Weekly View » Al Hunter

The Ghosts of Kings Island

Al Hunter — Thu, 07 May 2026 05:08:59 +0000

Kings Island amusement park is a one tank trip that most Hoosiers have taken in their lifetime. But most visitors don’t realize that the park is haunted. More still have no idea that upon pulling into the north end of the Kings Island parking lot off Columbia Road, you’re within a stone’s throw of an 1840s pioneer cemetery within the boundaries of the amusement park. What’s more, fewer still realize that the park’s property includes the site of a horrific gunpowder explosion that claimed the lives of 11 men, women and children in July of 1890.
Within sight of the Kings Island roller coasters along the Little Miami River, just down the hill from Kings Mills, the old Peters Cartridge factory loomed ominously. After decades of decay, the factory has been converted to luxury apartments — a stark contrast to when the bustling factory was one of the most prolific and innovative makers of ammunition in the world. It employed hundreds of people along the scenic river.
The complex, built in the 1880s, has a colorful history based on revenge. Joseph Warren King and his nephew Ahimaaz King owned a large portion of the Miami Powder Co., near Xenia. The Kings were forced out of the company after an out-of-state powder maker wrested control of the business from them in 1872 in what we call today a hostile takeover. Undeterred, the crafty, vengeful Kings hatched a plan to buy 832,000 pounds of surplus Civil War gunpowder from an armory in St. Louis. J.W. King intended to drive his nemesis out of business with cheap powder at a time when a flooded post-war market made the explosive stuff inexpensive already.
In 1878, the Kings created the Great Western Powder Co. and chose the spot for their factory in a deep valley of the Little Miami River 30 miles south of Xenia at Gainesborough, where Kings Island stands today. The choice of this site was no accident. In the early days of explosives manufacturing, the willow tree played a prominent part in the manufacture of gunpowder. The manufacture of gunpowder required saltpeter, soda ash and charcoal. The banks of most every stream in the area abounded with willow trees. These trees could be used to produce the special high grade of charcoal necessary to manufacture explosives.
They would soon build Kings Mills, a company town for their workers, and rename the operation the King Powder Co. J.W. King’s son-in-law, a Baptist preacher named Gershom Moore Peters, founded the Peters Cartridge Co. in 1887. Peters invented a revolutionary machine that automatically loaded shotgun shells, capable of packing and loading shells at a rate of 60 per minute. The Peters Cartridge Co. became the first to commercially produce automatic machine-loaded cartridges for the marketplace and the King Powder Co. was the parent company.
The massive factory occupied both sides of the river. Safety was the watchword at the twin factories, where at least 20 known explosions killed dozens of people. Workhorses wore brass horseshoes, for fear of deadly sparks. Something as simple as a nail in a worn shoe heel coming in contact with a nail in the floor might cause a spark to touch off an explosion powerful enough to blow a man to smithereens. Explosions were so routine that most structures were built for “quick post-explosion reconstruction.”
The most noteworthy event commenced at 3:50 p.m. on July 15, 1890 when people 6 miles away in Lebanon, Ohio were startled by a loud boom. A freight train halted at Kings Mills to pick up a couple of cars loaded with giant blasting powder. The engineer “cut” his train and proceeded to draw the cars from the switch alongside the mills and place them in his “string.” He made what, in railroad parlance, is known as a “running switch,” having located a new brakeman to operate the brakes. For some unknown reason, the brakes on the cars did not hold and the wayward train cars slipped their moorings. The runaway train gained speed as it hurtled down the slope, striking the stationary cars loaded with 1,600 kegs of powder and cartridges with disastrous results. Instantly there was an explosion that burst the eardrums of every one in the immediate vicinity followed by a second concussion and later a third, more deafening report.
The explosion killed 11 people, including three children. The resulting fires burned for five hours and destroyed an office building, two three-story buildings, a large warehouse and almost 12 company homes. Luckily, a warehouse containing 25,000 kegs of gun powder was left untouched — not a spark had reached it. A Cincinnati reporter said of the blast, “Everything … took fire and burnt like powder, not a piece of timber of any kind (and all the buildings) was left standing by six o’clock.”
One newspaper account said of the explosion: “Employees at the powder mills had been on duty almost three hours when, without an instant’s warning, and as swiftly as lightning strikes from the sky, there was a roar as though the earth itself had been split asunder. Wherever they were standing, whether at the grinding machines, in the storage houses or even idling along the streets, men felt the earth give beneath their feet and then, seemingly, to rise as though in the throes of a violent earthquake. Some were thrown against nearby obstacles; others were swept from their feet and hurled to the ground.”
Debris rained from the sky; splintered wood, pieces of metal, shingles and bricks came down on the single street in the settlement, and showered the roofs of the company-owned cottages. Several large shade trees near the building were literally torn up by the roots, while others nearby were broken or twisted off near their base; still others, some fully 50 yards away, were stripped of their branches by the force of the explosion. One side of the bridge across the Little Miami river, nearly a mile away, collapsed and tumbled into the water below. Immediately following the explosion a cloud of thick, dark smoke hung over the little valley. For a full half-hour the cloud blacked out the sky.
The work of checking over the list of employees started as soon as the numbed and frightened populace could recover from the shock. As names were called the men lined up, most of them nursing bruises or cuts received from the flying debris. When the roll had been completed three vacancies were noted in their ranks. But there was not even the tiniest fragment of clothing of any one of the missing three to indicate that they were actual victims of the tragedy. They had literally been blown to atoms. A careful search was started in the afternoon, and small fragments of the bodies of the explosion victims were found, mostly at a distance of 200 yards from the scene of the catastrophe. Not a trace of the brakeman could be found following the explosion and the freight cars on which he was riding had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened up and swallowed them whole. Among the names of the 11 that perished: brakeman William Franey, Albert Williams, a cartridge maker; Samuel Stevenson and Harry Reynolds, teamsters; Mrs. James Moss and her 3-year old child; Mrs. Frederick Kelly, wife of the foreman of the plant, and her 4-year old son; a Mrs. Collins and child; the infant of a Mrs. Eliston, and a rag-picker, whose identity is known only to God.
Kings Mills buried its dead, then mutely turned its face to the scene of destruction to fix and repair the factory. The plant continued to make ammunition for soldiers during World War I. Peters Cartridge Co. was sold to Remington Arms in 1934. Roll a Remington Arms brass ammunition round in your hand and read the “R-P.” The “P” stands for Peters Cartridge Co. Remington continued to operate the plant into World War II, producing an estimated 50 million rounds per month. Many of the King Powder Co. buildings were burned to the ground after the company’s closing due to the dangerously explosive residue.
So the next time you visit Kings Island, know that you’re straying into the world of Peters and King. In fact, one of the company’s powder lines was located a mere stone’s throw from the park’s Eiffel Tower centerpiece. Just be careful when you enter the dark corners of the Kings Island amusement park. You may just find that you are not alone.

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.

