Weekly View » Building Blocks

Salvage Corps

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 05:09:30 +0000

October is Fire Prevention Month in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire that began on October 8, 1871, when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, according to legend, kicked over a lantern that started a fire in the straw strewn about the barn that quickly consumed the structure. The blaze spread to other buildings and houses and over the next couple of days the conflagration nearly razed the entire city of Chicago. Insurance losses were staggering, a few paid claims in full but many companies failed or paid only partial amounts.
Fire is unforgiving, reducing anything combustible to ashes, and what the flames didn’t touch, water and soot ruined. Prior to the Great Chicago Fire, insurance companies organized the Fire Insurance Patrol to reduce losses. Two or three men would go into a burning structure with tarpaulins, covering the contents to protect them for salvage and then posting a guard to prevent looting after a fire. While the extent of this inferno thwarted salvage efforts, the city’s fire Captain Bill Bullwinkle subsequently reorganized the Fire Insurance Patrol. In 1886, the Underwriter’s Association of Cincinnati, Ohio adopted Bullwinkle’s model and created the Underwriter’s Salvage Corps to protect a building’s contents during a fire from smoke and water damage and to secure the structure after a fire. A private company, the Salvage Corps, was authorized to work with the city fire department on an equal basis. Herman F. Newman, a city firefighter, who began a salvage operation in 1879, was named superintendent of the Corps. He later came to Indianapolis in 1900 and helped in organizing the city’s first salvage corps.
When local insurance companies declined to provide financial support, the Merchants’ Salvage Corps was formed by the Indianapolis Merchants’ Association and the Manufacturers’ Association with Newman as its superintendent. Operating out of a building at 109 E. South St., the corps maintained a two-horse wagon carrying six men and a driver with another wagon carrying tarpaulins. A typical blaze required the corps to use from fifteen to thirty covers to protect a structure’s contents from fire and water damage. After five years of saving property from loss, Newman closed the salvage corps because of the continuing lack of financial support from the insurance companies. The need for a salvage corps soon became apparent when a fire occurred on an upper floor of the Badger Furniture Co. building, 14-20 E. Washington St. At least half of the loss from water damage in this fire was preventable if tarps had been spread across the stock of furniture and bric-a-brac on the building’s lower floors. A similar situation occurred several years later when water, being poured on a fire at Kipp Bros., 37-41 S. Meridian St., came through the upper floors and flooded the store. A salvage corps could have protected $50,000 (2025: $1,757,418) worth of goods from considerable water damage.
After years of debate, the Indianapolis Salvage Corps was incorporated in August 1913 under the auspices of the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Fire Insurance Bureau with expenses paid for by the fire insurance companies. Once established, the men of the salvage corps were trained as life savers first and then using waterproof covers to protect an owner’s belongings from fire, smoke, and water. When it became fully operational in July 1914, the Salvage Corps was housed in a building at 225 E. Pearl St., later moving to 422 E. New York St., and consisted of a superintendent, two squads of five “cover men” each, and two motorized wagons to carry the men and about 400 covers. In one of its first runs, the Salvage Corps was credited in saving the furniture and many antique pieces when fire consumed the third floor and roof of the home of Joseph Munchhof, 2046 N. New Jersey St. In warehouse fires, the Salvage Corps would remove as much of the building’s contents as it could and cover the rest with tarpaulins to reduce the water damage.
During the ‘20s, the work of the Salvage Corps together with fire prevention efforts by the Chamber of Commerce and improvements in fire protection reduced the per capita fire loss from $5.75 to $1.42. Fire insurance rates also saw a slight reduction for frame dwellings with shingle roofs in this same period, but the most significant rate change was for frame dwellings with approved fire-resistant roofs where rates were reduced by half. The chamber was an early advocate in the movement to eliminate wooden shingle roofs which accounted for many fires. The change to fire retardant roofing drastically reduced the number of roof fires and the need for the Salvage Corps to spread tarps.
Fires were often a daily occurrence in the downtown business district until frequent inspections and compliance by establishment owners with safety suggestions dramatically reduced fire hazards. Similar fire prevention education and adherence to the slogan, “Clean Property Seldom Burns,” along with the introduction of automatic sprinkler systems, greatly curbed blazes in the industrial and warehouse districts.
In the early 1930s, the Indianapolis Fire Department formed a salvage corps at Station 14, Kenwood Ave. and 30th St., covering a portion of the city’s northside not served by the Indianapolis Salvage Corps. Similar salvage corps were established at fire department stations in Irvington and Broad Ripple, expanding the area of protection.
The perfection of firefighting techniques, an emphasis on fire prevention, and fire-resistant building construction led the Indianapolis Fire Department, in October 1944, to assume the duties of the Indianapolis Salvage Corps because “fire losses have been reduced to the point where maintenance of the corps is no longer necessary.” With its successes, the Salvage Corps passed into a chapter of the city’s history.

