Weekly View » Steven R. Barnett

100 Years Ago: April 24-30

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:08:10 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Monday, April 26, 1926: The first broadcast of the opening Indians baseball game from Washington Park will be made Thursday through special arrangements by The Indianapolis Star and radio station WFBM. Fitting festivities will welcome Ownie Bush and his Indians back in town to play their first game of the season before the home folks. It will be a return series with the Kansas City Blues with whom the Tribe was victorious when the American Association opened there on April 13. W. Blaine Patton, The Star sports editor, will be at the microphone for the broadcast and will give an entertaining and realistic play-by-play account of the game. Every Indiana baseball fan who is unable to see this game from the stands can hear a graphic description of every detail by tuning into The Star’s program.

100 Years Ago: April 17-23

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:08:56 +0000

From The Indianapolis News, Tuesday, April 20, 1926: Articles of incorporation for the Indianapolis Airport Corporation were filed today with the secretary of state by the Chamber of Commerce airport board. The nonprofit organization was offered free use of the northeast quarter of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a commercial airport which will be controlled and managed by the 113th observation squadron of the Indiana National Guard. Hangars in Kokomo currently used by the squadron will be removed and set up at the speedway for the airport The speedway makes an ideal landing field for commercial aviation, experts say. Under the supervision of the national guard, the cost of operation will not exceed revenues, and the property will be well protected. The immediate establishment of the airport is to place Indianapolis on the new commercial air map of North America.

100 Years Ago: April 10-16

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:08:26 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Sunday, April 11, 1926: The cornerstone of Little Flower Church will be laid this afternoon with the blessing of Bishop Joseph Chartrand, assisted by the church pastor Rev. Charles Duffy and several priests from various Indianapolis churches. The new building, which is half completed, will be used as a combination church and school. Six classrooms and a 700-seat church auditorium will occupy the first floor, and the second floor will be the living quarters for the nuns. The basement will contain club rooms for men and women. A copper box will be placed in the cornerstone, containing a roster of present members of the new parish, the names of the men employed in the building’s construction, the program of the ceremonies, a history of the foundation and beginning of the parish, and copies of local newspapers.

100 Years Ago: April 3-9

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:08:27 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Tuesday, April 6, 1926: The censor’s iron hand reached into the halls of classic Butler University yesterday and snatched a poster with a sketch of a young lady attired in a smile and abbreviated dancing costume, who was advertising the upcoming junior prom. In its place, the censor substituted a poster with an illustration of a prim and demure puritanical maiden, coyly asking the “boys and girls come to the prom, please.” The junior class prom publicity committee hung the first poster designed by Julia Bretzman in the administration building and within an hour it was replaced by one, according to university president Dr. Robert Aley, that was more in keeping with the tenets of the school. “It was just a little internal matter which needs no publicity. There was no disturbance or trouble,” Aley said.

Sunnyside

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:09:45 +0000

While smallpox was a feared disease, tuberculosis — consumption, wasting disease, white plague, whatever it was called — was once the major killer, particularly of young people. This insidious contagion, spread from person to person through the air by a sneeze, cough, or spit, was no respecter of class. Prevention and treatment of tuberculosis was championed by Dr. Henry Moore, a resident of the Indianapolis suburb of Irvington, and at the time “the underlying principle in the treatment of tuberculosis was rest,” diet, and sunshine. Dr. Moore was an organizer of the Indiana Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis and developed plans and supervised the construction of the State Tuberculosis Hospital at Rockville, Indiana, which opened in 1910.
Three years later, the Indiana legislature authorized counties to establish a local tuberculosis hospital. In the five years prior to 1913 tuberculosis was the leading killer with the deaths of 2,715 men, women, and children in Marion County and in the five years prior to 1914 Indianapolis saw 2,448 TB deaths. The Marion County Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis and other local organizations petitioned the county commissioners for a hospital and in September 1914 the county council authorized a tax levy of one cent on every $100 of assessed value to build and support a hospital. This together with similar actions taken by the county councils in St. Joseph, Howard, and Madison counties was hailed as a “big day for the anti-tuberculosis organizations in Indiana.”
A thirty-seven-acre site (eventually encompassing 57 acres), mostly timbered with large maple trees, on rolling ground along Indian Creek, adjacent to the Big Four Railroad and the Union Traction Co interurban line, near Oaklandon and one-half mile north of Pendleton Pike, was purchased for $12,000 (2026: $392,142) by the county commissioners from the Springer Estate in June 1915 for the new hospital. Six months later, the county council appropriated $80,000 (2026: $2,588,396) to build it and approved comprehensive plans by Indianapolis architect William E. Russ for a 300-bed facility consisting of a “large administration building with wings on either side [and] at a considerable distance on the right and on the left of this main building…a group of cottages with a large recreation hall at the rear of each group.” William P. Jungclaus Co was awarded the construction contract and Dr. John N. Hurty, state health commissioner, laid the cornerstone on Saturday, July 22, 1916. “Sunnyside” was the name selected for the new Marion County Tuberculosis Hospital. A naming committee headed by Hoosier Poet James Whitcomb Riley selected this submission by Fannie G. Strawson from hundreds offered by the public “because of its recuperative connotations.”
Sunnyside Sanitarium opened in September 1917 with Dr. Harold Hatch, a tuberculosis expert formerly with the Michigan state board of health, being named hospital superintendent and Carrie H. Hudnell appointed superintendent of nurses. Six patients were initially admitted and within days twelve additional patients were transferred to the new facility from the state hospital at Rockville. In the beginning, Sunnyside was one building and could accommodate only seventy patients and there was a long waiting list. While Blacks accounted for twenty-two per cent of Marion County TB deaths, only seven beds at Sunnyside were allocated for Black patients. Infected soldiers returning from World War I created an additional need for bed space at the sanitarium, many in the early stages of the disease who would “readily respond to treatment if treatment were made available.”
To alleviate tedious months or years patients might have to undergo treatment at Sunnyside, a recreational hall was available and a mile of concrete walkways winding through the complex provided convalescents with safe footing for exercise while enjoying the natural beauty of the grounds, fresh air, and sunshine. A school, under the guidance of a teacher, kept children invalids abreast of their studies. By the mid-1920s, Sunnyside had successfully treated 1,150 individuals and the facility had expanded to nine buildings — a children’s unit, two new units for men and women, and a nurses’ home — with bedspace for 170 patients that include forty-nine children, ages 4 to 15 years.
The Sunnyside Guild was formed in 1920 by Claire Gray Syfers “to make patient’s lives cheerier” through recreation and amusements. The Guild gave holiday parties and provided wearing apparel for the patients. It also bought player pianos, motion picture projectors, and had bedside earphones installed for patients to hear radio broadcasts, making Sunnyside the second hospital in the United Sates to have this convenience. The Children’s Sunshine Club of Sunnyside was organized in 1923 by forty-five women. It furnished the children’s recreation room, obtained slides for the playground, and provided books for the children’s library.
After World War II, the treatment of tuberculosis changed radically with the use of drugs, eliminating the need for bed rest in most cases. On November 1, 1967, Sunnyside closed and 100 patients were relocated to Marion County General Hospital’s new pulmonary disease section and to the Flower Mission Building. Four years later, Presbyterian Housing Program, Inc bought the former tuberculosis sanatorium’s buildings and its 57 acres. Following a $3,000,000 (2026: $21,037,661) renovation of the eight buildings, Westminster Village North opened on November 1, 1972, to the retirement community’s first senior residents.