The Lincoln Funeral Train 161 Years Later

Al Hunter — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:08:29 +0000

Anyone familiar with my writings and ramblings knows that I have one special “obsession” when it comes to ghost stories; The Lincoln Ghost train. I’ve written countless articles, papers and literary works on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln over the past 15 years or so.
When the train came through Indiana, the official Travel Log of the train notes that it arrived in Greenfield at 5:48 a.m., Philadelphia at 5:57 a.m., Cumberland at 6:30 a.m., the “Engine House” (identified as “Thorne” in Irvington) at 6:45 a.m. before finally arriving in Indianapolis at 7:00 a.m. The previous day’s rain had stopped just after midnight as the train approached the Indiana border, revealing a beautiful starlit sky as a backdrop for the sad processional and lifting the hopes of the trackside witnesses. However, the telltale slap/pop sound of hard raindrops hitting roofs and roads began again in the predawn hours and by 6 a.m., and rain blanketed the Hoosier countryside. Although it was dark and rainy, the area along the tracks was well lit by torches and bonfires tended by loyal Lincolnites as the train crept towards Indianapolis at less than 10 miles per hour.
In Greenfield, the depot was choked with people wishing to gaze upon the face of the departed leader one last time. The train was not officially scheduled to stop in Greenfield, but the mood among the citizens was that perhaps the engineer might be persuaded to stop when he witnessed the tremendous outpouring of trackside emotion at the Greenfield depot. The local newspaper described among those expectant gatherers “a knot of three boys, hands in pockets chattering back and forth with each other while pacing up and down the railroad tracks. Two older fellows were standing together, each arm around the other, probably soldiers remembering what it means to be a comrade.” The depot porch was filled to overflowing with women in their long dresses, old soldiers in their Union uniforms and a sea of men dressed entirely in black. The telegraph operator in Charlottesville wired that the train had just passed and was heading towards the neighboring town.
A sentinel was perched atop the station to alert the citizens below of the train’s approach. In a few moments, a cloud of silver phosphorescent smoke appeared above the tree tops that parallels the exact route of the present day Pennsy trail. “Here it Comes” was the cry from above and immediately the crowd below hushed and gazed eastward expectantly. For several moments, the only sound that could be heard on the platform was the muffled weeping of the gathered mourners. The crowd asked Captain Reuben Riley to read aloud excerpts from Lincoln’s second Inaugural address as the train slowly approached. As if in response to the impromptu ceremony, the train paused briefly at the station and the engineer removed his cap in respect to reverent gathering.
Reverend Manners stepped from the crowd and led the group in a prayer that began with “Thank God for the life of Abraham Lincoln.” The people now openly wept as the 10 car train departed westward towards Indianapolis. Unfortunately, there are no witness accounts from the train’s sojourn through Irvington. Other towns and cities along the route were bedecked in black mourning cloth, lit by trackside bonfires and oil lamps with platforms choked with adoring masses.
The train came to it’s final west bound destination under cover of a sheltered structure at Union Station in the Hoosier Capitol City. As the train arrived, guns were fired every minute, every city bell chimed continuously, and the Indianapolis city band played dirges at trackside. The train slowed to a stop as the smokestack puffed and hissed under the massive hipped roof of the old station, enveloping the platform and gathered dignitaries in a ghostly fog. As the final slow hiss of boiler steam escaped form the bowels of the Lincoln funeral train, the President of Chicago & Indiana Central Railway, D.E. Smith issued the following telegraph, “The funeral train arrived here precisely on time. There was a perfect torchlite along the along the whole route. Every farm house had its bonfire in order to see the train. Urbana, Piqua, Greenville and Richmond turned out their entire population. Nearly every town had arches built over the track.”
Extensive preparations had been made for receiving the President’s remains that Governor Oliver P. Morton decreed were to be “Consistent with the dignity and reputation of the state.” While Morton planned the festivities meticulously, he could not control the weather. As the daybreak rains poured forth, the bunting and other mourning signs and decorations were soaked and in most places sadly dragging on the ground. However, the rains did not deter the sorrowful pilgrimage of mourners packing the streets from Union Station to the Statehouse. The military guard was drawn up in a solid blue line on both sides of the street, posed with bayonets forward for five blocks from Illinois up Washington Street to the Statehouse doors. The heavy rain forced the cancellation of a much larger, planned official processional. Lincoln’s body was transferred by a guard of honor from the train into an hearse topped by a silver-gilt eagle, drawn by six white horses with black velvet covers, each bearing black and white plumes.
The body was escorted by Governor Morton and General “Fighting Joe” Hooker to the Indiana State House. Legend claims that we owe the title affixed to present day “ladies of the evening” to Gen. Hooker, an avowed ladies man. As proof of his attraction to the opposite sex, when the coffin was opened in preparation for public viewing, Hooker observed eight rosebuds clinging to the dead President’s body inside. He carefully plucked the flowers, believed to have been placed there while the body was in New York, and distributed them personally among several ladies present for the ceremonies. These women prized the memory of the encounter as well as the flowers for decades after the event.
News traveled slowly in those days and Indianapolis was the first major city to hear the news that the President’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been captured and killed and the news buzzed through the excited crowd as they waited outside in the rain. The doors were opened at 9 a.m. as an estimated 120,000 people passed by Lincoln in less than 13 hours of public viewing. Roughly 155 people per minute (or 9,300 Hoosiers an hour) passed by the open casket as it rested in the old Capitol Building. By the time Mr. Lincoln’s body arrived in Indianapolis, his face was almost black from decomposition. A local newspaper reporter wrote that Lincoln looked, “…a good deal discolored and emaciated — wearing a haggard and careworn look, but otherwise rather natural.”
Perhaps the most noteworthy visitors that day were the “Colored Masons” who formed a respectable procession lead by a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and carrying banners reading “Colored Men, always loyal” and “Slavery is dead.” By 9 p.m., the crowds diminished, allowing those remaining mourners the luxury of having a long look at the remains. The doors of the State House were ordered closed at 10 p.m. and once again the soldiers were assembled and posted along the return route to Union Station. At 11:50 p.m. the Lincoln train left Indianapolis bound for Chicago. During the night the train passed through Augusta at 12:30 a.m., Zionsville at 12:47 a.m., Whitestown at 1:07 a.m., Lebanon at 1:30 a.m., Thorntown at 2:10 a.m., Lafayette at 3:35 a.m. and Battle Ground at 3:55 a.m. In Michigan City at 7:40 a.m., an impromptu funeral was held and Mr. Lincoln’s coffin was opened one last time in the Hoosier State as mourners filed through the Lincoln train car to view the dead President.
The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel reported in the May 1, 1865 edition of the newspaper that the ceremonies of the previous day, “All in all the multitude presented the most grotesque and ridiculous appearance we have ever witnessed. Wet, tired, cold and famished, beduabed with mud and filth, they presented a sorry sight indeed. No more inclement and uncharitable day could have been, and no more enthusiastic mass of sightseers could have been collected together.” Ironically, while the crowds waited in the rain soaked muddy streets for a last glimpse of Lincoln, pickpockets worked the crowds. It wasn’t all chivalry and solemnity, folks.

Teach Your Children Well

Al Hunter — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:08:16 +0000

Recently I took my wife and daughter out antiquing on a sunny Saturday morning. Coming off the coldest, bitterest winter I can remember, we really were just itching for a reason to get out of the house. We piled in the car and drove over to Dayton, Ohio to a modest little antique flea market at Hara arena that we had never visited before. We found our usual assortment of stuff we really didn’t need but were thrilled to find. My daughter was delighted to show me a 50¢ find that she was particularly proud of, a small tannish hardcover book titled “Health and Sanitation Through the Public Schools of Kentucky.” I think I said something like “that’s nice, dear” and walked on to look for more treasures.
It wasn’t until I got home and started to unpack our bags that I realized that this little book was very cool indeed. As I leafed through the pages, even though the book was dated January of 1920 inside, I saw many things inside that were familiar to me. Many of the subjects covered within its pages have been featured in articles I’ve written in the past. Written by Dr. WL Heizer, executive secretary of the Kentucky board of tuberculosis commissioners, and Mrs. V. O. Gilbert, Kentucky state superintendent of public instruction, the book was printed and distributed to every elementary school kid in the state of Kentucky. The general theme of the book is eugenics, an antiquated term that makes most who know it’s meaning shudder.
Eugenics was one of the earliest forms of racial cleansing ever introduced in this country. Popularized at the Indiana State Fair by events known as “Better Baby Contests,” a relic of those troubling times remains there to this very day. The Hook’s Drugstore Museum is housed in the old Better Babies building just off 38th Street in Indianapolis. Another theme running through the book is the anti-tuberculosis league that proliferated during the same period. These are the folks responsible for the popular “No Spitting on Floors and Sidewalks” signs that could be found all over the city back in the day.
Although issued in Kentucky, the book might as well have come out of Indiana because the instructions and edicts found within could easily be transferred to the Hoosier state. Within the first couple of pages the underlying motive of the book becomes quite clear with a picture of the lily white group of participants of the “Baby Health Contest” at the Kentucky State Fair 1917. The object of the volume becomes perfectly clear in the very first line of the book’s foreword: “In presenting this bulletin to the teachers and children of the public schools, we hope to be the instrument in saving many valuable lives and much sickness, suffering and needless expense.”
The first half of the 200 page book devotes itself to whitewashing the subject of racial cleansing by explaining acceptable ways to raise a “perfect child” and by identifying unacceptable traits mistakenly identified as defects. “It is the privilege of every baby to be well born; that is, it is entitled by right to have strong, healthy parents, free from inheritances of insanity, degeneracy, feeble mindedness, or the heredity of social disease. It is very necessary, then, that marriageable girls should know that these defects can be transmitted to their children, and, in the selection of a husband, it should be the ambition of a girl to select the kind of husband that would insure to her descendants a freedom from these preventable and awful handicaps.”
Although the book was distributed to grade school kids, some of the content is obviously aimed at their parents. For example, “It becomes the duty of the father or mother of the marriageable girl, to make a fairly close survey of the intended husband, going into the family history to determine whether or not there is a line of degeneracy, insanity, feeble mindedness or epilepsy to be found among his immediate family… A careful history of the intended husband, relative to his moral life and that of his forefathers, should be taken, with a view of avoiding the strains of moral degeneracy commonly found in the children of moral defectives.” Some of those “defects” sound ridiculous to us today and include common childhood traits like night terrors, thumb-sucking, sleeplessness, chafing, stuttering, cross eyes, knock knees, pigeon toes, and bow legs.
The second half of the book is devoted to personal hygiene and disease prevention. However, the volume devotes considerable amount of time to subjects that today sound archaic and horribly out of touch. On the section titled “Bites of Animals,” the book directs “The Safest Rule is to prohibit the keeping of domestic animals about the place, such as dogs and cats. They are usually useless and a nuisance and add to the expense of the household.”
Today it seems that every man under the age of 40 is wearing a beard were heavy mustache, so I found it interesting that the subject of shaving in this volume was heavily frowned upon. Again, this book was issued to school children which makes the following all the more humorous, “From a health standpoint, very little excuse can be found for a person maintaining a heavy beard or mustache. The hairs collect dust and dirt. Very frequently when eating, milk or other food becomes entangled in the growth and it is troublesome to remove thoroughly such substances. The smooth shaven face is the easiest one kept clean and it is not nearly so apt to become infected with germs of consumption. lagrippe or pneumonia…The bearded face is becoming relatively rare, and unless it is worn for cosmetic purposes, the beard will tend to disappear as health laws are more thoroughly understood and applied.”
The book continues with more of the same and the last quarter of the book is devoted to the proper construction, care and use of sleeping porches, quarters and tents built outdoors for the use and isolation of sick children. The illustrations and real photo images of these precariously constructed additions, some 1 to 2 stories above the ground, look quite dangerous and in some instances appear to be worse than the cure. Woe to the child with claustrophobia or a fear of heights! Also in this section can be found diagrams, details and instructions on the proper dispensation of backyard outhouses for the health and well-being of the family and community instructing that outhouses should be “self-cleaning and fly proof.”
The book is subtle, but unmistakable, in its delivery of the eugenics message. No doubt the personal presentation of a brand-new hardcover book for students to take home to rural Kentucky households was a thrill to the child and a wonder to the family back in the day. There’s a good chance that this book might’ve been the only other book in the family home other than the Bible.
This particular book was presented to a little girl from South Fork Kentucky in Owsley County, once the home of Daniel Boone. In a childlike scrawl on the flyleaf page the original owner has written “Mae Griffith. Her book. South Fork Ky. Jan. 8, 1920.” twice. Pauline Mae Griffith was born on April 21, 1909, making her 10 years old when she received this book. According to my research, little Mae got very sick shortly after she took this book home to proudly show her family.
Her family moved to Granville Ohio in late 1920/early 1921 where Mae died “of disease” on August 2, 1921 at the age of 12. She was buried four days later on August 6, 1921 in Maple Grove Cemetery, where she rests to this day. One thing’s for sure — this little book somehow made the 100 mile journey from Granville to Dayton, Ohio to land in the hands of my own little girl. Don’t worry Mae, Jasmine will cherish it just as much as you did.