The Indianapolis Airport Ramada Inn Disaster

Al Hunter — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 05:08:53 +0000

I found an old 1960s Era brochure from the Indianapolis Airport Hotel. As I looked at the sparsely populated landscape that used to surround the old Indianapolis Municipal Airport and flipped through the folded pages containing great old interior views of the “modern” hotel, my mind automatically went back to an event from the pages of Indy history. The Ramada Airport hotel plane crash.
I googled it and realized that the crash took place 39 years ago. The Ramada Inn air crash and resulting fire occurred when a United States Air Force pilot failed to reach the runway and the plane crashed into a nearby Ramada Inn. On Tuesday morning October 20, 1987 35-year-old Major Bruce L. Teagarden flew his US Air Force A-7D-4-CV Corsair II, serial 69-6207 airplane over the city of Indianapolis. Down below, at the Indianapolis Airport Ramada Inn, the housekeeping staff was busily preparing for the guests to check out. A salesman had stopped at the hotel in search of a pay phone. In short, it was a routine day.
At 9:10 a.m., Teagarden’s instrument panel went dark. The 12-year-veteran pilot notified controllers at Indianapolis International Airport that his aircraft was experiencing engine failure 15 miles southwest of the city at 31,000 feet. He requested to return for an emergency landing. Controllers directed the pilot to Runway 5L, but due to the low cloud ceiling and poor visibility, Teagarden was at 3,100 feet as he passed over the runway and he attempted to land on Runway 32 instead. The crippled corsair’s engine stalled, the joy stick locked up and now the plane had the aerodynamics of a brick.
Teagarden made a right turn eastward away from the airport and dropped to 2,000 feet just east of Interstate 465 when he disappeared from the radar. At 500 feet, the aircraft made a slight right turn towards the Park Fletcher complex. The pilot looked out at the open farm fields ahead, hoping his $7.9 million jet would crash harmlessly there. He hit the eject button and moments later, Teagarden hung helplessly from his parachute and looked on in horror as the plane headed towards the hotel. It bounced off the roof of the Bank One branch in the 5600 block of Bradbury Avenue and flew across the street before hitting an embankment. The hobbled missile now hit the berm like an Evel Knievel ramp, rocketing 25 feet through the air before crashing into the front of the Ramada Inn.
The plane’s cockpit and engine went careening into the lobby, killing nine people. Another person suffered severe burns and died a week later. The wings and fuselage flew into the upper floors and carport of the hotel. The jet fuel on board ignited on impact, causing a massive fireball that engulfed the entire front of the hotel up to the fourth floor. Indianapolis Airport crash trucks, which had been following the plane from runway to runway, arrived on the scene a minute after impact and immediately started to use foam to extinguish the fire, which was under control within four minutes. Airport fire and rescue team members, assisted by the Indianapolis Fire Department, Wishard Ambulance Service, Wayne Township Fire Department and the Decatur Township Fire Department, searched the building for survivors.
After making his call, Thomas D. Murray of Carmel stepped out into the parking lot just in time to see the plane barreling down towards him. The 37-year-old salesman watched the plane slide on its belly past him pushing cars out of the way as it passed before crashing through the lobby entrance. Murray avoided contact, but he was quickly enveloped in the resulting fireball. He suffered third-degree burns over 95 percent of his body. He held on for nine days at Wishard Memorial Hospital’s burn unit and died on Oct. 29. A handful of other employees and guests were slightly injured, but most of those present that day made it out relatively unscathed and stood in the parking lot watching helplessly as the hotel burned.
Inside the hotel, nine employees died almost instantly. Dawn Shelly Martin was the front desk clerk. Allen Dale Mantor, 18, and Chris Evans, 21, were bellboys. Brenda Joyce Henry, 26, and Emma Jean Brownlee, 37, were housekeepers. Katherine Cox, 33, managed the dining room. Mary Stuart Marsh, 29, and Beth Louise Goldberg, 30, were in charge of sales and Narinder S. Kanwar, 41, was the top financial officer. Their bodies were so badly burned that it would take several days to identify them through dental records.
Family members of the missing arrived on scene and the long, agonizing vigil for news of their loved ones began. The parents of Chris Evans told an Indianapolis Star reporter that they had gotten a phone call from their son that morning and were sure it happened after the crash. Their hopes were dashed when they realized the call had been made just moments before the disaster.
Pilot Teagarden landed safely in the parking lot of the Ace Supply Company four blocks away with only minor injuries. The cause of the crash, as revealed in the Air Force’s January 1988 final report, was a defective gear in the accessory gearbox. It sheared, causing the driveshaft to rip open the lubricating oil system, and the engine then seized up soon afterward. The Air Force eventually paid out $50,427 ($147,362 in 2026) in property damage claims on October 26. Major Teagarden remained grounded until a flight evaluation board investigated the incident. Ultimately, Teagarden was found blameless in the tragedy, because of the airport controller’s actions.
Over the years, Teagarden suffered the ire of family members and was often blamed for the tragedy. Many felt that he should have initially ditched the plane in the countryside, rather than heading back towards the airport. Wild rumors persisted that Teagarden had been drinking rum and cokes heavily the night before after attending a friend’s funeral in Pittsburgh. On that fateful day, he was headed back home to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He told investigators that he couldn’t see the ground because of poor weather conditions, and therefore couldn’t pick a place to safely eject until he was below the clouds. In the transcript of his conversation with the air controllers, Teagarden twice asked to be guided away from population centers. He never spoke publicly about the crash nor gave any media interviews.
For more than two years, the charred building stood as a sad reminder of the tragedy. The hotel owners never rebuilt because they were unable to decide on an appropriate design. Today a parking lot stands on the site. The bank branch building damaged by the plane is still standing but has since been converted into a hospice, but closed its doors in 2022.
Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide.” and the co-author of the “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame”, “Thursdays with Doc. Recollections on Springfield & Lincoln” and “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.

