- Welcome to my lovely wife Paulette and my cousins and my brother Steve over there came to see us. I
- left some sheets on the paper on all the tables and it lists all the upcoming programs barring cancellations
- of course that happens sometimes. Many thanks to the American Legion for allowing us to have these programs.
- We've been partners in presenting and preserving local history for over 13 years now.
- And thanks so much to the wait staff and the kitchen staff. We do such a great job every time. Amanda
- is here again. She's got Misty helping her. Misty will be here from now on, I think, helping out. It's
- great that we have such excellent people to service. Please be generous. I would also like to thank
- Cats TV and Dave back there for recording our programs for over 10 years now.
- So we have a bunch of them on YouTube, over 100. Yeah, Dave Walters, the one that does the recording,
- he helped us set up the program today when we had a few problems. So he's doing double duty for us.
- And thanks to those who watch our YouTube programs, we like to put those out there so a lot of people
- can see them who can't attend and they are seen by thousands of people throughout over the country.
- The programs represented here are diverse. Some of these different subjects we've covered, and in my
- opinion, we're all helping preserve our local history. It's fun, but at the same time, very rewarding.
- How many new attendees today? Having some new people? If you want to leave your email addresses for
- us for our direct mailing list, feel free to leave them with me. George wanted me to tell you, George
- Carpenter, my old buddy from high school who helped set this place up, won't be able to do the sending
- out the announcements anymore.
- He's having a lot of physical problems, and he lives in Oklahoma now. So Steve Brewer has been doing
- some here in the past. We'll keep doing that for us in the future. He does a great job. And let's see.
- So right now, the director of the History Center, Daniel Schlegel, has a few words.
- All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm excited to be here again. We have lots of great things happening
- at the History Center. One of our volunteers, Penny Matheson, wrote a book about the Worley Mansion
- that was in Ellitsville. She just published it maybe a month ago. So I highly, highly doubt anyone's
- read it. It was at the Caffeinated Cook. So if you go there in Ellitsville, you might have a copy. But
- if you want to read a great story that Penny wrote with lots of historical photographs included,
- I have that for sale over here. And then Susan also very kindly gave me a heads up about one of the
- books she's going to be referencing throughout her presentation. And so I took that as a challenge to
- see how many of those we could sell. So I have a big stack of those over there. So if you are inspired
- by her, oh, you have one right here. She has one right here for me to show off.
- So if you are inspired after Susan's talk today, please come see me. We'll have these for sale. And
- then as usual, as a reminder, we have our garage sale extravaganza coming up in June. If you are doing
- spring cleaning between the storms or when you're bored and stuck inside from the rain, please come
- see me. I have more of these quarter sheets. I know a few people had questions. I finally dug them out
- of the suitcase, so I do have those out for you now.
- But please come see me, I'm happy to hand these out, or if you know of folks, I will give you extra
- copies to help hand out. And then our educator, Luke, cannot be here today, but we are doing another
- history walking tour. For anyone that has gone to our dearly departed tours in October, this is not
- a spooky tour like that. This is very family friendly, but it's called History in Bloom, a walkthrough
- history tour. It will be at Rose Hill Cemetery,
- on Saturday, May 16th. So I have some little flyers that have some more information for you. So please
- feel free, enjoy Susan's presentation. And then just I'll be right here to my left where I'm pointing,
- just beyond her setup. And I will be happy to be there to sell you some books or talk to you more about
- any of the stuff going on. And we have some amazing exhibits up. I had somebody the other day come to
- me at the History Center and say, oh, I was upstairs a few years ago. I don't need to go see anything
- up there. I saw it all.
- I will tell you, Michael Carter has been an awesome board member for us. He can vouch. We have a rotating
- cast of exhibits upstairs that are constantly changing. Hilary Fleck has done some amazing exhibits
- for us. And two or three years later, people will come back and say, oh, is that restaurant exhibit
- still upstairs? Unfortunately, no. It's popular, and she did a great job.
- but the exhibits are on rotation. They do have a limited lifespan. So think of them as limited edition
- engagements. So make sure to come out, visit us, see all the new exhibits, because there's a lot of
- new stuff going. I promise, it is well worth $2 unless you're a member, then it's free. So hopefully
- we'll see you at least over here at the table, if not downtown at the History Center. Thank you. Thanks, Daniel.
- turn it on. Now we get to today's program. A lot of us are townies here, I think. We all grew up in
- old neighborhoods in Bloomington. Me included on West Second Street. Susan grew up in a different
- neighborhood, and she's going to talk about that as well as some others.
- Take a few photos before I turn the lights down back there, so bear with us. And Susan has laryngitis,
- so listen real close. Keep it quiet in here. What? Okay. Sally? This is a brief announcement. Here,
- you can have this.
- Okay. Okay. Can everybody hear me? Because what I have to say is really important. My name is Sally
- Jones, and I'm here today with one of my childhood friends. Her name is Lynn Cochran. And Susan and
- I go way back, too. And there's a number of people in the room that I go way back with.
- I have grown up and lived in Bloomington my whole life and loved being here. When Lynn and I start,
- we get together for coffee or tea or lunch, you know, every month and we started talking about how things
- have changed in Bloomington so much since the time that we grew up. And we talked about how important
- we think it is to preserve those memories.
- But we didn't want to write a story about that. What we want to do is collect your stories, your memories
- of Bloomington in the 60s and 70s. For example, I'm going to write about my childhood home. I grew up
- on Eastside Drive near Maxwell Lane, and that home has great meaning for me.
- I've seen fireflies come up in my backyard in the summertime and riding my bike all over the neighborhood
- and knowing what the boundaries were. All of those are really important memories for me. But you could
- have a memory about growing up in Bloomington that has to do with a school. It may be school that isn't
- here anymore. It could be your first job. It could be out of business that you
- here anymore, or it could be a place that's still here and has changed quite a bit. But we really felt
- like people who have grown up in Bloomington in the 60s and 70s have wonderful, important stories to
- tell about our town, and they deserve to be shared and saved. We're working with Megan from the Monroe
- County History Center to collect these stories.
- collect these stories and then save them at the History Center and the Indiana Room at the Monroe County
- Library as a digital copy. If there's enough interest, we may end up printing a copy as a book, but
- we really feel like we all can tell the story of Bloomington during that time period much better than
- somebody who comes in and writes about it from the outside.
- What we've done is we printed up these invitations. We're very we're still very really back room here.
