INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Landmarks today announced the 10 Most Endangered, an annual list of Hoosier landmarks in jeopardy. The list includes a beloved but deteriorating church; a rare polygonal barn; a historic Black social club; a picturesque one-room school; a rugged reminder of the industrial revolution; an early tribute to higher education; an architect-designed industrial building; a threatened Victorian neighborhood; historic fraternal lodge buildings; and a former movie palace.
Places that land on the 10 Most Endangered list often face a combination of problems rather than a single threat — abandonment, neglect, dilapidation, obsolete use, development pressure, or owners who simply lack money for repairs.
The 10 Most Endangered in 2024 includes six new sites and four entries repeating from last year’s list:
• Bethlehem Healing Temple, Gary
• College Hall, Merom Camp & Retreat Center, Merom
• Rudicel-Montgomery Polygonal Barn, Waldron
• Sollman School, Snake Run (near Fort Branch)
• Sposeep & Sons Building, Wabash
• West Side Recreation Club, South Bend
• Historic Fraternal Lodges, Indianapolis and statewide (repeat entry from 2023)
• International Harvester Engineering Building, Fort Wayne (repeat entry from 2023)
• Starr Historic District, Richmond (repeat entry from 2023)
• State Theatre, Anderson (repeat entry from 2023)
Built in 1916 for Oriental Masonic Lodge No. 500, the monumental building’s details capture the Exotic Revival architectural style popular in the early twentieth century, with geometric brick patterns and keyhole windows intended to reflect Islamic architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain.
Membership in the lodge declined after World War II and even further during desegregation in the ’60s and ’70s, when white families began fleeing the urban neighborhood. In the 1980s, the historically African American Prince Hall Masonic Temple Association bought the building to serve as a permanent home for its Grand Lodge of Indiana, and for decades the Prince Hall Masonic Association’s many lodges and chapters have used the building for ceremonies, meetings, and social events.
With members dispersed around the city, Indiana’s Prince Hall Association wants to sell the building and construct a new easier-to-maintain facility elsewhere. Ironically, current revitalization in the area poses an additional threat to the historic lodge. With construction of huge apartment blocks across the street and developers eyeing additional opportunities, the land the lodge occupies may be more valuable than the building itself.
Since the list was introduced in 1991, demolition has claimed only 20 of the 170 Most Endangered sites, while 105 places are completely restored or no longer endangered.
To find out more about each of the 10 Most Endangered, visit www.indianalandmarks.org or contact Indiana Landmarks, 317-639-4534 or 800-450-4534.