Treading the Boards

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 05:09:46 +0000

From Broadway to Hollywood and into living rooms via radio and television, performers from Indianapolis have entertained audiences for generations. Locally, theatergoers have enjoyed live stage productions for over a century with talented actors bringing the house to tears or roaring laughter. Among these Indianapolis performers for over three decades was George Willeford, one of the city’s most accomplished actors who hit his mark in over eighty-five major plays and in numerous other productions.
George William Willeford was born in Indianapolis on November 27, 1920, to William W. Willeford and Marie Sophie Schmidt Willeford. His father was a receiving clerk for G & J Tire Co. and the family lived on the east side of the city at 248 Dorman St., across from Highland Park, later moving to 57 Brookville Ave. (N. Ewing St) near Sherman Dr.
Willeford attended Minnie Hartman School No. 78, 436 N. Sherman Dr. and learned to play the violin from Charles Bromley, director and instructor of the Masters’ School of Music. He was the “kid violinist” on a Saturday afternoon show on radio station WIRE. Willeford continued his education at Arsenal Technical “Tech” High School where he won a regional violin contest and was a member of the cast in Big Hearted Herbert and Naughty Marietta.
Following his graduation in 1939, Willeford was awarded the Indiana University Hoosier Music Festival Scholarship in violin and enrolled in the School of Music. While at IU, he was a member of the Pro-Music Club, the Student University Symphony Orchestra, and the Glee Club. Willeford also was the student director of radio music. He performed with the IU Theater, co-authored the Jordan River Revue, and was a member of Theta Alpha Pi, national theatre honors fraternity. Willeford was also a member of Alpha Mu Omega fraternity.
Willeford joined the U. S. Navy V-5 program (Naval Flight Preparatory School) at IU. and when he received his B.P.S.M. (Bachelor of Public School Music) degree in 1943, he was commissioned an ensign in the United States Naval Reserve, on April 29, 1943. Four months later, he married Helen Marie Burton (27 Mar 1921-10 Sep 2000), a fellow School of Music student, at her family home in Sandborn, Indiana on August 22, 1943. The couple went to Norfolk, Virginia where Ensign Willeford was stationed. They would become the parents of Eileen Marie Willeford (20 Apr 1945-7 Jul 20 25) and Stephen “Steve” Warren Willeford (13 Apr 1948-23 Jul 2003).
Willeford was discharged from the service on February 8, 1946, and returned to Bloomington, Indiana where he pursued a Master’s degree and resumed acting with the University Theatre as a cast member in William Saroyan’s Time of Your Life. He continued to perform in plays and skits while directing the University Radio Ensemble. As a staff announcer for WTOM radio, Willeford gave the play-by-play for IU football and basketball games. He briefly was a salesman and announcer at radio station WITZ in Jasper, Indiana, returning to WTOM as assistant manager in 1949. The following year, Willeford was vice president of Collegiate Record Bar, Inc, a store handling over 125 different labels.
In the summer of 1951, Willeford was named program director for Indiana University’s laboratory FM radio station WFIU and later he was appointed program director of the IU Radio and Television Service. In 1956, Willeford wrote a 45-minute fictional drama dealing with civil rights on a college campus that was performed over a Sunday program on WTTV, Channel 4. He also was co-host of “Sunday Morning,” a television show airing on WTTV. Willeford came to Indianapolis in the fall of 1957 to host “Standout,” a program airing on WLWI, Channel 13, posing “the questions to Hoosier personalities.” He made his home in Irvington at 440 N. Irvington Ave.
At WLWI, Willeford was host of a daily movie show and later he had a five-minute spot called “Critic at Large” where he appraised plays, movies, books, and “anything else that strikes his fancy.” He also made his dramatic television debut as a “bad guy” in an episode of ABC-TV’s “Rifleman.” Willeford was the weekday weatherman, whose offbeat wit made the routine report palatable, and his Saturday night show, “By George,” was a program of talk, comedy monologues (written by him), and guest nightclub comedians and vocalists. In addition to being a TV personality and emcee, Willeford returned to the stage as a seaman in the Avondale Playhouse production of Mr. Roberts and continued with the show for a week in Detroit.
Willeford was the moderator in WLWI’s high school quiz show, “Exercise in Knowledge,” and his “hair trigger humor” kept the program on a quick pace. However, in August 1965 it was announced that “a schedule shakeup” at WLWI made Willeford’s “services no longer necessary.” He continued to perform in Avondale Playhouse productions like Affairs of State in the candy-striped tent at the Meadows Shopping Center and playing the violin Saturday evenings at the Italian Village restaurant. He also joined the Paul Lennon Ad Agency and was with the advertising department of WIFE radio. Willeford later was the advertising manager for Greater Indianapolis, a monthly magazine of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
Starlight Musicals at the Hilton U. Brown Theater on the Butler University campus also provided Willeford with opportunities to “tread the boards.” He appeared in supporting roles in Oklahoma! and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Willeford also played the tycoon in the “naughty” comedy, Any Wednesday, and the errant husband in The Seven Year Itch on the stage of the Booth Tarkington Civic theater. He often appeared in special performances of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra as a violinist or narrator.
In 1970, Willeford won the Civic Theatre’s best actor gold award for his role as the convict Joseph in My Three Angels. He also joined the Butler University faculty as professor and chair of the drama department of the Jordan College of Fine Arts, while continuing stage performances at the Black Curtain Dinner Theater in 1923 Skidoo, a revue written by, directed by, and starring George Willeford, and as a member of the Athenaeum Players of the Athenaeum Turners Theater, playing Lt. Cmdr. Queeg in the Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1990s, Willeford could be found directing and performing at any venue in Indianapolis that had a stage. A prolific author of musical revues and comedy sketches that entertained countless audiences, Willeford became professor emeritus in 1986 and the following year he starred as Benjamin Franklin in the Civic Theatre’s production of 1776. In 1988, the Encore Association presented Willeford with the E. Edward Green Award, honoring his many years of service to community theater. Willeford was a “talented, hard-working, dedicated, sarcastic, irascible, demanding, opinionated, and interesting” individual. One of his last roles was Grandpa Joad in the Edyvean Theatre’s production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
George Willeford died in Community Hospital East on July 15, 1994, and was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery. He was a member of Grace United Methodist Church and the IU School of Music Alumni Association. Willeford built model ships in his spare time.