Glen Campbell, The Wrecking Crew and Alzheimer’s

Al Hunter — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:08:19 +0000

Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936. He started playing guitar at the age of four. While still a teenager, Campbell moved to Albuquerque to join his uncle Boo’s band. By the age of 22, Campbell had formed his own band. In 1960, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. By early 1961, Campbell’s skills were in high demand and he soon became an integral part of a legendary group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. Campbell played guitar on recordings by Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas & the Papas, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, The Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, and Phil Spector.
Look at that list again. Betcha didn’t know Glen Campbell backed The King and was part of Phil Spector’s de facto house band known as The Wall of Sound. Keep reading and you’ll discover that Campbell’s guitar prowess doesn’t stop there. The Wrecking Crew were also sometimes called the Clique or the First Call Gang. They were a loose-knit circle of Los Angeles’ top studio session musicians whose services were constantly in demand by the biggest names in the business. While the musician’s roll of The Wrecking Crew changed often, the result of their work never did.
Often appearing anonymously with no credit in the liner notes, The Wrecking Crew backed dozens of popular acts on numerous top-selling hits of the era. If you needed a hit in the 60s and 70s, you called The Wrecking Crew. When you hear pop classics like “Be My Baby,” “California Girls,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” “Viva Las Vegas,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “California Dreamin’,” “I Got You Babe,” “Surf City,” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Help Me Rhonda,” “”Rainy Days and Mondays,“ or “These Boots are Made for Walking,” you’re listening to The Wrecking Crew. They were sometimes used as “ghost players” on recordings credited to rock groups such as the Byrds, the Monkees, and the Beach Boys. At one point in the 60s, the Grammy Award for Record of The Year was awarded to a song performed by The Wrecking Crew seven years in a row. They are considered the most successful session recording unit in music history.
At the height of their careers, it wasn’t uncommon for The Wrecking Crew to work 15-hour days, recording hit records in the morning, radio ads through lunch, television spots in the afternoon, and performing backup for various touring acts before bedtime. Before the decade was out, they had clocked well over 10,000 hours of studio time and worked on hundreds of hit singles, including 40 chart-toppers, nearly doubling the Beatles.
Besides Campbell, the Wrecking Crew’s ranks included keyboardist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, who is reputed to have played on over 140 top ten hits including 40 number ones. Other musicians that constituted the unit’s ranks were drummer Earl Palmer, saxophonist Steve Douglas, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, guitarist and bassist Carol Kaye, as well as keyboardist Larry Knechtel (later a member of Bread).
During 1964-65, Glen Campbell became a touring member of The Beach Boys. When Brian Wilson suffered a panic attack during a flight from L.A. to Houston on December 23, 1964, he stopped performing live to concentrate solely on songwriting and studio production. Glen Campbell was called in as his temporary stand-in for live performances, before Bruce Johnston replaced him. On tour, Glen played bass guitar and sang falsetto harmonies. As thanks, Wilson produced Campbell’s 1965 single “Guess I’m Dumb.” Campbell also played guitar on the band’s Pet Sounds 1966 album, widely considered to be one of the most influential albums in music history. In April 1966, he joined Ricky Nelson on a tour through the Far East, again playing bass.
A year later, he recorded the song “Gentle on My Mind,” which earned the Grammy for Best Country and Western Recording. Campbell’s next single, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” also earned a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance. As Campbell racked up the accolades, the Country Music Association honored him as the Entertainer of the Year and, in 1968, Campbell released his biggest hits to date: “Wichita Lineman” and “Galveston.” Campbell made history in 1967 by winning four Grammys total in the country and pop categories
In 1968, Campbell made a guest appearance on “The Joey Bishop Show.” The Smothers Brothers saw the performance and offered Campbell the opportunity to co-host “The Summer Smothers Brothers Show.” Campbell’s ease, humor and musical skill charmed audiences and impressed CBS executives, who offered Campbell his own prime time variety show.
Debuting in 1969, “The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour” was a combination of musical acts, comedy segments, and glamorous guest stars. The show, which was produced by The Smothers Brothers, became a No. 1 hit in the U.S. and the U.K., making Campbell an international star. Although the variety series was canceled in 1972, the success of his No. 1 singles, “Rhinestone Cowboy” (1975) and “Southern Nights” (1977), further cemented Campbell’s status as a crossover success. Along with his television success, Campbell starred on the big screen. He began his movie career opposite John Wayne in 1969’s True Grit. The Duke himself picked Campbell to play alongside him in the film, after his first choice, Elvis Presley, demanded top-billing over John Wayne. Campbell was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his debut performance.
During his 50 years in show business, Glen Campbell recorded and released more then 70 albums. He sold 45 million records and accumulated 12 Gold albums, four Platinum albums and one Double-platinum album. He also sang on four motion picture soundtracks. He placed a total of 82 singles on the Billboard charts, 29 made the top 10 and nine hit number one. He released 15 video albums and has been featured in 21 music videos.
And what about Glen Campbell’s connection to Indianapolis? They begin with Campbell’s August 30, 1969 appearance at the State Fair Coliseum. He returned five years later for a September 15, 1974 concert before an audience of 11,637 at Market Square Arena. It was the first ever concert held at the new venue. 37 years later Campbell was one of the first musical acts at the new Carmel Palladium. On June 4, 2011, Glen Campbell took the stage to perform a medley of his greatest hits. The audience was shocked when Campbell came across as unprepared and disoriented. Despite the assistance of three teleprompters, Campbell forgot lyrics to songs he had been singing for 40 years. He clanged countless off-key guitar notes that he could have played in his sleep back in The Wrecking Crew days. He struggled to communicate with T.J. Keunster, his music director and keyboardist since 1977 and he disconnected with the crowd of devoted fans who would have once been satisfied to hear him simply read the phone book.
It was in this atmosphere of negative publicity, fueled by rumblings of drunkenness and drug abuse, that Campbell’s wife Kim confirmed that her husband had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. According to his family, symptoms of the disease had been occurring for years, becoming more and more evident as the years progressed. As a result of this disclosure, Campbell embarked on a final “Goodbye Tour” with three of his children joining him in his backup band. This tour included a brave return to Indianapolis on June 11, 2012 when the 76-year-old Campbell played the Murat a year after he went public with his Alzheimer’s battle.
His final show was on November 30, 2012, in Napa, California. In April 2014, news reports indicated that Campbell became a patient at an Alzheimer’s long-term care and treatment facility. On March 8, 2016, Rolling Stone reported that Campbell was living in a Nashville memory care facility and that he was in the “final stages” of his disease. He was unable to communicate with people and could not understand what people said to him. However, although his family reported the Rhinestone Cowboy’s demeanor as “happy” and “cheerful,” he could no longer play the guitar. In August 2017, he passed away at the age of 81.
The Alzheimer’s Association Greater Indiana Chapter offers free education for families affected by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Topics range from the basics of Alzheimer’s and how to identify the 10 warning signs to legal and financial planning and how to communicate throughout the various stages of the disease. Contact the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline at 800-272-3900. For a full listing of education programs, meeting dates and locations of support groups in the area, visit www.alz.org/indiana or call 800-272-3900.
The Association also hosts support groups across the state for unpaid care partners, family members and friends of individuals living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Support groups are free and designed to provide emotional, educational and social support for caregivers. Attendees will develop coping methods, encourage self-care, learn about community resources and optimize care techniques. While sharing personal experiences is encouraged, it is not required. There are no fees to attend programs or support groups.
The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care, support and research. Today, more than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, including 110,000 Hoosiers. Their mission is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research; to provide and enhance care and support for all affected; and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. If you or a loved one are experiencing the early signs of dementia, please contact them immediately. If not for yourself, do it for Glen Campbell.