100 Years Ago: March 27-April 2

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:08:47 +0000

From The Indianapolis News, Saturday, March 27, 1926: “Crispus Attucks” will be the name of the new colored high school on recommendation of the instruction committee of the Indianapolis school board instead of “Thomas Jefferson,” as it was named by the former school board. Soon after the new school commissioners took office in January, a large number of requests were received from colored patrons with the suggestion that the new high school be named after a colored man of fame. The name of Crispus Attucks, who was killed by British soldiers in the March 5, 1770, Boston Massacre, was suggested along with that of Ohio poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, the colored James Whitcomb Riley. The selection was left to the Colored Parent-Teacher Association to decide, and they recommended “Crispus Attucks” was the most favored by the colored people of Indianapolis.

100 Years Ago: March 20-26

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:08:48 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Saturday, March 20, 1926: Paul D. “Tony” Hinkle has been named athletic director of Butler University succeeding Pat Page, according to an announcement by Arthur Brown, chair of the athletic committee of the board of trustees. Present plans have Hinkle coaching football, baseball, and basketball and until a track coach is appointed, he will also devote a good part of his time to the Blue and White thinly-clads. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Hinkle came to Butler in 1920 as Page’s assistant and as the baseball coach. He also coached freshman football and basketball while assisting with varsity football and basketball, too. The Butler board of trustees has received numerous petitions from alumni and students advocating for the retention of Hinkle as athletic director, and the student body was highly pleased with the decision.

100 Years Ago: March 13-19

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:08:35 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Tuesday, March 16, 1926: By a vote of 5 to 1, the Indianapolis City Council passed an ordinance last night prohibiting establishment of homes by Negroes or white persons in districts inhabited principally by persons of opposite color except with consent of a majority of property owners in the communities concerned. Councilor Austin Todd sponsored the resolution on behalf of the White People’s Protective League. Nearly one thousand spectators packed the council chamber and enthusiastically shouted and cheered at the passage of the ordinance. After casting the “no” vote, Democrat Councilor Edward Raub said, “I don’t think this Council has the power under the law to put such an ordinance into effect. The Council is limited under the law, let alone the constitutionality of the question.” Later, Mayor John Duvall signed the segregation ordinance into law.

100 Years Ago: March 6-12

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:08:14 +0000

From The Indianapolis Star, Friday, March 12, 1926: Construction has started on a mammoth grain elevator with a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels on the Big Four Railroad west of Sloan Av, near Beech Grove. The grain terminal will be one of the largest in the Midwest with eighteen giant concrete tanks and an elevator workhouse. It will be leased to Early & Daniel Co, a large Cincinnati, Ohio grain dealer, which has a contract for storage, processing, and handling grain with the Indiana Wheat Growers Association, a cooperative marketing subsidiary of the Indiana Farm Bureau Federation. Designed by local architects Bacon & Tislow and underwritten by Indianapolis financiers, the $300,000 (2025: $5,571,945) project is being built by R. C. Stone Engineering and Construction Co, a St. Louis firm, and will be completed in time to receive this summer’s wheat crop.

An Old Landmark

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:09:50 +0000

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.