Fresh Air Camps

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:09:26 +0000

The burning heat of summer arrived early in 1890 Indianapolis. By the end of June, the heat wave had taken the lives of 37 people, including 22 children under the age of two years. To ease the suffocating heat impacting the health of children, especially those from poor neighborhoods, Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch, pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, 623 N. Pennsylvania St., circulated a letter among medical professionals inviting them to meet on July 2, 1890, with the Charity Organizations Society to develop a plan to meet the crisis. It was resolved to institute the “Summer Mission to Sick Children,” but where?
The Citizens’ Street Railroad Co. owned Fairview Park (present site of Butler University) and donated six acres at the south end of the grounds for the summer mission program. The street railroad also provided free transportation from all parts of the city to the women and children going to the summer camp. Three large and three small tents were set up for a hospital, a kitchen, and “for the comfort and convenience of those attending the Mission.” From mid-July through August, 187 children and 99 mothers enjoyed the refreshing clean air and sunshine at Fairview. Those attending were referred by their family physician and in addition to two nurses and a cook, 125 lady visitors “ministered with gentle hands” to the needs of those attending the Summer Mission. The daily contact with trained professionals enabled the mothers to acquire “better methods for caring for their babies and themselves.” The Indianapolis News, Indianapolis Journal, and Indianapolis Sentinel solicited funds to support the Mission and donations of provisions, clothing, ice, medicine, furniture, toys, swings, and hammocks made this first Summer Mission to Sick Children a success.
Each subsequent year, from June through August, more mothers and their children were provided with an opportunity to escape the summer heat, dust, and unhealthy air of the city, if only for a day of rest under the cooling trees. In the fifth season, McCulloch Cottage, a permanent hospital building, was erected and additional rustic structures were built over time, enabling the camp to accommodate more people per day. Newspapers frequently published a list of individuals, businesses, and organizations donating money or items for carrying the work of the summer mission.
The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Star were at the forefront in encouraging and reporting on fundraising projects. The North Side Merry Workers and the Women’s Auxiliary of the Railway Postal Clerks were among the groups hosting lawn “fetes” with ice cream and cake, lemonade and cigars, and concerts given by The News’ Newsboys Band that provided venues for raising donations the Fresh Air Funds. Other events, from street fairs to children selling lemonade not only in Indianapolis, but in surrounding cities and towns helped to fill the Fund.
In addition to supporting the Summer Mission to Sick Children at Fairview Park, The Indianapolis News Fresh Air Fund contributed to a ten-day retreat at The Vacation Camp for Mothers and Children at “The Bellefontaine” cottage at Bethany Park, a Disciples of Christ meeting ground in Morgan County. The News also supported a week-long Fresh Air Camp for boys at Winona Lake in northern Indiana. In 1906, Cory’s Woods, a little west of Oaklandon, in northeastern Marion County, became the site of The News Fresh Air Farm. Easily accessible to Indianapolis by road along Pendleton Pike; by rail along the “Big Four” (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway – C.C.C. & St. L Ry); or by interurban along the Indiana Union Traction Co Indianapolis to Muncie line, the Fresh Air Farm sprawled across a woodland, the western edge beneath the shade of maples and beeches, along the winding banks of Indian Creek whose clear shallow waters provided children with delightful times of wading and splashing about. A meadow of wildflowers let the boys and girls gather bouquets to bring back to their mothers and elderly campers. Cottages and tents were put up and made ready to receive children and their mothers who would benefit from a few days in the country away from the city heat and smoke.
Cheeryvale was the name selected for the farm. Children had been asked to submit names and nine-year old Marie Conner submitted Cheeryvale because the name suggested a cheery place with children having cheery times. The success of the farm was dependent on the generosity of a charitable public and each year creative activities joined with the more traditional lawn fetes and lemonade stands in raising much needed funds. One of events that many happily looked forward to seeing annually was the Pioneer and Veteran baseball game in Irvington. Played on a Saturday afternoon in August on Irwin Field at Butler College, the “antiquarian teams” were composed of prominent Irvington men over the age of forty-five. Having seen a real ball game within the past year was deemed “professionalism” and a bar to a player’s eligibility. Humorist Kin Hubbard illustrated the scorecard, its whimsical ads providing revenue along with game ticket sales and the sale of peanuts and crackerjacks. Over the years, the Pioneer and Veteran baseball game raised hundreds of dollars for the fresh air fund. In 1910, the game donated $450 (2025: $15,817) and a new cottage at Cheeryvale was named “The Irvington.”
In 1917 with America’s entry into World War I, Cheeryvale merged with the Summer Mission for Sick Children. Six years later Fairview Park was being prepared for the future site of Butler University and Fairview Settlement, a summer camp for sick children under the auspices of the Family Welfare Society, opened south of the park.