- This is Lynn and I getting together for coffee there. We have a Gmail address where you can communicate
- with us and my phone number. My phone number is also on the invitation and I invite you to text me or call me.
- if you have any questions or if you're interested, we would love to hear from you and we would love
- to add your story about Bloomington during the 60s and 70s to our collection of essays. Okay?
- As Mike said, my voice took a trip and hasn't come back yet.
- So turn up your hearing aids and I'll do my best to project as well as I can and apologize going into
- this. That was commercial number one. Here's commercial number two. Bloomington Restorations is doing
- a book on Daisy Garden. How many of you took classes from her? Yeah. They are very interested in hearing
- from you as well. Stories about Daisy. They'll be publishing a book
- in December. So once they get that all together, they need more stories. If you're interested, you contact
- Luanne at this number. And if you don't remember, just call and get in touch with Bloomington Restorations
- and you'll get to the right people. Okay, so over the backyard fence, a visit to historic communities
- and an exploration of neighborhoods
- with some random personal autobiographical. Now I'm not gonna read through all this, it's just sort
- of a thank you and a notation that in a presentation, one cannot really give all the citations. If there's
- anything in particular that you want a citation for, contact me personally and I'll give you that resource.
- Just too much to put into a presentation. But in particular,
- The Bryant Park History is a pamphlet that was published in 2010 by Mary Lou Mitchell and Jeanette Reichard.
- And it's available at the Monroe County History Center. You can go there and get a copy of it. And it
- has firsthand witnesses that inspired a lot of the stories I'm going to tell. I grew up there as well.
- Some of my neighborhood friends are here. Charlie Beaker even showed up. He grew up there, too. It's
- where I first met Charlie.
- And you may know him. Now he's famous in underwater archaeology. Who knew he grew up at the pool and
- became a scuba diver? So the background is really enhanced by the memories of Luanne, Mary Lou, and
- Dick Mitchell, who grew up right in the middle of the Bryant Park area. The name for this presentation
- is really inspired by Jenny Fiscus.
- How many of you grew up listening to WTTS, the radio? That was the place to be. Jenny was the person
- who told these stories. She told us what was happening in the community. Later, she wrote a column for
- the Herald Times. And she literally was my backyard neighbor when we lived at First and Washington.
- And that house that you see is my house on Dunn Street, when it still had trees.
- To get us started, I want to look at what is historic preservation. And I'm not going to read word for
- word, so these are up there for you just to kind of look at. But basically, in 1966, our country said,
- wait a minute. We're losing a lot. Let's find a way to save it. Let's find a way to safeguard our buildings.
- It happened when Penn Station got leveled in New York, just disappeared overnight.
- And from that, the groundswell said, we need something that will help us preserve our past. 1966, that
- law was passed, and it started a groundswell of preservation movement. And some of you have heard of
- the National Register of Historic Places. We've got a lot of places that are listed, and it's a very
- grueling process to go through to become listed.
- It doesn't just happen because you want it to. It happens because there's a lot of work that goes into
- proving that it's worthy. So I'm going to show you what worthy looks like. How many of you know these
- landmarks? Recognize anything? West Payton? Finkle Field House? And what's the thing down here on the
- left? That's a speedway.
- These are all national historic landmarks. And those get to be landmarks because the Secretary of the
- Interior says so. It's not the same process, but it's the same outcome. They're protected and for us
- to have and treasure. So what are historic neighborhoods and districts? It gets a little confusing.
- There's county, there's city, there's national state.
- I'm not going to go into all those details. I'm kind of going to skirt that. But in the background,
- understand what's going on is lots of people, lots of decisions, lots of paperwork. Now, this is from
- the City of Bloomington website and very verbosely discusses the fact that once you're listed, we're
- going to protect that property because you know why you're not always going to own it.
- somebody knew was going to come along. And we want to be sure that that next person, that next owner,
- and the community retain that history. So it's about preservation for the future. You may not realize
- it, but there are this many historic districts in Monroe County. Some of them you may recognize, and
- some of them you may not. If you want to know more about this, just Google
- County National Register and they'll all pop up. The Matthews Stone Company District is one where the
- Worthy Mansion that Daniel mentioned, that's within the Matthews Stone Company Historic District. It
- includes the mill and the grounds as well as the Worthy House. I know, in fact some of you may live
- in some of these areas now, but also
- There are Bloomington historic districts. They operate a little bit differently, and they're focused
- right here in Bloomington and approved through a local process. And once again, you'll know some of
- them. I love Restaurant Row is there. It's one of my favorites. And of course, Maple Heights is another
- one where I find very fascinating just to drive around and look at those houses and think about the people
- and lived there, raised their families there. It brings a whole other layer of interpretation to historic
- preservation, the people. Now the criteria are very detailed. It's written into federal code and into
- that law from 1966. So there's a whole layer of, it's gotta have significance.
- My daughter lives in North Carolina near Wilmington. And Wilmington, the houses have all these little
- plaques everywhere. And they say, this happened here, and this happened here. This is on the National
- Register. We drive by and see a house with no plaque. And she laughs, and she says, I guess nothing
- ever happened there. This is kind of what we're talking about. Something happens.
- everywhere. Those are the stories Sally and Lynn are collecting. Those are the stories that mean a lot
- to me. So in addition to all of these things, this focuses on the architecture. Now you may not know
- a Victorian from a Pennsylvania Dutch from a California bungalow. It doesn't matter. This is a list
- of the criteria that an individual
- The area goes through to document what happened, who built, what's there. And as all of this is assembled,
- an application is made in the terms that you start at the local level, gets approved by the state, and
- then the federal national park system approves the final national register nominations. That all happens
- over a long period of time.
- I know a lot of you have driven through the Maple Grove area. That is an actual rural historic district.
- And you'll see the signs, those little brown signs. That tells you, whoa, I'm there. But did you know
- that Maple Grove and Maple Grove, which is a very important 1800 transport route before the railroads
- up to the Gosport area,
- There are farmstead clusters, a former school, a church, cemetery, lots of my dry stack stone walls.
- 69 contributing homes and agricultural outbuildings. Eight other structures, which include the walls
- and the church and those things. 30 contributing objects that include the limestone posts and various
- other outbuildings.