Reggie Harding & The Supremes, Part 2

Al Hunter — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:08:57 +0000

Detroit 7’0″ high school phenom Reggie Harding had a brief, but hauntingly promising, stint with our Pacers fifty years ago during the team’s first season in the upstart ABA. He had recently been cut loose by the Chicago Bulls after just 14 games into that milestone season of 1967-68. Harding had been the first player in the history of pro basketball to sign a contract as a high school player. He was selected by the Detroit Pistons and played parts of four seasons in the NBA. He lasted only 25 games with the Pacers; his career was over by the age of 26. He became legendary for his “world’s dumbest criminals” style antics off the court that began well before he left high school.
Here was a man who drew guns on teammates, became addicted to heroin and repeatedly robbed stores in his own neighborhood thinking no one would ever finger him for the crimes despite being the only 7-foot tall black man in the area. He paid for his crimes with a bullet in the head fired by a man he believed was his friend and he died at the age of 30 on a trash strewn street in the Motor City on September 2, 1972. Although Reggie’s exploits are viewed somewhat comically after all these years, mainly because no one got hurt, there was at least one incident pinned on Reggie Harding that is sad and damaging in the worst way.
In 1960 Reggie Harding was a prep star for Eastern High School. They were in the second of four consecutive Detroit Public School League men’s basketball season titles from 1959-62. Reggie averaged 31 points and 20 rebounds per game while shooting an astounding 60 percent from the field for the Indians. He would earn first team high school All-American status by Parade Magazine that year. However, those sparkling hoops credentials weren’t enough to hide the tarnished image Reggie carried around with him.
While a sophomore, Reggie had been arrested in upstate Michigan in the summer of 1959 for stealing a truck and was sentenced to probation. Reggie’s size (He was 6′ 11″ as a freshman) taught him that he could intimidate adults on the streets, let alone kids in the hall. If Reggie wanted your lunch money, or your car keys, Reggie got ‘em. He didn’t even need a weapon. His most often used tactic was to simply grab his prey by the shoulders and lift them several inches off the ground.
In 1960, when Reggie was 18, he was arrested for the charge of having “carnal knowledge” of a minor in Detroit. According to court records, the victim was a 15-year-old named Jean. During his trial for statutory rape, Harding admitted to the encounter but claimed it was a consensual act. At the time, Reggie Harding was ranked as the best prep player in the state and he was acquitted. That same year, Reggie allegedly raped a 17-year-old Detroit girl named Florence Glenda Chapman, better known as Flo Ballard of the Motown super-group The Supremes.
In 1958, Florence Ballard was a junior high school student living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects in Detroit. There she met future singing partner Mary Wilson during a middle-school talent show and they became friends. Named “Blondie” and “Flo” by family and friends, Ballard attended Northeastern High School. Wilson soon enlisted another neighbor, Diana Ross, then going by “Diane” for their group named “The Primettes.” The group performed at talent showcases and at school parties before auditioning for Motown Records in 1960. Berry Gordy, head of Motown, felt the girls were too young and inexperienced and encouraged them to return after they graduated from high school. Flo dropped out of high school while her group-mates graduated.
In the summer of 1960, just weeks after meeting Berry Gordy, Flo went to a sock hop at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom. She had attended with her brother Billy, but they accidentally lost track of each other in the crowded dance hall. She began to walk home in the dark but accepted a ride home from a young man whom she thought she recognized from the newspapers, a local high-school basketball player. According to her friends and family, that man was Reggie Harding. Instead of being driven home, Ballard was taken north of Detroit to an empty parking lot off Woodward Ave. and Cantfield Blvd. where Reggie raped her at knife point.
For the next several weeks, Ballard secluded herself in her room, away from friends and family. She even hid from her bewildered band mates when they came to call. Eventually, Ballard told Wilson and Ross what happened to her. Although the girls were sympathetic, they were puzzled by Ballard’s subsequent behavior; she had always been strong and resilient, but now her personality had changed. Wilson described her friend Flo as a “generally happy if somewhat mischievous and sassy teenager.” Now she was sullen and withdrawn, prone to sudden rages and arguments with no explanation. One thing didn’t change for Flo though — she never mentioned the rape again.
The girls continued working after the assault with Florence as the group’s original lead vocalist and Diana and Mary singing lead on alternating songs. Despite Berry Gordy’s reluctance to work with underage girls and admonition to come back after their high school graduation, the group persisted on getting signed to Motown by sitting on the steps of Motown’s Hitsville USA building and flirting with Motown’s male artists and staffers as they came and went. When a staff producer would come outside looking for people to provide background vocals or handclaps, the girls were the first to volunteer. In January 1961, Gordy agreed to sign The Primettes on the condition they change their name. Flo Ballard chose the name “The Supremes.” Gordy agreed to sign them under that new name on January 15, 1961.
The group struggled in their early years with the label, releasing eight singles that failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100, giving them the nickname the “no-hit Supremes.” During this period, they provided background vocals for established Motown acts such as Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells. In the spring of 1964, the group released “Where Did Our Love Go,” which became their first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, paving the way for ten number-one hits recorded by Ross, Ballard and Wilson between 1964 and 1967.
According to Mary, Florence’s vocals were so loud that she was made to stand 17 feet away from her microphone during recording sessions. Florence’s voice (which went up three octaves) was often described as “soulful, big, rich and commanding,” ranging from deep contralto to operatic soprano. Flo was known for her trademark onstage candor (which included telling jokes), she became popular with audiences and most of the jokes were in response to Diana Ross’ comments. As Flo’s jokes became more frequent, Miss Ross was not amused. Florence acknowledged the widening gap between the trio when she told an interviewer that she, Diana and Mary now had their own hotel rooms unlike in the past when they all shared one room. To combat these issues and silence those demons from her past, Florence turned to alcohol which resulted in constant arguments with Mary and Diana. Flo’s shot clock was winding down.
Eerily, Reggie Harding’s rise in pro basketball paralleled Flo Ballard’s rise in the music industry. Reggie was signing with the hometown Pistons at the same time Flo was signing with the hometown Motown records. By 1967-68 while Reggie was struggling with the Bulls, Flo was struggling with The Supremes. As Reggie missed practices and plane rides, Flo missed rehearsals and performances. By March of 1968, Reggie was out of pro basketball and Flo had left The Supremes. Both became addicts; Harding to heroin, Ballard to alcohol. By 1972 Harding was dead and Ballard was on a slow march towards an early grave.
Mary Wilson would later attribute Ballard’s self-destructive behavior to the rape by Reggie Harding when she was a teenager. Ballard’s adult personality had turned to cynicism, pessimism and fear or mistrust of others. After Harding’s murder vacated the headlines, newspapers revealed that former Supreme Flo Ballard, with three children and no career, had now applied for public welfare relief. As a member of The Supremes, Flo sang on 16 top-40 singles (including 10 number-one hit songs). In January of 1969, Florence performed at one of President Richard Nixon’s inaugural galas. Two years later, Flo’s home was foreclosed and she was an alcoholic. Florence Ballard died at 10:05 a.m. on February 22, 1976; her official cause of death, following years of alcoholism and mental stress, was coronary thrombosis, a.k.a. a heart attack. She was only 32 years old. Florence is buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery located in Warren, Michigan. Florence Ballard’s grave is just a short walk from Reggie Harding’s.