Roundhouses

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 05:09:20 +0000

In recent months the people of the Martindale-Brightwood community have spoken out loud and clear about their desire not to have a data center located in their neighborhood. Despite their protestations about the data center affecting air quality and being noisy, Indianapolis civic leaders approved the development. Sadly, Martindale-Brightwood has had to cope with these concerns in the past. For over eighty years, the yards of the Big Four (Cleveland Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway), which eventually became the New York Central Railroad, dominated the landscape at 25th St. and Sherman Dr. The din of scrapping metal on metal and the impact thud of rail cars rolled across the community along with great clouds of dense black smoke billowing from the roundhouse as steam engines were put in readiness to join their line of freight cars. While the noise jarred nerves, soot from the smoke wafted across homes clinging to siding and speckling laundry hung out to dry. The coming of diesel engines mitigated the soot and the move of the railroad yards to Avon, Indiana dissipated the noise.
For city smoke inspectors trying to enforce abatement rules, roundhouses were “regarded as one of the hardest problems.” While in some cases the use of coke and wood to build initial fires in locomotives reduced or eliminated the problem, poorly built fires in the steam engines continued to produce noxious black plumes emanating from the chimneys over the roundhouse stalls. It was the job of the hostler, the railroader responsible for driving engines through the yards to and from the roundhouse and servicing them, to build the fire. My grandfather was a hostler at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Hawthorne Yards on the east side of Indianapolis and was proud of his ability to build an engine fire that produced little if any smoke. He was critical of those who created fires belching inky palls.
Not all roundhouses were circular; some were fan-shaped. One of the first roundhouses in Indianapolis was built in 1849 for the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad. Located on the southwest corner of South Delaware and Merrill Streets, the roundhouse once was “considered one of the largest and best buildings of this character in the West.” By 1885 the structure had deteriorated and was razed. Another early roundhouse built in Indianapolis was for the Indianapolis, Peru, Chicago Railway. The fan-shaped structure was located on the southwest corner of East Washington St. and Noble St. (College Ave.). In 1870, the Vandalia Railroad built a16-stall circular roundhouse on the near south side of the city along White River over some of the graves at the north end of Greenlawn Cemetery. When it closed in 1923, it was the last of the downtown roundhouses. Southeast of the city center at Shelby and Calvary streets, the Leota Yard roundhouse of the New York Central Railroad was fan-shaped with 38 stalls. Designed for steam locomotives, by 1957 “the giant roundhouse no longer serves a useful purpose” and was razed. On the west side stood the B & O Moorefield Yards stretching from Tibbs Ave., across Michigan St. to Belmont Ave. Its fan-shaped roundhouse stood east of the 200 block of North Belmont Ave. The Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse at the yards between East Washington St. and Southeastern Ave. like the one at Hawthorne Yards was fan-shaped while the New York Central Railroad Brightwood roundhouse was circular with 28 stalls.
The roundhouse was the heart of a rail yard. A giant turntable directed great locomotives to stalls where they were serviced ensuring their safe passage across the nation’s rail network pulling precious cargoes of freight and passengers. Amid the yard’s web of tracks, smoke, dust, and grease, skilled mechanics toiled by incandescent torch light with hammers and wrenches, in and around the behemoths and in pits beneath, carefully inspecting the iron skin and every nut, bolt, valve, and tube, “striking the various parts to see if they ‘ring true’.” A hostler moved the engine from one inspection site to another, the boiler chemically cleaned of all corrosive minerals, an inspector crawling into the firebox examining the boiler, the testing of headlights and brakes, defects noted and repairs made. “The careful and expensive work that is conducted in the railroad roundhouses…is a saving both in human life and of money to the company.”
To an engineer, “the massive pile of lumbering iron and steel is a human being;” eating coal, drinking water, experiencing stomach troubles, the exhaust is like breathing, and the headlight provides vision. The locomotive was referred to as “she” and “her” or “the old girl” and engines carried monikers, “Nancy” and “Betsy” being favorites.
Built to service and repair steam engines, the era of the roundhouse came to an end when diesel engines replaced steam and long, rectangular buildings were more suited for modern railroads. The Illinois Central Railroad fan-shaped roundhouse, 1500 S. Senate Ave., was an example of this transition when it became outmoded and was razed in 1964. Today, all that remains in Indianapolis of these once vibrant, massive workshops are fading ghost-like shapes across the scarred ground.
Indianapolis newsman William Herschell memorialized the roundhouse in his poem, “Old Mother Roundhouse,” writing in part,
Her engine babies come and go,
Each whistles just to let her know
They’re coming home to rest and sleep –
A mother-vigil she must keep.

Strike!