- seven sites associated with the history. A lot of work went into documenting all of that to build the
- application for the Maple Grove area. Now I had to pick one. So I picked the Vinegar Hill district because
- I knew people that lived there and lived there. And it was the smell of the rotting fruit from the abandoned
- apple orchards
- That was to give the neighborhood its name. Did you know that? Pretty cool deal, huh? So Vinegar Hill,
- we're going to focus on that for just a minute. The hill was then the east of downtown Bloomington.
- It's called Vinegar Hill now, if you know it. A lot of people think of it as near Elm Heights. Elm Heights
- wasn't constructed until 1926, and that's the same year the first home was built.
- It is listed on the National Register. Now, I happened to talk to Joanne Raid-Stutgen, who's a friend
- of mine, who does these for a living. And she is just full. She's a folklorist, got her degree here
- at IU. She's an artist and a folklorist and a bicyclist. But she told me that this particular project
- was the most fun she had ever had.
- extraordinary, made extraordinary. Our limestone, our very limestone, expressed with craft embellishments,
- even to the level of sidewalks, porches, trim, railings, could have been made simple. But the artists
- that created this area made them extraordinary. And when they built their own houses, we're going to
- look at one really closely.
- They wanted the world to know they were artists, not just Italian immigrants. So these are the outstanding
- homes. In a National Register nomination, you have outstanding, you have notable, you have contributing,
- and you have everything else. These are the ones that are outstanding. How many of you recognize a house?
- These were obviously all taken in the winter. Vinegar Hill, by the decades, as Joanne wrote
- in her nomination, was in the 1920s. That period was colonial revival, including Georgian and Dutch,
- Spanish, Tudor, Mediterranean, and French provincial. The next decade, we get into Italian Renaissance.
- A number of American prairie-styled four squares,
- Three are deco carvings in the front. 1950s, we move into the ranches. The ones that you go, oh, it's
- a ranch house. But those are extraordinarily cool as well. And there's also one late inspired Tudor
- in that, that's decades. The very last house was in 1974. Very modern, very functional. Not necessarily
- one that you would consider
- 50 years is what it takes to be considered historic. Now from the Vinegar Hill website, there's this
- list of qualities and how the time passed and how some limestone carvers who worked all over the country
- chose to build their homes in this area. Here's some of their artwork. You may not have seen these because
- they're hidden. Sometimes they're on a
- on a walkway, but these are all made... Chris Donato and his brother were very active in this area,
- as well as other Italian immigrants. Anybody ever seen any of these? Aren't they amazing? They've weathered
- over the years. So the district is obviously close to our limestone heart. It's right next to Indiana
- University. The highest point on the hill,
- is right there where the little circle drive is that curves back around. The very first folks to build
- were up there in the 1300 block, the top of the hill, the choice sites where the wealthy built. And
- as you go downhill to the base, that's where the carvers chose to build their houses, a little bit further
- downhill. The whole neighborhood was populated with random people
- lots of administrators and faculty from the university, and lots of people that were known internationally.
- This was home. This is the map. The main line is First Street. And as you can see where it curves up
- Sheridan Hill, you can all see the limestone houses there that were built by the people who owned the
- stone quarries and the people who were somebody. At the far end,
- left side there is where the worker bees built their houses. The architecture is different through the
- decades. It's different by the block. But as Joanne said, the details are intimate, humorous,
- or transcendent. Downspouts are interpreted with delicately carved gargoyles. Portraits of children
- now grown and absent, a bracket at a front entrance.
- In short, there's no place that better conveys the spectacle of Bloomington's history and the limestone
- and the trades. Kind of why I picked it. And because I knew Clara Kinsey. How many of you knew Clara?
- I was 30 before... Oh, there's my voice. I was 30 before I knew she was married to Alfred Kinsey. I
- didn't even know who he was. She was my mentor in Girl Scouts. I loved that lady.
- Their house was apparently, they designed it themselves and rusticated by these really cool bricks.
- And the mortar comes dripping out like it's sort of left over. And it's a Tudor revival kind of house.
- Here's a 1926 where they're living there. This is the house. And I grabbed everything I could from Monroe
- County GIS. Thank you, Beacon. This is the Kinsey House. It's deemed only notable.
- contributing or outstanding. But apparently Clara didn't want to chop down their cemetery, so they built
- around it. And later she and I helped save lots of trees for Tulip Tree Girl Scouts. The overburnt bricks
- were perfectly laid unevenly at the border oozing out. These are the kind of words that describe the
- houses in those nominations. Think about how carefully written these are.
- And here's Clara because I knew her as a Girl Scout and that's why I picked her house. Now we're gonna
- go downhill. And today I've invited Michelle and David Coleman over here and we're gonna look at their
- house. Michelle's done extensive research on her Donato house and has charming stories about newspapers
- stuck in the walls when they redecorated. A story about Ralph Rogers
- who has identical bathroom fixtures to this house, a prior owner who you may have heard of, Otto Hanthorn,
- and a wood bar that's now at the Crazy Horse, a pink Cadillac, and a visit from Dot Spore in 2007. Michelle
- and Dave are up here if you want to come see them later. This is their house. Harry, it says Harry Anne,
- but it should say,
- Harriet Christina Donato House, circa 1928, give or take a few months. Look right in front. You see
- that big urn? That's limestone. That's the art they were talking about. This is the only historic district
- in Indiana where yard art is a part of the nomination because of things like this. And of course, in
- the spring, the front yard is garnished.
- years ago in 2005, we've got copies of this up here. The home was spotlighted and Michelle talks about
- indoor sledding and bats in her belfry. More stories. But this is the one that matters. This is the
- group from 1927. These are the workers that built that house. Now we're going to put that picture up
- on the Monroe County History Center page. I'd love for you to look at it.
- see if you can identify anybody that you might know. And we'll make sure the History Center gets that,
- because they're going to get a copy of this too. So this is, I want you to also look to the left. That's
- a Dutch colonial right next door. Looks a little like a barn. That Dutch colonial, get it? Kind of barn-like.
- It's kind of a thing. Park that in your mind for a second as we move to the next slide.
- County History Center has a photograph library. And they have a whole team of people that identified
- what's going on with those photos. But a lot of them need a lot more storytelling. They need a lot more
- history. Some of you knew Dodd. Some of you may know her children. Jenny used to come here regularly.
- But she was born Amor. She was born in 1923. She passed in 2015.
- What if she did that? She went to Michelle's open house and she told her a story. She said she was in
- that house where she lived and watched the builders build her house. She sat with Mrs. Donato in her
- kitchen and watched her bake pastries. Those are the stories that matter. Those are the stories that
- build history.