Reggie Harding: ABA Pacers’ 1st 7-Footer, Part 1

Al Hunter — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:08:48 +0000

The Indiana Pacers are celebrating the 59th anniversary of the franchise’s start in the old ABA. It was about this time of year a half century ago that the Pacers signed one of the most infamous names to ever blot the roster — a 7-foot tall high school star from Detroit, Michigan who certainly became more famous for what he did off the court than for we he did on it.
Reggie Harding was the very first high-school basketball player drafted by the NBA. He graduated from Detroit’s Eastern High School in 1960 (re-named Martin Luther King High in 1968). The basketball talent coming out of Detroit in the 60s was astonishing. The Motor City hoops alumni back in the day included Spencer Haywood, John Brisker, Archie Clark, Dave DeBuschere, George Gervin, Ralph Simpson, and Mel Daniels to name but a few. Harding barely scraped by academically, so college was out of the question. He played briefly at a prep school in Nashville followed by two seasons on Midwest League teams in Toledo, Ohio and Holland, Michigan.
Unlike today, 7-footers were rare in 60s, and much prized by NBA teams hoping to clog the lane and blunt the likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. In 1963, the Pistons desperately needed a big man, so they drafted Reggie in the sixth round with the 48th overall pick, making him the first player ever drafted who hadn’t played in college. Harding made his NBA debut with the Pistons in the 1963-1964 season, joining the team late in the year because of a suspension on gun charges.
He played 39 games that year, averaging 11.0 ppg and 10.5 rpg. The next season, Harding averaged 34.6 minutes in 78 games and scored 12.0 ppg while pulling down 11.6 rpg for a Pistons team that finished fourth in the Western Division. When Harding joined the Pistons as a rookie in 1963, he roomed on the road with veteran 6’9” power forward Ray Scott. During an 11-year career in the NBA and ABA, Scott played for the Pistons, Baltimore Bullets, and Virginia Squires. Scott coached the Pistons from 1972 to 1976 and in 1974, he was named NBA Coach of the Year, the first African-American to be so honored. Scott was an intellectual who favored books about the civil rights struggle in America.
In 1965, Reggie Harding noticed that Scott was reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X co-written by Alex Haley and asked to read it after he finished. Turns out Reggie would have plenty of time to read it since he was suspended for the entire 1965-66 season (most likely due to ongoing gun charges because Reggie was never far from a gun). The book had a profound affect on Reggie and his views on life became more serious and his behavior more demonstrative. It didn’t help his game much though as Reggie averaged only 18.5 minutes per game during the next season, recording 6.1 rebounds and 5.5 points per game. The Pistons traded him to the Chicago Bulls for a third-round draft pick in 1967 where he lasted only 14 games. In four seasons with the Pistons and Chicago Bulls, Harding averaged 9.0 points and 9.1 rebounds per game.
It was common knowledge by all who knew him that Reggie carried a gun in his gym bag wherever he went. He was known for finishing practice and leaving without showering, pausing only to towel the sweat and spin the cylinder on his revolver. Once while playing in Detroit, Harding was said to have shot at teammate (and former Purdue All-American) Terry Dischinger’s feet to make him “dance.” During his brief tenure with the Bulls, Reggie often played one-on-one with Bulls star Flynn Robinson. Flynn would routinely beat him and Reggie would threaten to pistol-whip him. Flynn was Reggie’s roommate and recalled once being startled awake in the pitch dark to find Reggie pointing a gun at him. Flynn was averaging 16 points per game, Reggie less than 5, so it isn’t hard to figure out what happened next.
During a West Coast road trip, Harding was called home for his mother’s funeral. For the next 10 days, the Bulls didn’t hear from him. Finally he returned, saying that he had been appointed executor of his mother’s estate and needed the extra time away. A few days later, the Bulls placed Reggie Harding on waivers. Then the Pacers came calling.
During that first ABA season, the Pacers started out well, going 18-7 but started to lose ground to the rest of the league by mid-season. Bob Netolicky, a 6’9” star from Drake University, was holding down the center spot. Despite his prodigious vertical leaping ability, Neto’s game was better suited for the forward slot and with about 30 games to go, Neto caught the mumps. So the Pacers saw an opportunity when the Bulls handed Harding his walking papers. Pacers GM Mike Storen and team co-founder Dick Tinkham met Harding at the airport at 5 a.m. The duo was due to board a plane with the team for an away game at 9:30.
Reggie Harding sat down with the Pacers’ duo in an airport coffee shop booth and listened disinterestedly until the subject of money came up. The Pacers reps explained that since there was less than half the season left, the team would pay Reggie $10,000 to sign. Reggie scoffed, saying that if they signed him the Pacers were guaranteed to win the Championship. Reggie replied, “They can talk about black power and white power. I believe in green power: money, man, money.” Reggie countered with a bottom line figure of $15,000. Tinkham, true to his shrewd reputation, offered $300 per game, adding that if what Reggie said was true, the Pacers had 30 games left in the season and another 20 in the post season — $300 for 50 games adds up to Reggie’s desired number. Reggie signed and dressed for that night’s game. The deal, like Tinkham himself, became a Pacer’s legend,
Harding was a problem from the start, beginning with his refusal to wear a suit and tie on the plane to the game. Instead he wore his uniform. From there, Reggie skipped practices, arrived late for team flights and once requested leave from the team saying he had to go to his daughter’s funeral. Problem was, Reggie didn’t have a daughter. Perhaps the most famous Reggie Harding Pacers story comes from Kokomo prep star and I.U. two-time All-American Jimmy Rayl. While rooming with Reggie on the road one night, Rayl was asleep in the darkened room. He heard the door open and saw the silhouette of his 7-foot roomie walk through the door. Moments later, Reggie clicked the light on, Rayl opened his eyes and found he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Reggie accused Rayl of being a racist, which Jimmy is not, and after a long conversation, Reggie put his gun down. Jimmy Rayl slept in the lobby that night.
The Pacers finished the season 38-40 and played just three postseason games; losing each game by double digits to Connie Hawkins’ eventual ABA champion Pittsburgh Pipers team. Reggie’s game total didn’t really matter because between the fines for missed practices, suspensions and arriving late for flights, Harding ended up owing the Pacers $400. During that abbreviated 1967–68 season with the ABA Pacers, Harding averaged 13.4 points and 13.4 rebounds in 25 games. Obviously, Reggie Harding did have occasional flashes of brilliance. The Pacers’ first triple-double came courtesy of Reggie Harding when he had 30 points and 22 rebounds on March 14 against Mel Daniels and his Minnesota Muskies. Although blocked shot stats were not kept back then, the newspaper account of the game stated Harding “pounded at least 10 shots back at the stunned Muskies.” His capstone for his Pacers career came when, during a television interview, Reggie threatened to shoot Pacers’ general manager Mike Storen.
Reggie Harding’s once promising pro career was done by the time he was 26. With no other marketable skills, Harding returned to small time cons and petty larceny on the mean streets of Detroit. He quickly fell in with the wrong crowd. The sad after-basketball life of Reggie Harding is perhaps best exemplified by one oft-repeated story. Reggie walked into a neighborhood establishment (described variously as either a liquor store or gas station) with a nylon stocking over his head, brandishing a gun and demanding money. The clerk took one look at the 7-footer and reportedly said, “I know that’s you, Reggie,” to which Harding replied, “It ain’t me, man. Shut up and give me the money!” Legend has it that Harding robbed that same gas station in his own Detroit neighborhood a total of three times.
Reggie Harding’s post-basketball career was plagued by a number of personal problems. He spent time in jail and often struggled with drug addictions. But he was turning his life around. He had kicked his heroin addiction, was jogging and playing basketball every day and talking to friends about an NBA comeback. He was scheduled to start a new job in the fall. Reggie had been raised by foster parents but had recently reconnected with his mother, Lilie Mae Thomas. In August of 1972, Lillie Mae was shot and killed by her husband. Witnesses remembered Reggie standing at his mother’s graveside and telling the preacher how he wanted to be buried.
On September 2, 1972, Harding was standing on the corner of Parkview and Kercheval talking to a couple of girls. A car pulled up and parked nearby. Twenty-six-year-old Carl Scott, a former friend of Reggie’s, stepped out, walked up and pointed a gun at the former NBA player. Reggie thought he was joking (he’d just taken Scott to church with him the Sunday previous) and said, “If you shoot me, shoot me in the head. I don’t want to feel no pain.” On his way down to the ground, Reggie cried out, “Why? Why? Man you shot me.” Reggie Harding died on the litter strewn sidewalks he had grown up on. A warrant for First Degree Murder was issued for Carl Scott but the outcome of charges, if ever brought, are unknown.
Reggie Harding was dead at the age of 30, a bullet through his skull and brain. Mike Storen, the Pacers’ General Manager who Reggie had threatened to shoot four years before, was one of only three white people to attend the funeral. When the funeral party arrived at the Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church, it became apparent that the 7-foot tall Harding’s grave, like his life, was too short. The large casket had to be buried at an angle in the plot. Reggie’s body was laid to rest near the burned out shell of the old Eastern High School building where Reggie gained fame as a prep star. Seems that, even in death, Reggie Harding couldn’t catch a break.