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:09:53 +0000

American prosperity for 250 years since the founding of the Republic has been built upon an entrepreneurial spirit and by the sweat of the brow of working men and women. Sadly, for many years enslaved and child labor also contributed to this economic success. Natural tensions between employers and free labor over wages and working conditions led workers to form unions and disputes often were resolved only after militant work stoppages — strikes. In Indianapolis artisans formed the Mechanics Mutual Protection in 1850 and two years later a Typographical Union was organized by journeymen printers that became Local No. 1.
The first documented strike in Indianapolis began on Saturday, April 11, 1863, when members of the local Typographical Union Local No. 1 walked off the job at The Indianapolis Daily Journal and The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel after failing to receive a 20 per cent wage increase. To replace the striking printers, the papers hired workers from out of town who were “dogged along the streets, cursed, abused, and threatened,” by the strikers. The following Wednesday, the union called off the strike and “allowed any member to go to work at the old prices if he wanted to, or if the proprietors would take him.” However, the papers were “full of good, sober, steady workmen, who are glad to get employment at the profitable wages the [union] threw away so contemptuously.”
While the printers failed to achieve their wage goals, the blacksmiths and machinists went on strike the following year “with regard to hours and to wages.” The Machinists’ and Blacksmiths’ Union had a fund of $25,000 (2025: $524,086) “to pay the wages of needy brethren who may be thrown out of employment by the strike.” Other workers — journeymen boot and shoemakers, plasterers, and bricklayers — also went on strike for better wages during the Civil War era.
In March 1866, Indianapolis workers were confronted with their first strike related lock-out when local owners shut the foundry doors to members of the Iron Moulder’s and Stove Moulder’s Unions. This was part of a national action by foundry owners in response to strikes in Albany and Troy, New York. The strike lasted two months, ending with “the employers having compromised with the men.” Locally in the fall of 1870, 140 workers of Sinker & Davis at the Western Machine Works walked off the job when their wages were cut by ten percent. The Machinists’ and Blacksmiths’ Union supported the workers and the strike ended after a couple of days when the employers “discovered that they were paying but a trifle, if any, more than other proprietors.”
By the 1870s, railroad interests were so important to Indianapolis that any national rail event could severely affect the city’s business. When the financial Panic of 1873 occurred, the Pan Handle Road — Pittsburg, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad — (Pennsylvania Railroad) responded quickly with an abrupt announcement of a ten percent wage reduction. This violated a previous agreement with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers “that no reduction of wages should be made, and in case the company felt constrained to reduce pay, due notice should be given the Brotherhood, that the matter might be amply discussed and the conflicting interests, if possible, adjusted by negotiation” thereby precipitating, what the newspapers called the Great Strike, which began at noon on Christmas Day, 1873 when engineers on the railroad and its seventeen related lines walked off the job. Passenger and freight trains came to a standstill and in Indianapolis an attempt by a conductor to move an engine from the yards was met by a large number of strikers who gathered at a crossing and “jeered to such an extent, although no violence was offered, that he…ran the engine back to the round house.” By early January, most of the railroads were back operating with “scab engineers” — “unskilled and unreliable men” — running the engines; “the railroad companies…for the time being, are the victors.” While railroad companies continued to reduce the wages of laborers by ten percent, further attempts to reduce the pay of engineers remained unsettled. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers resolved to resist any additional wage cuts “by all means in their power.”
As the economy continued to struggle with the effects of the Panic, the corporate officers of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) devised a scheme to cut worker wages by ten percent so dividends to its shareholders could be increased by the same percentage. B&O workers at Martinsburg, West Virginia refused to accept the wage cut and, on July 14, 1877, initiated what would be known as The Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Five days later, Pennsylvania Railroad workers in Pittsburg refused to go out with their trains and demanded restoring a prior wage schedule and the reinstatement of every worker dismissed for participating in the strike. Additional strikes stopped traffic on the Erie Railroad and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, & Chicago Railroad. By July 23, in Indianapolis “the strike is the all-absorbing theme of conversation” and by evening 500 local workers of the Vandalia Railroad, the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad, the Bee Line (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad), and the Pan Handle, had joined the strike over wages. Later yardmen of the Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, the Indianapolis, Cincinnati. & Lafayette Railroad, the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad, the Indianapolis & Vincennes Railroad, the Indianapolis, Peru & Chicago Railroad, and the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis Railroad stopped work along with 125 switchmen and baggage men. Only mail cars were permitted to leave the depot as nearly 100 travelers were stranded in the waiting rooms.
Two thousand workingmen gathered on the state house grounds to show solidarity with the railroad strikers and to urge them to refrain from violence. The Indianapolis strike caused a suspension of business on all Indiana railroads and combined with strikes in Ohio and Illinois 2,100 miles of track was affected. Declaring, “It is now or never with us. We can never have a stronger organization, and the country was never so ripe for a movement of this description,” locomotive engineers, firemen, conductors, and brakemen from the several railroads formed a committee to discuss the situation with the management of the different lines and at a citizens meeting a committee of arbitration was established. Mayor John Caven issued a call for the formation of a committee of safety in each city ward to protect property if mob violence should break out. Federal troops from the South arrived and together with the Indiana Legion of citizen soldiers were available if needed.
After a week of unrest in Indianapolis, the city’s role in The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was over with the strikers resuming work after accepting the report of the committee on arbitration which called “for the sake of the workmen and for the ultimate good of the companies” a speedy redress of “the lowness of wages and…irregularities in the payment thereof.”