- She may know Todd because she's related to the Feltus family that's very big in the 1800s and built
- up a newspaper industry here. Now this is an example of the story that the History Center has for that
- photograph. If you ever have nothing to do, you can go online and look or you can go to the History
- Center and you can look and see if you can add to the stories.
- part of our history, one photo at a time. Here's the house where Dodd obviously had to watch being built.
- Now the bookstay was built in 1940, but this was 1926, 1927. So just remember everything is relative.
- The details, sometimes they get botched with time. But that house was there because she watched the
- Donato house.
- And just because she's a cool lady, this is a picture of four generations. That's the baby.
- And a four-generation picture. She was a neat lady. So historic preservation is more than architecture
- to me. It's about preserving memories. So we're going to now jump into the Bryan Parks. There's several
- of them. Before becoming a park, it was a bunch of green fields in an underdeveloped area, southeast
- of the land, we're going to look at the historic study area, the neighborhood association, look at some
- local lore, and finally look at the city park. So a study area, back in the early 2000s, the state issued
- several compounded books that documented historic houses,
- in Monroe County. We have one for the city, and we have one for the county. Now some of these are in
- print, some aren't. If you're interested in either book, let me know. I'll tell you how to acquire them.
- Now we're not quite sure why the following area was chosen with the name Bryant Park, but it was. So
- that's why it's here.
- So in that book, the Bryant Park study area is, think of your grid, Washington and Lincoln from First
- to Allen, going to the East to the Anderson area. This area is, and the church, the Presbyterian church
- is there on the corner of Lincoln and First. This area was platted several times,
- And it was a cross-section of workers that chose to build here. The church was a compounding presence.
- How many of you recognize this first house? Know what it is? That's the breaking away house. Unremarkable.
- It's just notable. But it's a Victorian from 1890. The producers liked it.
- So it got picked to be in the movie. But then there's some other houses in that Lincoln and Washington,
- those two streets, that are quite entertaining. There are a lot of kid homes, California bungalows.
- There's a couple of very rare duplexes. And the neat thing about this area is it still has a lot of
- the laid out alleyways. There are supposed to be alleyways in every block. We've lost a lot of that.
- I used to go ripping through those on my bike. And you hope that there wasn't a car coming. Narrow side
- yards and those ginormous front porches and mature trees. I used to love going down Washington Street
- just to drive under the canopy. And the trees were, maple trees were all out in the summer. So maybe
- an odd choice of a name, because it's not far from the park, but it's fitting, it fits.
- And in 2005, the Bryant Park Neighborhood Association started. Dick and Mary Lou Mitchell were instrumental,
- along with other people. And they said, wait a minute. We are losing our neighborhood. We've got rentals.
- We've got people building eight stories onto a two little room house. We're losing our neighborhood.
- Let's try to preserve it.
- They started a grassroots movement. They tried to organize, did a lot of neighborhood activities. They
- were able to build in storm water and drainage advocacy. They were able to collect a lot of historic
- stories, some of which I'm going to tell you. And the idea was to encourage homeowners and rental property
- owners to maintain and improve the value. You can see right next to this little house what was built.
- nature and still is in this neighborhood. Here's what the neighborhood looks like. For that neighborhood
- association, they want you to chop off there on the upper right corner, go through the park. That top
- corner is close to Vinegar Hill, so we're gonna kick it out of there, but everything else was in the
- Bryant Park conservation area that was being developed
- If you read through here, your eyes get dizzy, mind you, trying to figure it out. So I'm trying to give
- you a map to say this is the area they were trying to protect and try to involve. They did a lot of
- really good work. So I want to thank them for those early, ambitious efforts. But the important thing
- to get to Bryant Park is we have to look at what came before. So the early people scapes.
- The orchards came, and that was not at the orchards of Finaker Hill. It was the family of the orchards.
- They came in the early 1800s, one of the first here. This is where Dan comes in. Pop Hall wrote this
- book telling stories in the late 1800s, and it picks up all kinds of things.
- I've read this book a hundred times. I never noticed the orchards until I needed them. And then they
- popped right out at me. They were there, but I'd never noticed them before. They were irrelevant. Now
- they're relevant. And these people were amazing. They came up from Kentucky, they stopped in Washington
- and got prides. They discovered Bloomington by accident, as many do.
- And they said, wait a minute. People need to make clothes. We need to bring a wool carting business
- here. So they did. Now, if you don't know, when you have wool, you have to cart it to get it smooth,
- get machines. You got flax, same thing. You got to cart it to make flax linen. And that makes clothes.
- Everybody was sending all of their stuff
- be processed into cloth to come back. Well, the orchards said, ha, we'll just do our own mill. And they
- created their own. So they brought everything up from Kentucky. They created a mill to turn flax and
- cotton and grow it so that people could have linen and cotton materials until 1836 when they sold out.
- These were entrepreneurs. They did some crazy stuff.
- They kept improving Bloomington's early economy. In 1836, they must have taken that money, and they
- built a stage line from Indianapolis to Leavenworth, Kansas, and from Louisville to New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Can you imagine the stage what's involved in putting all that together
- And they double tipped. Because you know what? The college was growing. And there were students. And
- they needed to get to and from. And faculty needed to get here. And people were coming. So they were
- able to get them here back and forth as well. This is about that process of the carding business. And
- that was a historic step for
- People said, wait a minute. We need a place for people to stay. So will you please build a hotel?
- So they did. They built a hotel. They built two hotels. The first one was the Temperance House. And
- it was somewhere on College. It was called the Temperance House because no liquor. Can you believe it?
- No liquor. Who would do that? In 1828, John called about his friend
- Austin Seward, somebody you also know, to paint him a sign for the Tempers Inn. And it hung there until
- it faded to time. We don't know what it'll look like, but you can imagine it. Now, I've heard that a
- railroad comes to town. My friend George Carpenter, my actual stepbrother, George Carpenter, loves to
- talk about the Monon. And the Monon was going right down the levee.
- You know what those orchard brothers did? They said, we've got land. We'll give you land. And the railroad
- said, we'll take your land, and then we'll stop and let everybody dine at your restaurant and stay at
- your hotel. I love the way that all quid pro quo comes together. So the railroad made that happen, and
- they made the railroad happen. And then Samuel,
- Had a 60-acre farm south where they grew produce and raised animals to feed people. I'm still looking
- for that acreage. I think I know where it might have gone. There's a picture of Samuel. Also, there's
- another historic reference from the 1880s written by a man named Blanchard. Well, he put it together.