Next week, In part II of this story, Reggie Harding’s other connection to Motown.

The Father of Notre Dame football and Mother’s Day

Al Hunter — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:08:33 +0000

Did you know that the “Mother’s Day” national holiday is connected to Indianapolis, Notre Dame Football and Monument Circle? Although others may claim to have started Mother’s Day, it was Frank E. Hering, former Notre Dame Football coach, who created the holiday. While Frank Hering’s name has been dwarfed by the shadows of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz, it cannot be denied that he had a profound influence at Notre Dame — and around the country. Hering is considered to be the grandfather of Notre Dame Football, the father of Mother’s Day and the guardian of the dispossessed.
Hering made the first known public plea for “a national day to honor our mothers” in 1904 at a ceremony in the old English Hotel on Monument Circle. The English Opera House was demolished to make room for the J. C. Penney Building which became home to Blue Cross-Blue Shield and headquarters for Wellpoint.
Hering, Notre Dame’s first full-time football coach and editor of the Fraternal Order of Eagles magazine, was a principal speaker at a convention of the F.O.E. gathering at the English Hotel and Opera House. The event was commemorated by the Eagles organization with a plaque that read: “On this site, Sunday February 7, 1904, the first known public plea for a nation-wide observance of Mothers’ Day was made by Frank E. Hering, teacher, orator, humanitarian, in commemoration of Mothers’ Day and in honor of its beloved founder the Fraternal Order of Eagles erects this tablet May 10, 1931.” Later Blue Cross-Blue Shield had the Fraternal Order of Eagles remove the monument, and it now rests in the clubhouse of Indianapolis Aerie #211 at 4220 East 10th Street.
In 1925, the “Society of War Mothers” invited Hering to participate in a special Mother’s Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. There, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before a large audience that included many congressmen and senators, Hering was introduced as “the Father of Mother’s Day.” But that was over 21 years after Hering’s first public plea, and 11 years after President Woodrow Wilson officially made Mother’s Day the second Sunday in May.
The idea first occurred to Hering while he was still a faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Walking into a classroom of a fellow instructor, Hering watched as his colleague distributed penny postcards to his students. They addressed the cards and began to scribble messages on them. “What are they writing?” asked Hering of his fellow teacher. “Anything at all as long as it is to their mothers,” replied his colleague. A light bulb went on in Frank Hering’s head and the idea for a special day to provide formal recognition of mothers was born.
Hering became the F.O.E.’s “Grand Worthy President” in 1909 and began to travel across the country speaking to clubs, making his plea for a national Mother’s Day a standard feature of his appearances at Eagle functions and occasions. In 1912, he recommended that his beloved Eagles hold Mother’s Day exercises “on any Sunday during the year.” Approval was swift, and the F.O.E. was the first to begin a tradition of Mother’s Day. Legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress by 1914, requesting a presidential proclamation making the second Sunday in May the official date for the holiday. President Woodrow Wilson went along with the idea, and May 10, 1914 became the first official Mother’s Day.
Hering’s dream of a national holiday honoring mothers won widespread acceptance all over the country and several of the groups which had been late in joining the Mother’s Day parade suddenly tried to take credit for the whole idea. The misinformation prompted the Society Of American War Mothers to conduct their own impartial investigation into the matter. After sifting through the divergent claims, the group’s findings were published in the February 1925 issue of its national magazine.
“We have been thoroughly convinced by documented evidence,” it said in the two page article, “that the inspiration for the present Mother’s Day came from a man — Frank E. Hering of South Bend, Indiana — and that the medium through which he carried his campaign over the number of years was the Fraternal Order of Eagles.” The article went on to trace the holiday’s origins to Hering’s first public talks on the subject in 1904 and 1905, and found that “Mr. Hering’s activities and addresses in favor of Mother’s Day antedated by three years, the first observance of Mother’s Day in the city of Philadelphia, which was in May 1908.” So ended the controversy.

The Paramount Music Palace

Al Hunter — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:08:17 +0000

While rummaging through a couple old boxes the other day I ran across a couple things that activated the launch sequence of my way back machine. One was a brochure and the other an old pinback button. Both were from the old Paramount Music Palace once located 7560 Old Trails Road; a fancy term for Washington Street. The brochure pictures a movie marquee sign hovering above an old fashioned pipe organ and the pin features a distinctly Pac-Man like design picturing that same organ. Not just any organ, the Mighty Wurlitzer organ.
In case you don’t remember, the Paramount Music Palace (a.k.a. the Paramount Pizza Palace) was a massive Art Deco theatre building located at the southwest quarter of the Washington Street and I-465 interchange. The Palace operated on Indy’s eastside from 1979 to 1995 and although the official name was the Paramount Music Palace Family Pizza Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlour, it wasn’t about the food. Make no mistake, it was about the music flowing out of that Mighty Wurlitzer.
Officially, the organ was an 4/42, meaning it had four keyboards and 42 sets of pipes, making it one of the largest organs in the United States. It was made by the Cincinnati, Ohio based Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. Wurlitzer originally imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the U.S. The company parlayed exclusive defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military into one of the largest suppliers of musical equipment in the country. In time, Wurlitzer began manufacturing pianos which quickly expanded to band organs, nickelodeons and theatre organs. The most famous instruments Wurlitzer ever built were its pipe organs (produced from 1914 until 1943). They were installed in theatres, homes, churches, and other venues all across the country.
The Mighty Wurlitzer was the brainchild of Englishman Robert Hope-Jones, who created an organ that functioned as a “one man orchestra” to accompany silent movies. Hope-Jones’ had two big ideas: That a pipe organ should be able to imitate the instruments of an orchestra and that the console should be detachable from the organ. Hope-Jones’ organ innovations included stop-keys instead of draw-knobs and high wind pressures of 10″–50″ designed to imitate orchestral instruments. Theatre organs were in high demand during the “silent movie era” (1894–1929). The Mighty Wurlitzer perfectly complimented silent movie houses, allowing a single organist to function as a one person orchestra complete with percussion and sound effects.
Between 1887 and 1911 Hope-Jones’ company produced 246 organs, only a handful of which survive. In 1914, shortly after merging with the Wurlitzer company, 55-year-old Hope-Jones committed suicide by inhaling gas fumes in a hotel in Rochester, New York. He left a rambling incoherent suicide note and the coroner declared his death as “suicide while insane.” Wurlitzer however, marched on. From 1914 to 1942, Wurlitzer built and sold over 2,243 pipe organs all over the world: 30 times the rate of Hope-Jones company, and more theatre organs than the rest of the theatre organ manufacturers combined. The largest Wurlitzer organ ever built is the four-manual/58-rank (set of pipes) instrument at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The Mighty Wurlitzer that once graced the south side of the Historic National Road was originally the property of the Paramount Theatre, an Art Deco masterpiece in Oakland, California. When it was built in 1931, at a price of $20,000 (Roughly $300,000 today), it was the largest multi-purpose theater on the West Coast, seating 3,476. However, Oakland’s Paramount opened in 1931 during the Great Depression some four years after the release of The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture. So rather than accompany the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino on the big screen, the Paramount organ, called the Publix I (Opus 2164), led a very brief, under-utilized life as a solo performer. The Paramount opened and closed during the succeeding decades.
By the late 1950s, The Mighty Wurlitzer was removed and placed in cold storage. In 1960, it was sold to Edward and Steve Restivo who installed it as the focal point of Ken’s Melody Inn, Pizza and Pipes in Los Altos, California, where it stayed for nearly two decades until being purchased for use at Indianapolis’ Paramount Music Palace. Prior to installation, the pipe organ was sent to the Crome Organ Company in Los Angeles where it was enlarged and rebuilt into the gilded Art Deco beauty most patrons of the Music Palace remember to this day.
Virtually anyone who grew up in Indianapolis in the 1980s has at least a vague recollection of the Paramount Music Palace. Despite it’s lofty name, the palace was not built for comfort. Patrons were seated uncomfortably on benches, often elbow-to-elbow with total strangers. On long picnic style tables, diners were served sparsely topped pizza ($14.95 for the 12 slice large Palace Combo pizza) and high school cafeteria quality lasagna at $5.15 a pop. You could get beer, wine and ice cream too. It didn’t take long to realize that you were here for the music, not the food.
For those of us who experienced it firsthand, over two decades after the establishment closed, some memories remain crystal clear. As mentioned above, the pin I found had a Pac-Man game grid design and the slogan “I survived the line at PMP.” That is a misnomer because there were actually TWO lines at PMP. After navigating the snakelike line to enter the place (which often began well outside the building) you then found yourself in another line to order the pizza. All the while, patrons inched along the interior wall nervously hoping that they would not miss the start of the show.
And what a show it was. The giant 14-ton black and gold organ rose from a pit and shot bubbles into the air on it’s ascent. Houselights dimmed and a spotlight lit up the Mighty Wurlitzer and its keyboard captain manning the impressive “waterfall” style console. A wall of glass shutters and dozens of instruments — marimbas, xylophones, a full horn section — whirred into action linked by 26 miles of wires. The music exploded immediately; surrounding the pizza munching, soda pop swigging, beer sipping patrons with orchestral sounds and automated instruments that chimed in at the organist’s practiced touch. With the subtle tilt of a floor pedal, the organist could produce an almost sub-sonic bass note that would today probably set off every car alarm in the massive PMP parking lot. The largest of the PMP’s pipes was 16 feet high and 14 inches in diameter and it screamed low with six w’s.
The music, an eclectic mix of patriotic standards and pop songs, literally rattled the plates on the tables. On any given night, the Palace was filled to the rafters with families, church groups, office parties and scores upon scores of birthday parties. The Palace was open on weekdays 11:00 to 2:00 for lunch, closed from 2:00 to 5:30 before reopening for dinner until 11:00 p.m. They closed on Monday evenings and only stayed open until 9:00 on Sundays. No video or audio recordings were allowed but a few bootleg performances can still be found on YouTube.
During the 16 years of the Paramount Music Palace’s existence, many noteworthy musicians tickled the ivories of that Mighty Wurlitzer, not the least of which was Donna Parker, who became the first Official Organist for the Los Angeles Dodgers at age 16 and was the first featured organist at the PMP at it’s grand opening in January of 1979. She achieved pop culture immortality by performing the Star Wars theme on the Mighty Wurlitzer during a CBS morning news appearance in December of 1980.
Other keymasters included Bill Vlasak, who recorded six albums in the Paramount Music Palace, 7-year old Martin Ellis who went on the become the Hilbert Circle Theatre house organist, Ohioan Clark Wilson, and Patti Davidson of Beech Grove. Patti was so proud of her service at the Palace that she insisted the information be placed in her 2013 obituary.
For most people, they had never seen anything like the Mighty Wurlitzer. For some, hearing that pipe organ, watching the organist at the helm and seeing the faces of those astonished guests sparked a life long interest in music. Princeton University Chapel organist Eric Plutz and International concert organist Jelani Eddington both credit a childhood visit to the Paramount Music Palace for launching their careers.

