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.