- Other people wrote it. But it also says they had a blacksmith shop. So add that.
- to the growing list of endeavors for the orchards. So here's a picture of the railroad depot. These
- are two full city blocks for the orchard house. This is one of the Sanborn maps. And it lays out the
- hotel and where people stayed. Oddly enough, the night before an election, the whole place burned down.
- Everything. That's a story that has yet to be told. We don't know.
- The Orchard family has an interesting future. This is the layout of the Orchards, the second generation,
- Samuel and John came to Bloomington, and then Samuel's children are in the next line. I don't expect
- you to get all that. What's important is you see there are a lot of them. John, who had the temperance
- in after he and his brothers split, had children.
- Unfortunately, back then, they were called deaf and dumb. But in a US special census, they did an evaluation.
- None of the children lived past early adulthood. So we have no one left of that line. They just all
- disappeared, which is kind of a sad thing. But Samuel, on the other hand, a few of his children became
- very active. His son Harry,
- a lot of industry to Bloomington, supported that. Two of his sons served in the Civil War,
- John and James. And then Harry Jr., you know where YoHo is over in Greene County, right? Those YoHos.
- Mom was a YoHo. He helped start the Ox Club. And in 18, I'm sorry, 1982, a Herald Times article stated
- that he was the last of the three
- He didn't know about or forgot about the youngs. They're coming up. Nevertheless, Harry was the last
- of the line to live out his life in Bloomington. And you know what? They're all in. Most of them are
- up on the hill in the cemetery. So you can go with Luke, and maybe you'll have them on the tour. We're
- going to follow the line of Emily for a minute.
- 1850. At the top you see Sam, Martha, Elizabeth, Emily, John, Baynard, James, and Isaac. That's the
- generation in that genealogy chart I showed you. Down below are the full-time tenants. Those are not
- the ones that are just staying for the night. Look at the professions
- substantive people in Bloomington. Now, we're going to look at that again. Go back up and look at Emily.
- She's 14. Look at the very bottom. There's a guy named John W. Young. He's a physician. These are the
- two that get married, and that's the line we're going to follow. Now, note he was born in Ohio. He's
- not a Unionville young. We'll add one of those later.
- John and Emily's generation, John served in the Civil War. And for a while, I don't know why, he settled
- in Natchez, Mississippi. This is a copy of his pension. That gives you some dates. He passes in 1875.
- Emily stays there. She's got children born there. But in 1880-something, she comes back. Daddy Samuel
- and Uncle Isaac, remember them?
- her land and that land is Bryant Park. Grant to Anderson to hillside and south to Grimes. Butts up what
- against what we call Bryant Park now. Built their homes dead on Grimes Lane and a windmill from up on
- the hill pumped water down. Emily dies in 1899. That's when things turn odd. So they had several children
- for good adulthood. Adelbert, or Burt, is the only child born in Mississippi to reach adulthood. Burt
- is a character. That's a story I wish I could find more about. Maybe it's out there. Emily dies. Her
- will is probated. Burt gets it all. Why? We don't know. The others get it
- liked his home in Mississippi. He had property there, too, which he promptly sold. And somehow, he and
- his wife, who was a Unionville young, had two sons and one daughter. Bird goes back and forth to Mississippi
- and comes to town twice a year, maybe. What's going on there? Don't you want to know?
- figured it out. But through it all, Burt's official residence remains with his wife May in Bloomington.
- A story I have yet to figure out. I asked GPT chat to take this description of Burt from Mary Lou's
- memoir and create a picture. I think that's pretty good. Shows the spats, shows the hat, shows the gold cane.
- And Mary Glue's description says he'd come up from the train, knock on the door with his cane, and she'd
- let him in. Shoot, I want to shut the door in his face. But there he was with his cane. And he'd stay
- a day or two and turn around and go back to Mississippi. Don't you want to know more? That's a story.
- So their children are growing up without a father,
- Here's some statistics. They move around on crimes. Henderson, where Templeton School is now, that whole
- acreage was just an open field until I was an adult. When the last sun passes in 1991, Bob, the land
- gets hung up in lots of legal issues. Eventually it's sold for
- Park Association steps in and says, no housing complexes, no apartment complexes. We're going to go
- with single family homes. And they won. So eventually, we now have what's known as the South Town development
- with those very attractive, colorful, craftsman-like homes. Historic preservation.
- She ended up in California with her uncle Tully. They remembered to have a bank, rob a bank. I found
- they didn't rob a bank. They committed manslaughter. This is their parole record at the bottom. Those
- dirty little youngs. They apparently, I think it must have been Shirley. Yes, his name was Shirley.
- He ratted on his brother. And they never spoke again, literally.
- And that has consequences coming up. So the boys were back in town, 1950, hanging around with mom. Neither
- one ever got married. They didn't have a dad to show them how, I guess. I don't know. Shirley, you can
- imagine, was a stonecutter throughout his life. He worked in the business. And when his deceased body
- was found, it had been there a while. And Bob had seen him cutting grass.
- to go. Now, Bob Sobitt states that he was in the construction business. I can't find any record of those.
- He had a few issues with the police over his life. Now, fast forward to 1960, the next decade. I used
- to see the fields burning. I didn't know why. I was pretty young. Men in black suits, driving black
- cars, carrying clipboards, setting the field on fire. Guess what?
- I don't know who reported it. I don't know who planted it. But every once in a while, they'd come by
- and clear it out. But you didn't know that, did you? And I used to take cuts coming from Templeton walking
- home. It was just these gravel roads by the windmill that eventually just passed the time. Heard rumors.
- I thought they were a little creepy.
- Didn't quite know, my brain wasn't, it did not understand all the nuances. But this is what was going
- on in my neighborhood, right next to my house, right next to Bryant Park. Okay, so let's get there,
- finally. Did you know it was William Lowe Bryant Park? Yes, it was named William Lowe Bryant. Boundaries
- south of Maxwell, west of Woodlawn,
- East of Anderson and north of the line that would be Davis Street. This is what it looks like from above.
- You can kind of recognize the tennis courts, the pool, some of the playgrounds. For the linear thinkers,
- here's another picture. And I want to show you this because you can see, the circus already had a spool.
