another marker also sits on this site today. An Indiana Historic Roadside Marker pays tribute to Hoosier Group artist William Forsyth whose home and studio was located on the southeast corner of Emerson Avenue and East Washington Street. Among the many honors Forsyth received included an honorary membership in the local Phi Delta Theta chapter. For many years, he good naturedly received items that fraternity initiates were told to take from the chapter house to his house.
In the early 1980s, the original plaque was removed from the stone by vandals and lost. In 1983 the Irvington Community Council’s parks committee, under the leadership of Mike Feeney, had a new plaque made but with a different inscription. A small ceremony was held with the sister of Hilton U. Brown, Jr., Jean Brown Wagoner, in attendance. Sometime later, the original plaque was found along the banks of Pleasant Run and given to the Irvington Historical Society. It may be seen today at the Bona Thompson Memorial Center.
Although this memorial rock is a tribute to Hilton U. Brown, Jr., in a larger sense it recalls the sacrifice made by all Butler College students and Irvingtonians who lost their lives in the Great War :
2LT Carl Christian Amelung • PVT Bryan Lott Ammon • CPL Paul Ellis Burns • SGT Victor Lawson Burns • PVT Conwell Burnside Carson • 2LT Kenneth Victor Elliott • CPL Dean Weston Fuller • 2LT John Charles Good • 2LT Robert Edward Kennington • SGT Henry Reinhold Leukhardt • Seaman 2-C Alphonso Napoleon McGaw • PVT Wilson Russell Mercer • CPL Guy Griffith Michael • CPL Marsh Whitney Nottingham • CPT Victor Hugo Nysewander • SFC William G. Payne • PVT Marvin Francis Race • John Foster Richardson • LT Bruce Pettibone Robison • PVT John Chester Smith • 1LT MacCrea Stephenson • Seaman 1-C Henry Clarence Toon • EM 3-C Timothy Francis Thomas Treacy.
As we enjoy fried chicken and potato salad and thrill at the roar of Speedway horsepower, let us pause to remember the lost promise of youth that has enabled us to keep our way of life.
