I grew up in Irvington and Ellenberger Park was my summer playground. After hours of vigorous adventures along the trails and among the trees of the old woods, my friends and I would slake our thirst at the fountain by the tennis courts. The well water was pleasantly cool and refreshing, but the taste — UGH — was laced with iron! Many of the older residents of the Classic Suburb believed the water contained atoms of good health, but for most of us kids it was like licking a rusted flag pole (of course if one did lick a flag pole it would be in the summer, not the winter). However, the park fountain was not the only source of nature’s elixir. On our way home, my friends and I would often stop by a side yard on Hill Street and drink from a bubbling pool fed by an artesian well; this was truly cool, refreshing, and sweet water!
Today we carry water bottles to quench our thirst when we are away from home on walks or bike rides and most of the flowing water in public fountains provides refreshment only to our psyche. Yet, this was not the case in the mid-1880s when citizens on the near southeast side of Indianapolis erected an ornamental fountain at the end of Virginia Ave. in what would become known as Fountain Square. On the evening of July 31, 1885, a crowd of 4,000 celebrated the dedication of this fountain — the city’s first public drinking fountain — appropriately surmounted by a statue of Hebe, Greek goddess of youth and cupbearer to the gods. For over three decades, this fountain provided its refreshing nectar and ambrosia until unceremoniously dismounted and shattered in an accident. It was replaced by a purely decorative fountain, the Pioneer Family by Indianapolis sculptor Myra Reynolds Richards, that went away in the mid-fifties only to be restored in the early eighties. A replica of the early Hebe fountain — “Lady Spray” — reappeared on the Square in 2010.
While the Fountain Square fountain identifies a neighborhood, the signature fountain of Indianapolis is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of the city. Cascading water flowing below heroic sculptures — The Dying Soldier and The Return Home — onto tiers and into two giant basins on either side of the central shaft draws one’s attention to the bison head fonts at the base of lamp posts at the corners of the basins spewing streams of water. Originally intended for public drinking, these ornate fountains are now decorative. Designed by German architect Bruno Schmitz with massive limestone sculptures created by Rudolph Schwartz, the neoclassical Monument was originally to be a tribute to Hoosiers who served in the Civil War, but its final form honors service from the Revolutionary War to the Spanish-American War. Dedicated on May 15, 1902 after thirteen years of construction, it is the first monument to the common soldier erected in the United States.
A short walk north of Monument Circle is University Park, the city’s oldest park, and gracing the center of this green oasis is the ornate Depew Memorial Fountain. Erected to the memory of Dr. Richard J. Depew, this fountain was described in dedication ceremonies on September 19, 1919 as “very joyous, almost whimsical, fanciful, full of imagination and good cheer.” New York City artist Karl Bitter designed the fountain but was struck by a car and died shortly after he had started perfecting his drawing. Sculptor A. Stirling Calder was then asked to complete the work and gave Indianapolis a fountain suited to its surroundings; “Nonutilitarian, it is an example of art for art’s sake.” However, the thirsty park visitor was not forgotten. In the fall of 1923 two drinking fountains were erected to the east and west sides of the Calder masterpiece. Continuing the classical theme of the central fountain, sculptor Myra Reynolds Richards created Pan and the wood nymph Syrinx to sit atop stylized tree trunks. Each fountain had two basins — one near the top for people and one near the bottom for animals. Over the years, both figures fell victim to vandalism and theft and in 1973 they were replaced with replicas by sculptor Adolph G. Wolter. Today the drinking fonts are gone, but the nymph cups her ear to catch the seductive notes of Pan’s pipes as water splashes on eight children holding hands in their endless dance encircling the Depew Fountain beneath a female figure preparing to strike her cymbals.
On the city’s southside at Garfield Park amid the splendors of the sunken gardens, a kaleidoscope of color played on an ever-changing flow of water from thousands of spouts and geysers when the lagoon’s “wonderful electric fountains” was turned on for the first time late in the afternoon of October 29, 1916. The plan for the sunken gardens was designed by landscape architect George Kessler and Chicago engineer and fountain artist Frederic W. Darlington brought the intricate water and light display to life. For half a century the gardens and fountains brought delight to southsiders and people from all parts of Indianapolis, as well as visitors to the city. However, age and vandalism brought this celebration of beauty into disrepair and the fountains ceased to flow by the early seventies. Through a commitment by the city parks department and the Friends of Garfield Park, the sunken gardens and fountains were renovated with generous gifts from Lilly Endowment and private contributions, and this southside treasure once again brought pleasure to park visitors in 1998. The American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the gardens as one of America’s “most outstanding and well-known landscapes” with one of its Centennial Medallions.
While Garfield Park is acknowledged to be the first Indianapolis city park, the little wooded circle in Irvington on South Audubon Road was designated Irving Circle park in 1870 on the town’s original plat. It also held a fountain, fed with water from a natural spring, that was erected in 1874 for purely aesthetic purposes. The first fountain was a simple limestone basin “with a pipe pulling water from the spring” and ejecting it in a spray. In 1930 the Irvington Civic Association successfully prevailed upon the Indianapolis park board to replace the old fountain with one of three-tiers; placed in the center of a large basin, water cascading from one bowl into another. Unfortunately, failed maintenance and abuse caused this fountain to be removed in the early fifties, leaving an unsightly mud hole that was later beautified with a flower bed.
New life came to Irving Circle in 1971 when John Readle led a community effort to rebuild the fountain. It resembled the first fountain, with arching sprays and a geyser of water splashing back into a large concrete basin. The fountain became a focal point for park activities with residents, especially children, seated on the rim “people watching” and taking in the activities in the park. Later, the Friends of Irving Circle worked to beautify the park and eventually a three-tiered fountain was installed with cascading water from bowl to bowl pouring into a large basin.
Aesthetically pleasing, the fountains of our city play a rhythmic dance from plunging waters to ethereal glistening droplets catching natural or artificial rainbows that are calming to the human spirit.