- How many swam in that pool? I know I did. Those little things you had to step on that hurt your feet.
- seats. So Sark has already had his shop up. I already have swimming pools. This is 1956. But if you're
- in, into Topo and the different layered gradients of land, you can see all of this washes down. So Sheridan
- Creek, which feeds Bryant Park, would have fed all of the land and given out water for the farms that
- the young family
- and the orchard family had. This is a great watershed dropping everything. I also love that you can
- see that the WTTV tower is there. This was 1956. So the purchase of the park. If you read the website,
- you'll see the park was purchased for a dollar. No, didn't happen that way. Back in 1949,
- City Recreation, I'm sorry, that should say Parks Director. Jerry Fimmel went to the Lions Club and
- said, give me money, help me raise money. We need a community center and we need a swimming pool and
- a snack bar and a gym and other places to recreate. He was a real fan of outdoor recreation, real strength
- center for the time. He didn't like the idea of an outdoor swimming pool.
- because there were only 34 days in the season when you could swim outside. I don't know what his thermostat
- was set at, but I used to swim from the middle of May to the end of September. He suggested an indoor
- swimming pool, which didn't happen. But all of the activity also at this time, the planning went into
- creating the jukebox.
- which maybe you want to write a story about for Sally and Lynn, if you went to the jukebox, because
- that has some great stories. There's a lot going on back and forth. Femo says, give me money.
- We need $15,000 to buy the land. The city recreation council says, OK, let's do it. Mayor Lemon says,
- OK, let's do it. City council says, wait a minute. We don't have that kind of money. We just had a loss
- in income.
- So they fight back and forth, back and forth. Then in July of 1950, Fimmel says, too late. Ralph Rogers
- and I bought it. Three families bought the land that was to become Bryant Park. Who they bought it from?
- I don't know yet. I'm still working on that. But it was purchased as an interim step. So the city tightens up.
- Park Superintendent Gilbert says, dead talk, we're not doing it. By the end of the year, the city land
- transfer books document the land was transferred by the three families. I want you to look up there,
- you see the name Garrett Epley. You've heard that name. Got the Epley Institute at IU. This guy had
- a practical brain. He said, hey, get together, make it work,
- stop fighting like your two-year-olds on the playground. Get it done. So the end of 1950, that land
- was sold. This is the record of the Ralph Rogers, the Mills family, and the Femel family buying, passing
- the land to the city. We don't know how much they paid. We don't know
- where all the land came from, when it was purchased. The references say a dollar. It can't be. And you'll
- see why we have some more details coming. I think more likely is once it passed through all the layers
- of city politics and city departments, then when it passed finally to the parks level, the city had
- the parks department
- There was an interim step there with water works. That one is a whole other mystery. I think the Parks
- Department paid a dollar at that time. Thus, the story that it was given for a dollar. If anything,
- it was $15,000 to $18,000. I'll track it down eventually, but for now, we just have to say, ah, oh,
- well. Before we look on, let's look at the details.
- If you've ever bought land, you know it gets a name. You've got a county. You've got individual townships.
- Perry Township is where we are. Those townships have ranges. They have sections. Those are divided into
- parcels and lots. And on your deed, there's a lot of gobbledygook that breaks all of this down.
- you with the details. Bryant Park is in Perry 4. Notice the line at the bottom. That's Sheridan Creek.
- That's what goes through Bryant Park. Part of that watershed. And this was the area where the orchards
- had their land. So everything falls inside section 4. You break it down to the next level. You see Sheridan
- Creek again.
- Just above that, you see a subdivision called Cummings, which was one of dozens and dozens. They changed
- these overnight, I think. It's crazy the number of subdivisions. You can see names all the way around.
- Heights, Rogers, Park. If you look at this up close, it's just dozens of different subdivisions. The
- lower half of Bryant Park, which is that main big section,
- together as a bundle and combined with a bundle off screen, which is the Tarzian Barbary. I found in
- 1942, Mary Tarzian bought both of these lots. She was nerfing up land early. And I think maybe she bought
- it from the Youngs. But I'm proving it yet. That's my hypothesis. Now, the people that gifted, however
- it happened,
- money happened to change hands, those three families gifted that land at some configuration.
- And at one time, there was a plaque up by the tennis courts. If anybody knows what happened to that,
- we're trying to find it. If you know anything about it or ever saw it, let me know. Now, Bryant Park
- today, I think it's the first, it is the first public park in Indiana
- a credited arboretum status. That is amazing. Don't underestimate that. They've taken that empty field
- and turned it into a walking arboretum. Just an amazing achievement in just 70-some years. But before
- there was a park, the land to the north of the creek was farmed by one owned
- house was down on Grant Street. So he'd take his two white horses, he'd walk over to the park,
- and he'd plow. I found a picture of a farmer plowing with two white horses. So this is how I envision
- Oni plowing the upper section of the park. Now, as it turns out, nobody ever built anything on the south
- side of the creek. It was just empty. You know why?
- for parks, said it's not suitable, not suitable for a park. I wonder why. This is what it must have
- looked like. That's a typical southern Indiana sinkhole. So they must have been all over that property.
- They had to fill them in to make the ballparks, right? So there you go. At the far south end, there's
- also a wagon trail that went right from Davis all the way over
- Tarsian, then David Maxwell on the property. And that's where the local people in the area went to get
- their dairy and their eggs. They cut across those singles to go my dairy and eggs. I think that is so
- cool. So here's William L. O'Brien accepting the award. It was called Southeast Park at that time. Young
- lady named Sharon Bruce.
- school at BHS won a prize. She felt that Brian should be thanked for all he had done for Plummington.
- Dr. Brian accepted. He was a local boy, by the way. He actually went to Phillips School as a child.
- And he said that he'd like to see a monument with the names of the three representatives, say the earlier
- landowners, Tecumseh,
- James Monroe, and David Maxwell. I think that's pretty darn cool. I like this guy. Here's a proposal
- for what the park would look like. You can see the pool area down here. Look just above that.
- Going uphill, you can see an amphitheater. That was on their early list, but no ball diamonds. Femal
- did not think about ball diamonds. But soon enough, there they came. Here's a picture of a worker
- That could actually be my sister-in-law's dad. I don't know. You know who this is? You recognize him?
- This is one of those photos you can help to identify at the History Center. But this is looking directly
- west. You can see Allen. And just north of that block would have been the Beaker House. Right, Charlie?