Gold Star Heroes

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 21 May 2026 05:09:19 +0000

While young schoolchildren are awarded a “gold star” for their achievements, a more poignant “gold star” holds a hallowed place on banners marking the loss and sacrifice of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in service to our country. Since America’s entry into World War I, over 1,800 sons and daughters from Marion County/Indianapolis have been memorialized with a Gold Star on their family’s service banner.
In the early days following the declaration of war on Germany by the United States in April 1917, recruiting offices distributed “great posters to be hung from the windows of the homes” of those men who had entered service showing the American Flag and carrying the words across the bottom, “A Son of This Home is Defending This Flag For You.” The month following America’s entry into the war, Indianapolis native Captain Robert L. Queisser, who at the time was residing in Cleveland, Ohio, proposed designating the homes “from which men had gone into military service” with a flag consisting of a red border and white field, upon which “should be placed blue stars or a blue star, one star for every member of the family who is called to the colors.” The Blue Star Service Flag was approved by the War Department as a “Badge of Honor” and was soon being placed in windows and flown from businesses. Tragically, in war lives are lost and to show a family’s sacrifice the Blue Star on a service banner was replaced by a Gold Star.
According to the Indiana Gold Star Honor Roll, Corporal Ralph R. Flora, Company L, 28th Infantry, 1st Division, was the first soldier from Indianapolis to be killed in France. He died in action on March 8, 1918, in the Toul Sector. A telegram arrived at the home of Elias and Rebecca Flora, 1616 E. Washington St, informing them of their son’s death. Elias Flora said, “I have other sons who no doubt will see service soon, and I am glad that it is so” and Rebecca Flora said, “It was something to be expected…I am proud to have given a son in service of his country, and two of my other sons are expecting soon to see service against the German forces.”
Twenty-three years later, Amelia South, a widow living at 3437 Guilford Ave., became the first Indianapolis Gold Star Mother of World War II when she received a message in the early morning hours of December 10, 1941, that her son Private Elmer W. South, 13th Air Base Squadron, Army Air Force, had been killed in the defense of his country at Hickam Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Sadly, the war would see over one thousand Gold Stars affixed to the service banners displayed in the windows of Indianapolis homes.
A photo spread in the November 20, 1944, issue of Life Magazine, “Families Speak for Their War Dead,” featured eight Indianapolis Gold Star families from the suburb of Irvington who all expressed harsh words for the post-war reconstruction of Germany and Japan. Louis W. and Olma Buck, 52 S. Audubon Rd., lost their son, First Lieutenant Louis William Buck, Jr, 8th Field Artillery, when he was killed in France on July 22, 1944. World War I Captain John Paul Ragsdale, Sr and his wife Mary Ragsdale, 345 N. Ritter Ave., displayed two Gold Stars on their window service banner for the loss of their sons, Second Lieutenant John Paul Ragsdale, Jr, a navigator on a B-17 Flying Fortress that went down during a raid over Germany on May 21, 1943, and Sergeant Edward M. Ragsdale, a radio gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, who was killed on June 14, 1944, while on maneuvers near Salina, Kansas when his parachute failed to open after bailing out of his plane when it developed engine trouble. Irene Burgess, 804 N. Audubon Rd., was also a double Gold Star holder. Her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Milo David Burgess, Inspector General, 4th Armored Division, died on August 20, 1943, in his quarters at Camp Bowie, Texas, and less than two months later her son, First Lieutenant Bruce Burgess, a P-40 Warhawk pilot with the American Flying Circus, Army Air Force, was killed in action over Italy on October 14, 1943. Gold Star mother Bertha Courtney, 63 N. Irvington Ave., lost her son, Master Sergeant Harold J. Courtney, an army bombsight specialist, who was killed July 16, 1942, near Shreveport, Louisiana during a training exercise when the medium bomber he was on crashed and burned. Henry E. and Grace Morgan, 76 Whittier Pl., became Gold Star parents when their son, Private Murray Warren Morgan, Army Infantry, died on May 7, 1943, of wounds received as a result of actions in North Africa. Jeanette McPheeters, 46 S. Ritter Ave., lost her husband, Lieutenant Colonel John Williams McPheeters, 1st Armored Division, when he died on March 25, 1944, of wounds received while directing an artillery barrage on the Italian beachhead at Anzio. Frances Virt Schulz, 385 S. Audubon Rd., lost her husband, Electricians Mate 2nd class Ronald Herman Schulz, 29th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees), died February 6, 1944, in southern England from injuries received in an accident. He also left behind a young son. Samuel and Eva Ottenbacher, 120 S. Emerson Ave., lost their son, Radioman 3rd class Samuel Ottenbacher, 23rd Patrol Squadron, United States Navy Air Corps, on the night of November 12, 1942 when he went missing after the PBY-5A Catalina on which he was a crew member crashed at sea while on routine patrol north of Oahu, Hawaii.
Another Indianapolis Gold Star was my wife’s uncle, Sergeant Donald Commodore Byers. A top turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, Sgt. Byers was on his second mission when he was killed August 24, 1944, when his plane was lost over Weimar, Germany due to fighter action.
The constellation of Marion County/Indianapolis Gold Stars sadly continued to expand with 171 casualties of the Korean War and 216 casualties of the Vietnam War. When Joseph and Catherine Frantz, 750 N. Ketcham St., in Haughville opened a telegram from the Department of Defense on the afternoon on August 14, 1950, they learned that their son, Private George Arthur Frankz, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Division, was missing in action on July 11, 1950. Fifteen years later, Raymond and Edythe Smith of Spencer, Indiana, formerly of 318 N. Mount St., Indianapolis, were notified of the death of their son, Marine Private First-Class Ivan Ray Smith, who died of a chest wound on May 12, 1965, that he had received the previous day from a sniper while he was on patrol near Chu Lai, Vietnam. These servicemen were the first from Indianapolis to be killed in these conflicts.
Lieutenant General Timothy J. Maude was the first Indianapolis native killed in what would become the Global War on Terror. He lost his life on September 11, 2001, when hijacked American Airline Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon. The war would add four more Gold Stars to the Marion County/Indianapolis Banner of Honor.
In May 2021, the Indiana Gold Star Families Memorial Monument was dedicated in Indianapolis on the north end of the American Legion Mall. It “honors, recognizes, and serves Gold Star Families and the legacy of their Loved Ones who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their service in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.”

