An old Irvington landmark is gone. On the cold snowy evening of Sunday, January 18, 2026, a fire, probably started by squatters, swept through the vacant commercial building at 5235-39 E. Washington St. By the time firefighters from Station House 25 arrived on the scene, dense smoke and flames were erupting through the roof and the masonry walls were beginning to collapse. The persistent blaze, fed by flammable materials stored inside the structure, took hours to suppress, and when dawn broke over the site all that remained was glistening ice coated rubble.
This building has been many things over the years. Charles T. Whitsett, Irvington funeral director and Butler University benefactor, bought vacant Lot 46, Walker’s Sunnyside Addition, in 1910 and two years later had a single-story building with a shed roof erected on the site at a cost of $4,500 (2025: $152,671) in the fall of 1912 with three store fronts and a large open space in the rear with an entrance off an alley that became the Irvington Garage This new addition to the suburb’s business community was heralded by The Indianapolis Star as unique in “that it has combined the garage and the repair, vulcanizing and cleaning shop under one roof.” In addition to this “big convenience to Irvington automobile owners,” the garage also bought and sold new and “second-hand” cars. Initially, one of the storefronts housed an independent grocery that later became a branch of Kroger
In 1918, Whitsett transferred the property to Butler University and the Irvington Garage continued to be successful into the 1920s under the ownership of Bill Senges and Ed Carter who offered specialized sales and service for Overland and Willys-Knight automobiles. Pure Oil Co. installed curbside gasoline pumps in front of the building and Joseph J. Nysewander opened a Paige-Jewett automobile dealership in a storefront. Besides the building’s business interests, the commercial space at 5237 E. Washington St served as a voting site in the 1925, 1926, and 1933 elections.
The building was remodeled by Irvington businessman Silas J. Carr shortly after he purchased the property in 1929, but the years of the Great Depression took its toll on this commercial site. The Irvington Garage closed in 1932, reopening three years later as the Butler Garage, and on the eve of the Second Word War E. H. Shutts Grocery, John T. Moore Bakery, and Monarch Beauty Salon were tenants in the storefronts. Gasoline rationing and other wartime restrictions on automobile usage probably led to the closing of the Butler Garage. The Nik-O-Life Battery Corp. located its offices and manufacturing plant in this space in 1943. The storefronts also became vacant, later being occupied for a short time by the Claman Café.
After a decade of doing business at this Irvington location, Nik-O-Life Battery moved, leaving 5235-39 E. Washington St. vacant, with its interior probably contaminated with dust from the lead, nickel, and other toxic substances used in battery manufacturing. A listing for a new lessee was placed in the spring of 1954 offering “5,040 sq ft open space, ground floor, nice built-in office. Ideal any type of business or light manufacturing, $350 mo (2025: $4,269).” That fall, newly incorporated Jiffee Chemical Corp, manufacturer of Jiff-ee Liquid Drain Opener (aka Liquid-Plumr), an odorless, heavier than water drain cleaner, established its offices and production facility in the building. Over the next several years, an acrid aura hovered around the site and the evidence of the caustic materials used in making the drain opener could be seen in the wooden crates containing large empty glass bottles with crusted lips stacked in the open at the rear of the building. For a brief time, accountant Paul O. Smalley and Roach’s Bending Machine were also tenants in the storefronts.
From 1959 to 1969 alongside the chemical company, Modern Beauty Shop, under the ownership of Irvingtonian Ida Elich, occupied the space at 5239 E. Washington St. The beauty shop remained open for about a year after Jiffee vacated its portion of the premises. For a couple of years, leasing options were few. Kundalini Yoga was a brief tenant at 5239 E. Washington St. until the Butler Beauty Shop opened in 1973. The storefront at 5235 E. Washington St. was leased for a short time from 1976 until the early 1980s to the talent agency Hip Hugger Promotions, florists Enchanted Forest, commercial post card printer Indy Images, motorcycle parts and storage E. T. Engineering, and Capitol Motor auto sales, with the brief tenancy of Golden Finance in the mid-‘80s. With the Butler Beauty Shop being the only consistent building tenant, Carvel Costin, longtime owner of the former adjacent Standard Filing Station, sought and received a variance in 1982 to use its rear portion for an auto body shop.
The once inviting store façade with large storeroom windows had been replaced long ago with a pent roof across the front and windows filled in with ribbed metal, and in recent decades the building’s dreary appearance with no visible signage announcing what was within, presented a mystery to the passerby. A rear entrance provided access to Mink Automotive Service in the late ‘90s and early 2000s and in recent years to R & J’s Auto Repair. In the fall of 2019, a roof fire caused debris to drop and damage cars inside the garage.
Unlike most aging industrial buildings, the closing years for 5235-39 E. Washington St found its use coming full circle to once again housing a garage for a brief time. Sadly, the building’s walls became cold and vacant in search of a new tenant when a spectacular conflagration erased this historic Irvington structure from the Classic Suburb’s skyline.