- So this is before there was anything.
- Where's the baby park? We called it the baby park. First picture when they first opened, look at all
- that safety equipment. And then down here, look at all that safety equipment. The bubbles in the background,
- so you know that was into the 80s. And then I just had to tell you two stories. We drank from a garden
- hose. No, from the water spigot. Maybe there were some snacks. There were no trees.
- We used wax paper to make the slides slick. And for many summers in the 1960s, two mother ducks, Jean
- Hooker from South Jones, walked her brood. Elaine Snyder, my mother, walked her brood. These two sets
- of daycare children came to the park, played together, co-mingling.
- the water out of those. And then they all turned around and went back. It was quite a sight. And everybody
- knew when the kids were there. Now funds were tight. They went around the community. Kids pitched in.
- The civil groups and the Lions Club and the Rotary, everybody raised funds to build a pool. And we finally got money
- to build a pool. Who took lessons there? Who swam? Anybody on the swim team? Swam for dock councilman?
- Yeah? Bloomington Swim Club? I remember this one. Look at that car. Isn't that great? Another Monroe
- County history photo to identify. No water at this point. I managed that pool for five years with a
- bubble on it. Crazy times. Remember supervised play?
- like Carter does, because supervised play was also at Building and Trades, 17th Street, and up on 8th
- Street. This is the program that FEMAL started to bring educators in for the summer to give kids a chance
- to learn and grow in a safe space. My dad was great at watermelon seed spinning every 4th of July.
- Knock hockey, volleyball, tetherball, checkers, chess, crafts, rain or shine. In Bryant Park, we had
- a huge sycamore tree. And they'd bring a big outhouse. No, it was actually a storage shed, but it looked
- like an outhouse with all of our equipment in it. These are the people that made that happen. Bill Melny,
- some of you may know. He was an educator.
- Isabelle Hutchinson was an educator, and then Vernon Grounds did the program at Bryan in the 1960s.
- He taught at Binford. Now there are lots of people in that picture, lots of names. And then in 1952
- they said, wait a minute, we need baseball diamonds. So we got baseball
- started working on them. By 1966, we had quite the tournaments, and a lot of people grew up there playing
- baseball. Big part all over those singles. Now, this is just sort of my summary of my growing up. There
- was the official Bryant Park, and then there was the unofficial Bryant Park. You get George Carpenter
- and me talking about Carodaz.
- getting your shoes wet and getting into trouble. This was the place, the real rite of passage, when
- you could on your own go wading through that creek and under the roads. A lot went on in that place,
- coming of age in Bryant Park. Okay, so when a circus is a circus. Early 1940s, Dick Mitchell,
- Growing up here, it was about eight or nine. Circus was coming to town. This is when they'd get off
- the railroad and come right up the hill. This was called Allen Field in this area, roughly looking first
- to Allen, Lincoln, to Anderson. I guess I should go that way. After the boys in the area had different
- doing odd jobs, they got free tickets.
- It was cool. Dick was going home after the circus, found a little bandana stuffed under a bush full
- of loot. The police assumed that maybe somebody got caught and they hid it and they never came back
- for it. That's his story of the loot from the first circus in that area. Now let's go to 56.
- Big to do, big arguments, new park,
- We don't want a circus in the park. Yes, we do. We want a circus. Circus brings money to town.
- Back and forth. Have arguments for months. Back and forth. Details gut bungled. Where did I go back
- and forth? We got to have it at Bryant Park. Whoops. Let me get back there. I want to get a shout out
- to U School. Couldn't have it there. You know why?
- can't get under the bridge. So they had to have it at Bryant Park. Fights, fights, fights,
- back and forth, back and forth. Two weeks, circus is going to be here. Guess what? They close permanently.
- Oops, we were just kidding. It didn't really happen. It was supposed to be there just two weeks from
- this date. But wait, there's more. Go back, 1951.
- Really was a circus. Really was. Now, they must have still had seagulls, so I don't know where those
- elephants are. But the Kelly Circus was there. They were a frequent visitor. There were other times
- they were there in town. But the story is how much income and economy was brought to town by the circus.
- So it was a big thing. And I want you to look really closely at this box over here.
- City officials said, wait a minute. We need to make sure that we're very careful here and not like we
- have insurance. Because what if something happened? We could be sued and possibly lose more than Brian
- Park cost us. Certainly more than a dollar. There's another piece of evidence that that 15 to 18,000
- was real. And here are the elephants. You saw that in Mike's promos.
- What happened? They were here. 1951. The cleanup did not go well. Remember Director Fimmel? They didn't
- talk to him. They didn't set him up in advance. And no one picked up the trash. And I'm assuming that
- included the elephant trash. The city went bunkers. There was an outcry. Everybody got upset.
- And maybe that's in 1956 when they pushed for a cleanup fee and a bond. Maybe they remembered a few
- years earlier. That's my story. And then there were the fox hunts. Yes, 100 years ago, this year,
- fox hunts. The Southern Indiana Fox Hunter Association had a week-long event. Now mind you, no foxes
- were armed. They were just in it.
- Fox Park, Big Cookington, Townwide Hospitality, Church Services, and waited for it. This is the official
- portrait. This can be yours. It's being sold at the History Center yard sale. You can buy it today if
- you want it.
- thing ever. This picture is coming, this part of this picture is coming up. This is the grounds for
- the Fox Homes. Look at that. That was all open field. A lot happened right after 1926 we started growing.
- But here's where the Fox Home was. And you can see Brian Park is just a small part of that.
- to Lincoln, to Allen, all the way to High Street. Now we know there were houses along High, but Bryant
- Park is the green space right there in the sort of lower left. And this is this picture that, not a
- very good one, but I wanted you to be able to kind of capture the event. And if you look at this, you'll
- see houses
- Mike actually had a really good picture on the promo that was enhanced. All right, so Hobo's at a block
- party. Now, it turns out that Roy and Thelma Newton had five children. They lived on Walnut because
- he worked for the railroad. And then he became a detective on the railroad. They moved up the hill to 501.
- my block, far into my block, and I knew Thelma. I didn't know Ray. During the Great Depression, when
- the railroad riders would get off, the story is told that Ray would shoe them up the hill. This is GPT
- chat again. Ray would shoe them up the hill and Thelma would feed them. And they would get, maybe do
- an odd job or two. And later in the 60s and the 70s,
- The Newtons would organize block parties for our neighborhood and our area, kind of feed the
- whole neighborhood. So it was a thing with them. Then come 1970, I was a student at Central Junior High
- School. And I needed a dress. And I didn't sew yet. And my mother was horrible. She couldn't sew a thing.