The Great One

Al Hunter — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:08:33 +0000

Jackie Gleason, alongside Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Hoosier Red Skelton, dominated, and to some degree invented, early television. An accomplished actor, writer, composer, orchestra leader and comedian, Gleason was truly the last of the big spenders. Always meticulously dressed with a flower in his lapel, Gleason was a consummate professional. He was quick with a story, even quicker with a comeback and a lot deeper than he looked. Gleason devoured books the same way he devoured steaks. Raised an Irish Catholic, Gleason was not devout by any means, but he could debate religion competently with theologians from all fields.
Physically, comedically and even mythically, he was larger than life. He dressed extravagantly, smoked and drank to excess, picked up every tab and exploited every luxury he could enjoy. Gleason knew the potential consequences to his health — physically and financially — he just didn’t care. The truth is, if you’d grown up as Jackie did, you too may not have cared much about consequences.
Gleason’s only brother died when Jackie was three years old and his dad abandoned the family five years later. His mother died when Jackie was still a teenager and he never graduated from high school. All that combined to drive Jackie Gleason’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Religion, spirituality, and questions of the unknown would haunt Jackie Gleason for the rest of his life. And oh, what a life it was!
Jackie was the talk of show business in 1955 when his $11 million deal with Buick and CBS to make two years of The Honeymooners (78 episodes that would run over 39 weeks) was announced. One of the perks Gleason received from CBS was the network’s picking up the tab for his Peekskill, New York Round Rock Hill mansion. Set atop a hill on six acres, the complex was a post-modern shrine to all things round. Gleason planned the design of the house for two years; it was completed in 1959.
The roundness continued on the interior with round rugs, round chairs, round couches, round beds. Everything was round, except the pool table of course. The donut-shaped main floor — which doubled as his broadcasting studio — featured a 40-foot-tall, three-headed round marble fireplace suspended from the center of the room. The property included a guest house and a round storage building that looked exactly like a UFO. (Google it and see for yourself.) The precious wood interior required custom crafting by Swedish carpenters who were brought to the U.S. for a year to work on the house. It also contained a basement disco and one of the very first in-home video projection systems. Ironically, despite state-of-the-art design work, the house was continuously plagued with a leaky wooden roof.
Gleason was greatly interested in the paranormal , buying and reading numerous books on the topic, as well as on parapsychology and UFOs. Gleason purportedly built the round house to acknowledge his interest in UFOs. He called the house “The Mother Ship” and referred to the garage as the “Scout Ship.” He also claimed a spiritualist had once told him that ghosts could not hide in corners and, leaky roof notwithstanding, the house had no corners. Gleason rarely spoke about his interest in ghosts mostly because he was too busy pursuing his interest in UFOs. During the 1950s he was a semi-regular guest on a paranormal-themed overnight radio show hosted by John Nebel on New York City’s WOR radio.
Gleason was a well known insomniac; a habit developed during his nightclub days. He often stayed up all night reading (or re-reading) some of the hundreds of UFO and paranormal phenomena volumes in his library. Nebel’s show was popular among New York’s night-owls and early risers. Unidentified flying objects were discussed almost daily, alongside topics like voodoo, witchcraft, parapsychology, hypnotism, conspiracy theories, and ghosts. Nebel’s radio show is unique in that it was the first to use a 7-second tape delay system, giving engineers a chance to edit unacceptable language before it was broadcast — perhaps owing more to the colorful listeners phoning in than to Nebel’s personal ingenuity. When Nebel died in 1978, his time slot was taken over by Larry King.
Jackie was a frequent show guest. On one show, Gleason famously offered $100,000 to anyone who could offer physical proof of aliens visiting Earth. Gleason later upped the amount to $1 million. The reward was never claimed. Gleason wrote the introduction to Donald Bain’s biography of Nebel. Jackie wrote: “Why is [Nebel] so strangely entertaining?… because the best entertainment is entertainment that opens your mind and tells you the world is bigger than you thought it was.”
He was a subscriber to the newsletter of the group Just Cause (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) and made no attempt to hide his fascination on the subject of UFOs. Gleason spent small fortunes on everything from financing psychic research to buying a sealed box said to contain actual ectoplasm, the spirit of life itself. He corresponded with everyone from back-alley mediums to serious researchers like J.B. Rhine of Duke University, treating them all pretty much the same way. All this is very interesting in a “Waiting for Godot” sort of way, but the capstone to Gleason’s interest in UFOs comes in an alleged meeting he had with President Richard Nixon in 1973 where Nixon took his pal Jackie to a secret location to look at the bodies of dead aliens.
By the time of the alleged meeting with the President, Gleason had sold the round house and relocated to Miami, in favor of a more conventional house on three large lots adjoining the country club of a Miami golf course. The 6,000-square-foot lakefront home (named Glea Manor by the Great One himself) featured 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. Besides the choice golf course location, the home included waterfalls, a sauna, a library and an exercise room. Nixon’s oft-used “Florida White House” Presidential retreat was located in Key Biscayne, a short drive from Gleason’s home. Rumors persist that aside from Nixon’s shared celebrity and love of golf, the unlikely duo shared an interest in UFOs.
What is known is that on February 19, 1973, according to White House records, the President met Jackie on the 18th green at the Inverness Golf and Country Club. The president had come to help to open a charity golf tournament run by Gleason. Jackie was a well-known supporter of the Republican party and a longtime Nixon ally.
Legend claims that Nixon returned to Florida in 1973 to show Jackie Gleason the alien bodies. Gleason’s second wife, Beverly McKittrick, stated that one night Gleason had returned home very shaken. She said that President Nixon had taken Jackie to a top secret area at Homestead Air Force Base where he had viewed the remains of small aliens. McKittrick related this story in an unpublished manuscript called “The Great One.” The story is unconfirmed and likely to remain so but it continues to fuel a fire among “Ufologists” to this day.
After his death, his large book collection was donated to the University of Miami library. The collection includes approximately 1,700 volumes of books, journals, proceedings, pamphlets, and publications in the field of parapsychology. The collection offers materials on such topics as witchcraft, folklore, extrasensory perception (ESP), unidentified flying objects (UFOs), reincarnation, mysticism, spiritualism, mental telepathy, the occult, clairvoyance, cosmology, demons, hypnosis, life after death, mediums, psychical research, voodooism, and ghosts.
The bulk of the ghost books in the Gleason collection are simply assemblages of ghost tales, both popular and personal. Some limit themselves to recounting the tales, while others seek to explain them, either by upholding their veracity or seeking to provide rational interpretations. Others represent a serious-minded and vigorous argument for the existence of ghosts. Others are more fanciful and tend to romanticize the idea of ghosts and occult beings. You can find the complete list of titles online.
But my favorite Jackie Gleason “leftover” story comes shortly after his death in 1987. When Jackie died, he apparently left two of the original “Ralph Kramden” bus driver uniforms he wore on The Honeymooners TV show hanging in the closet as a gift for whomever ended up with his beloved house. In 1999, Kramden’s 1955 bus driver’s uniform, consisting of a blue wool jacket with matching pants, fetched $64,100 at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City. What would Jackie have thought of that? Well, I think he would have gotten a giggle out of it. After all, the inscription on his Miami tomb sums it all up pretty nicely. It reads: “And away we go.”