Proclaim Liberty

Steven R. Barnett — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:09:51 +0000

“Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof” are the ancient words of scripture inscribed on the bell that once hung in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. For almost a quarter of a century, the tocsin summoned legislators into session and alerted Philadelphians to public meetings before calling delegates to the Continental Congress to gather and then ring out for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. The State House Bell, first announcing a new constellation of thirteen stars among the universe of nations, became known as the Independence Bell and later as an anti-slavery icon the Liberty Bell, its clanging tones symbolically reverberating across the decades and centuries in protest to injustice asserting the self-evident truths that ALL PEOPLE “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
After years of service, the Liberty Bell fell silent when it developed a large crack and the revered relic of American Independence was placed on an ornate pedestal for display in the Declaration Chamber of Independence Hall, later being hung from the ceiling of the chamber. The public came to hold a special connection to the artifact following popular stories of the Revolution relating to a tale of the ringing of the bell at the time of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Nine out of every ten visitors to the 1876 Centennial Exposition dropped by Independence Hall to see the Liberty Bell and items bearing its image or small replicas of it were sought-after souvenirs.
Following America’s one-hundredth birthday celebration, public devotion to the Liberty Bell increased. In 1885 the sacred relic of the Revolution was shown at the World Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans. The bell was ceremonially taken from Independence Hall, “swung in a polished oak yoke” on an open railroad flatcar “so it can be seen by the people of all the towns through which it passes,” and left Philadelphia under guard. The route took the Liberty Bell through major cities — Pittsburg, Columbus and Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile — where it was viewed by tens of thousands before arriving in New Orleans. After a six-month sojourn in the Crescent City, the historic symbol of freedom returned to its home in the City of Brotherly Love.
Eight years later, the Liberty Bell departed Philadelphia for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, with all the pomp and ceremony due to the historic icon. Mounted on an open railroad flat car specially built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Bell of Freedom began its journey on April 25. Three days later, it arrived in Indianapolis at dawn to a thirteen-gun salute and a welcoming ovation of a crowd of hundreds gathered at Union Station. Later that morning, a mass of people surged around the railcar to get a glimpse of the Tongue of Freedom, passing personal items of every description to the guards to have rubbed on the sacred icon. Fifteen thousand flag waving school children joined thousands of other citizens in front of the State Capitol to hear formal remarks from former President Benjamin Harrison before the historic symbol left for Chicago.
The Liberty Bell would leave Independence Hall in 1895 for the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia; in 1902 for the Inter-State and West Indian Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina; and in 1903 for the Bunker Hill Day Celebration in Boston, Massachusetts. Each of these trips, as did its prior journeys, stressed the fabric of the bell. Pieces of the metal from around the rim had been surreptitiously chipped off for souvenirs and, of more concern, a 17-inch hairline crack had formed extending across the crown through the word “Liberty.” Despite these grave structural issues, the Bell of Freedom made two more cross-country trips.
On June 3, 1904, the Liberty Bell began its sixth trip outside of Philadelphia on a special train to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis where it was displayed in the Pennsylvania building for five months. On the historic relic’s return to Independence Hall, the train carrying it arrived in Indianapolis the evening of November 17, and the flatcar with the Liberty Bell was switched onto the city’s trolley tracks for a parade through downtown streets. An estimated 100,000 cheering people lined the route as the symbol of freedom on its railcar decorated with red, white and blue lights made its way to the Traction Terminal Train Shed where several thousand people viewed freedom’s voice. The following morning, thousands of children saw the Liberty Bell, some being hoisted up to the platform to touch and kiss it in the spirit of patriotism, before the flatcar and its honored cargo returned through the streets to be reunited with the special train to continue the journey home.
Eleven years later the Bell of the Revolution left the City of Brotherly Love on July 5, 1915, for the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, its last journey. On the bell’s homeward trip, the special train once again stopped in Indianapolis on the evening of November 21. A flag waving crowd of tens of thousands braved the breezy cold to see the national relic, mounted on a flatcar decorated with flags, flowers, and lights, slowly roll along trolley tracks down Washington St. from West to East Streets and return, with stops in front of the Statehouse and Courthouse where more than 1,000 school children sang “America.” In the morning, the Liberty Bell resumed its travels to Independence Hall.
In 1950, to promote the sale of United States Savings Bonds, the Treasury Department had replicas of the Liberty Bell made without the infamous crack. These daughters of the historic national treasure were distributed to each state capital and in May a Liberty Bell replica on Monument Circle, together with the pealing of nearby church bells, rang out the launch of the Independence Savings Bond Drive in Indiana. After a tour of thirty-five cities and towns, the bell was placed on display at the Statehouse. It later was removed to the Indiana World War Memorial.
Today, the Liberty Bell is on display in the Liberty Bell Center across the street from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. When one of my grandsons saw the Liberty Bell when he was 10 years old, he said he thought it would be bigger than it was. While the physical size of the Liberty Bell may not have impressed a child, symbolically the enormity of its message of LIBERTY has transformed a nation and has inspired people across the globe seeking to be free from injustice.

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.

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.