- Oh, another story there.
- for Alden's. She worked on wedding gowns, and she worked downtown for Alden's. So we said, Delma, can
- you make me a dress? So she did. Maybe he recognized my date. Are you here, Jeff? This was the best
- picture, and I said, Jeff, can you come? This is too good to pass up.
- Now, when I was checking some facts, I went back to double check some biographical information on Ray
- and Thelma, because I didn't really know their story. I knew their son, Charlie, because he worked with
- my dad. They were photographers together at the Tribune, another one of Sarkis Tarzan's enterprises.
- And then I looked and I saw their daughter, Mary, married somebody named Freddie.
- Salmon. I know that name. I know of Freddie Salmon. So I went looking. Well, Freddie was the brother
- of my husband's grandfather. And that Freddie had a child named Dan. And Dan married Mary Beth Coles
- from Tennessee. And Dan and Mary moved to Barnesville.
- Glenn and I lived at the Gaines State Fish Addery. And our kids went to preschool together. And we discovered
- another generation of Salmons. You're all connected. You can't hide from it. I never knew. It's just
- the coolest connection ever. Thanks for making that work, Jeff. All right, so our last sequence here.
- Thanks for bearing with my voice. We're going to go through this last sequence.
- going to give you a taste of what was going on just down another block. The best house. 1902, the university
- bought this house with five acres, an eighth of a mile from anybody else, a mile south of campus. Why?
- Because President Lowe said, we got sickness coming, and we need to get them off campus. Pretty bright
- guy. So he decides we're going to move
- people into this location until they get better. And this butts right up against all of the acreage
- that the orchards owned that went to the youngs. Anybody that came and was sick, they put them in the
- pest house. It was actually called the IU Hospital, but they called it the pest house locally. After
- the university was done with it, Harry Pryor was the first guy. You know, they picked him. He didn't seem
- the disease. He didn't get smallpox. Lucky Harvey. President Brian said, we're growing. They closed
- in a lot of people. A lot of people came back. Some people didn't go back to the university. 1939, they
- closed it. And they built real health centers. The house went into sort of disrepair. It was rented.
- The same property is where Pleasant View School was built.
- It was a rental and it was an animal shelter at one point, pretty quiet. Once that was all done, that
- land was then turned into Hillcrest Trailer Port. Following 1944 GI Bill, these must have been horrid,
- horridly hot in the summer. One, two, three-bedroom, they all shared central bath facilities, no running
- water, 25, 35 a month.
- You were one of the lucky people to have a phone. You had to share it and let other people use it. But
- they took off your rent if you shared it. Now, you might remember 17th Street and those green trailers.
- Now it's worth the Korean vets. This was for the GI Bill in 44. Now, here's an overview of it. And I'm
- pretty sure up in that corner is the Pest House. And that butts up along Henderson.
- up against the orchard property. Next to come was Templeton. The city picked it up pretty cheap. Nobody
- wanted it, can you believe it? Nobody wanted the best house. So the city got it. Pleasant View was there
- in 35. In 38, they built a stone building, renamed it Hillside. This is a copy of the Phillips School.
- which was a two-room, just like the two-room pleasant school. That's where William Lowe Bryan went to
- school. Templeton opened in 61, and by 63, there were 334 enrolled. Muriel Bennett taught 35 years in
- all versions of that school. She talked about the frame building, which rocked and swayed, flat roof
- leaked. My room was overcrowded.
- with 41 to 50 pupils, which she had been a hoot to talk to. And this was her story. Templeton was named
- for an educator, Frank Templeton, studied at IU, taught, and then was assistant superintendent. He was
- one of the first to foster what we then called Slow Learners. So once again, an early educator with
- some forethought into the future.
- In 1961, Edwin C. Edwin Smith. And I think he's the same Smith family that on the land that IU purchased
- that was across from what is now the music school. I think that's the same family. But here's Templeton
- getting his photo picture. And then I couldn't resist a 1962 fundraiser. We called him Carnivals. My
- dad was head of the PTA.
- Phil Harris just passed away this last year. He was quite the teacher. People mentioned in the article,
- I love this, George Cox, Mrs. Robert Easterday, Mrs. Melvin Jennings, Charles Minnett, John Snyder,
- Bob Wells, how we've changed over the years. So you can find all sorts of tidbits like this in newspapers.
- And then I found one of Mrs. Vaughn, one of my favorite teachers.
- All of her students are saying number one, because she was picked the number one educator. She was a
- neat lady. And then some of you knew James Harrison. Mr. Garrison came around and gave us all hearing
- tests. Wendell Brinson, go your chicken fat, go. The civic clubs donated those records. If you ever
- want to thank them for those chicken fat records,
- Daisy Carden in music. Don Neal was busy at the same time doing orchestra. Lots of people made our early
- education years something very special. So in closing, I wanted to share with you the story. Didn't
- go where I thought it was going to go when Mike and I first talked about it, but every piece kept giving
- me back to the Brian Park theme. So that's what I wanted to kind of share with you. You know, Glenn
- and I even had our
- wedding rehearsal on the deck of Bryant Park Bowl. We had pizza and coke, no beer, pizza and coke, which
- was pretty cool. And during the process of creating it, I'm reminded our memories need to be shared
- to be remembered. Every family has layers. We got a few Shirley's and Bob's in our group. Families do
- make friends. Some friends become neighbors.
- Neighbors build neighborhoods. Human interaction becomes our history. And together, we give life to
- memory and keep our history important. This is me with the Killingers. And if you look in that back
- corner, you'll see Brian Bark just outside my house.
- You know I do dry stack stone walls. It's one of my things. We're having an open house educational evening
- hosted by Ivy Tech, June 10th. You're welcome to come. It's free and open. Ivy Tech's just opening their
- doors for us. If you want to know more, reach out. We'll promote it, but thank you so much. Thanks for
- putting through. I'll be glad to take questions as long as I can. Be really loud, though, if you've
- got a question.
- Questions? Comments? Which house is yours? 1112 South Dunn. 1112 South Dunn. My brother and Boy Scouts
- in 1962 built a mailbox. It's still there. Yep, still in the house. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.