The Lyric Theatre & Sinatra

Al Hunter — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:08:41 +0000

Located at 135 N. Illinois Street there once stood a theatre with as rich a pop-culture history as any in Indianapolis. When the Lyric Theatre opened in February of 1906, it was basically a room filled with about 200 folding chairs arranged in rows. A carbon arc light projector rested on a tripod in the rear of the theatre. Early projectors simply dumped the projected film into a basket on the floor. Projectors were hand cranked, and the projectionist could speed up or slow down the action on the screen by “over-cranking” or “under-cranking.”
The film stock itself was made from nitrocellulose, a chemical cousin to explosives used by the military in World War I. The highly flammable film and the extremely hot light source meant that fire was a very real threat. In fact, the incidence of projector-related fires over the first ten years of movie houses produced some of the worst tragedies in our country’s history. It was for this reason that six years later a larger 1,400 seat Lyric Theatre was built on the property.
The new Lyric was constructed by the Central Amusement Co. for $75.000, built by the Halstead-Moore Co. and designed by architect Herman L. Bass, who designed Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James A. Allison’s mansion, now on the campus of Marian University. This upgrade included fireproof materials inside and exterior walls of concrete, steel and artistic brick accented by white terra-cotta trim.
On April 20, 1919, the Lyric was again closed for remodeling, this design courtesy architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., a name that still resonates through town to this day. This facelift left only three original walls standing and created a new lobby on the south. The stage that originally faced west now faced south. It had its grand reopening on September 1, 1919.
The Lyric underwent its last major remodel in 1926, adding state-of-the art air conditioning and modern stage lighting systems. This remodel cost $185,000 and included construction of a new four-story building featuring a new main entrance, and a lobby with executive offices above.
The new Lyric, with its shiny marble and gold lobby lined with French mirrors and six French crystal chandeliers, was considered to be one of the finest theaters in Indiana. Three hundred more seats were added as was a new basement that housed rehearsal areas and dressing rooms named for cities on its doors. A new marquee was added above the front door. At 10 feet high, 50 feet long and 16 feet deep, it held up to 440 letters and was said to be the largest of its kind in the state. The following year, a new Marr-Colton pipe organ was added at a cost of $30,000, which, like the marquee, was the largest in the state.
The Lyric began life showing films scored with music provided by live musicians. Then came vaudeville, talkies and finally big screen epics. World War I led to the Roaring Twenties, then to the Great Depression and into the gangster era — and Hoosier outlaw roots extended to the doorway of the Lyric itself. The Lyric survived the Depression by featuring an eclectic mix of movies, vaudeville acts, stage shows and live musicals.
A week after the death of Hoosier Public Enemy # 1 John Dillinger on July 2, 1934, his family signed a 5-month vaudeville contract at the Lyric theatre that expired on New Years Eve. Crowds mobbed the theatre to hear stories from, and ask questions of, John Dillinger, Sr. about his famous outlaw son. The 15-minute show was billed as “Crime doesn’t pay” despite the fact that it cost patrons an extra 15 cents to see it. Dillinger Sr. and his sister Audrey fielded questions from the crowd. The show traveled to the Great Lakes, Texas Centennial and San Diego Expositions and the Chicago World’s Fair, which gangster Dillinger had famously visited while alive. Rumor persists that the Lyric was also a favorite hangout for John Dillinger. After all, everyone knows that Dillinger died outside of a Chicago movie theatre.
Edgar Bergen (only weeks before he introduced his “dummy” Charlie McCarthy) played the Lyric in 1934 in a vaudeville act that included a trio of sisters calling themselves the “Queens of Harmony” who later became known as The Andrews Sisters. Red Skelton was a 1930s performer at the Lyric known as “The Canadian Comic” despite the fact that he was a Hoosier born in Vincennes. Hoagy Carmichael was a regular. The standard 1930s Era Lyric theatre contract awarded “Fifty percent (50%) of gross receipts after first dollar.” Ticket prices in 1936 were “25 cents to 6 p.m.- 40 cents on lower floor at night and 30 cents in balcony week days, and Saturday. On Sunday, 30 cents in balcony and 40 cents on lower floor all day.”
The Lyric’s next step towards pop culture immortality came on February 2, 1940 when the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra came to town. Dorsey began his career in a Big Band with his brother Jimmy in the late 1920s. That band also included Glenn Miller. Dorsey had a reputation for being a micromanaging perfectionist with a volatile temper. He often fired musicians based on his mood, only to rehire them a short time later. Dorsey had a well-deserved reputation for raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician or arranger, he thought nothing of taking over their contracts and careers.
In November 1939 a relatively unknown “skinny kid with big ears” from Hoboken, New Jersey signed on as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Frank Sinatra signed a contract with Dorsey for $125 a week at Palmer House in Chicago, where Ole Blue Eyes was appearing with the Harry James Orchestra. Mysteriously, but not unsurprisingly, Harry James agreed to release Sinatra from his contract — an event that would come back to haunt Dorsey a couple years later.
Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and quickly became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey’s mannerisms and often claimed that he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. He made Dorsey the godfather of his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that “The only two people I’ve ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey”.
From February 2-8, 1940, when the Dorsey band opened at the Lyric, the theater’s ad in the Indianapolis Star listed Tommy’s name in inch-high letters. At the bottom, in 1/8-inch type, was a listing for “Frank Sinatra, Romantic Virtuoso.” The songs he sang during that week of shows on the eve of World War II are lost to the pages of history. But we do know that Frank Sinatra made 80 recordings in 2 years with the Dorsey band.
By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in Billboard and Down Beat magazines, becoming the world’s first rock star. His appeal to bobby-soxers created pop music and opened up a whole new market for record companies, which had been marketing primarily to adults. The phenomenon would become officially known as “Sinatramania.” Manic female fans often wrote Sinatra’s song titles on their clothing, bribed hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and chased the young star, often stealing clothing he was wearing, usually his bow-tie.
By 1942, Sinatra believed he needed to go solo, with an insatiable desire to compete with Bing Crosby, his childhood idol. Sinatra grew up with a picture of Crosby in his bedroom, and in 1935 young Frankie met his idol briefly backstage at a Newark club. Within a decade, Sinatra would be contending for Crosby’s throne. A series of appearances at New York’s Paramount Theatre in December 1942 established Sinatra as the hot new star. When Sinatra sang, young girls in the audience swooned, screaming so loud that it drowned out the orchestra. The girls never swooned and screamed when Bing Crosby sang.
Sinatra decided early not merely to imitate Crosby, but to develop his own style. In a 1965 article, Sinatra explained: “When I started singing in the mid-1930s everybody was trying to copy the Crosby style — the casual kind of raspy sound in the throat. Bing was on top, and a bunch of us … were trying to break in. It occurred to me that maybe the world didn’t need another Crosby. I decided to experiment a little and come up with something different.”
Frank’s singing evoked frailty, innocence and vulnerability and inflamed the passions of his young female fans. Some older listeners, however, rejected Sinatra’s gentle sighing, moaning and cooing as not real singing. Crosby joked: “Frank Sinatra is the kind of singer who comes along once in a lifetime — but why did it have to be my lifetime!”
Sinatra was hamstrung by his contract with the Dorsey band, which gave Dorsey 43 percent of Frank’s lifetime earnings in the entertainment industry. On September 3, 1942, Dorsey famously bid farewell to Sinatra by telling Frankie, “I hope you fall on your ass.” Rumors began spreading in newspapers that Sinatra’s mobster godfather, Willie Moretti, coerced Dorsey to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars by holding a gun to Tommy’s head and telling him that “either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.” Apparently, Sinatra made him an “offer he could not refuse.” Yes, that famous scene in the Godfather is based on this encounter.
Dorsey died in 1956, but not before telling the press this of his one time protege: “He’s the most fascinating man in the world, but don’t put your hand in the cage.” Regardless of the way it ended between the duo, it all began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis.
If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.