Doc's love for Indiana

Doc and Grandma Bowen sharing Bremen's Lehman mints with President George Bush.

My wife likes to tell people, when reflecting on how we met, that "he told me that he was never leaving Indiana".  'Tis true.  She was heading to Colorado and I had my heels dug deep into this Hoosier soil.  For some reason I love this boring, beautiful, backward, people-caring, mostly flat, piece of heaven on earth.  I don't know if the feeling is reciprocated-but that's ok, eventually she'll come around.  I love Indiana.  For my 13th birthday I asked my mom to make my cake in the shape of Indiana.  I fly her flag as much and as proudly as I do the stars and stripes.  And I write about her all the time here on HH.  I've been in all but four states in this country and wouldn't trade the motherland for any of them.  So what's wrong with me, right?

Too much Doc Bowen in my life I think.

As I sat through his memorial service last week and began to process through comments that he made to me over the 11 years I called him grandpa, it was stated over and over again how much he loved this state.  And that's when it clicked with me.....I think I got this crazy love for being a Hoosier from Doc's influence in my life.  There's no other explanation.

Doc spoke so proudly of the communities, the parks, the landscape, the people of this state that one couldn't help but feel a bit star-struck in being a Hoosier.  His love for the state was palpable.  He pointed us to an Indiana to be proud of, to care for, and to want to call home.  I think about how we churn out our youth and rather than talk-up the qualities of home, we keep their roots loose from the soil and encourage them to move on as if this place isn't good enough.  Maybe it's time to rethink what is good.

I remember he felt a special fondness for New Harmony.  I understood why the first time I visited, and now I've been back a half-dozen times.  But he loved the whole state, as is evident from the 92 trees he personally selected and planted to represent Indiana's 92 counties on his property in Bremen.  And when he went to Washington he took a piece of his hometown with him to offer visitors a taste of Indiana.  He always had Lehman mints on hand.  The home he constructed in Bremen while he was still governor was created from a salvaged timber frame barn and had a massive field stone fireplace.  They called it "the lodge".  It felt as if it grew from ground it sat on and when you entered it, you were surrounded by heritage home-grown in Indiana.

The Bowen "Lodge"

If you were to ask me what set Doc apart from today's generation of politicians, this would have to be one of two things:  he loved the place he served.  I've never understood candidates who jump boundaries, or are newcomers at serving the place they hope to represent.  Their intentions seem suspect.  I think to truly represent a place, a people, you have to love it.  It has to be deep in your craw.  It has to be something you can't shake, rooted so deeply in your soul that serving just spills out.

That was Doc Bowen.  He couldn't help himself.  He loved Indiana too much.....and she loved him.

I like to think that this aspect of Doc's life left an indelible mark on me.  I certainly followed his passion for planting trees and touring our state.  I've been fortunate to have worked in nearly a hundred communities throughout Indiana getting to know many on an intitmate level.  It has been a huge privilege to work with folks from Fort Wayne to Dyer along the Lincoln Highway Byway and from Madison to Michigan City along the Michigan Road Byway.  Through all this I have met some of the finest Hoosiers in our state......and I can't help but join with them in making Indiana the best she can be.  To celebrate who we are.  To leave something for the next generation to be proud of.  That's what Doc did.  It should be what we all strive to do.

My "grandpa" Bowen

Two people equally rocked by grief found a great deal of companionship and comfort in each other in September of 1981.  Their spouses of many years had been taken away too suddenly; they knew each other from a few decades of living in the same small northern Indiana town of Bremen.

One was my grandmother Rose, a beautiful country woman who insisted on neatness and order.  The other, well, just happened to be the recent former governor of Indiana-"Doc" Bowen, our family doctor-turned legislator and governor.  Together they made each other whole again and the grief visible in my grandmother's face turned to a smile as a sense of humor I don't know that I had ever known before became a part of her demeanor.  And everything about her life changed quickly when she moved from the large ancestral farm house to a condo in Indianapolis, and then to Washington DC.  While we missed having her near us, we became forever grateful to Doc for treating her so well.

I remember when I told my 6th grade teacher that my grandmother was going to marry the former governor.  I already had an interest in politics before that time.....imagine how excited I was.  When I transferred to a private school the following year I knew a few friends who also transferred and so the story was already out, though it seems that as I grew older during high school I talked about it only with my closer friends.  And that was hard, given my growing interest in politics and Doc being thrown onto the national stage on Reagan's cabinet.  By the time I graduated I had spent time with "grandpa" and grandma Bowen in Indianapolis, at IU games, a week with a buddy in DC at their home, until grandpa was the commencement speaker at my high school graduation.

Just a year before I began classes at Bethel College their new Bowen Library had been dedicated, complete with a small museum, bust of Doc in the lobby, and even a few items from my grandmother.  This time, being a little wiser, I kept my connection to Doc to myself.....even as I would glance up at his name on the library while I passed it on the sidewalk talking with friends.  And so it remained until my Senior year at Bethel-during which time Doc spoke during a special session on leadership at the college......and I had lunch with him and my grandmother afterward.  And then people started to put 2 and 2 together.

I invited my grandparents to my college graduation in 1991.  After the ceremony I looked and looked for them but didn't see them.  The next day I learned that they had just discovered my grandmother had terminal cancer.  The best prospects gave her three years.  They had just relocated back to Bremen from DC several months before after Doc helped with the transition from the Reagan to Bush administration.  Grandmother's cancer treatments proved unsuccessful and wore heavily on her.  Feeling a strong desire to stay close to home, the application to Ball State's architecture program was pushed to the back in favor of Andrews'-only an hour from home.

During my first year at Andrews I followed the same closed-mouth policy concerning my "famous" grandfather.  Grandma's health deteriorated quickly by the end of 1991 until I was praying she would just make it through Christmas.  I came home every weekend and sometimes mid-week to visit with her if even just a short time to let Doc run errands into town.  She made it through Christmas and died January 21st-the same day her father died years before.  Grandpa Bowen was again rocked with grief, all too familiar with its sting from when his first wife passed away-also with cancer.

Doc found companionship again as our family's ties quickly faded.  At Andrews, I found it less important to conceal what had been a significant part of my life.  I think by my third year in the architecture program I was comfortable sharing this with friends.  Besides, I was out-of-state and the Bowen name didn't ring as loudly across the border.

After I graduated from Andrews and returned to the area where the Bowen name rang the loudest, I went back to my closed-mouth policy except when asked.  I continued to keep it to myself even as I began my own political career.  It wasn't until I introduced Doc as the speaker for the mayor's prayer breakfast in 2005, two years after I had been elected to city council, that the connection was really "out there".  After Andrews I reconnected with Doc on a few occasions, including breakfast with our family in March, 2011, just a month before he really began to struggle with his memory.

Yesterday I attended Doc's funeral.  I was remembering him as the grandpa I knew during those formative years through junior high, high school and college.  I remembered him like any other grandson would remember their grandfather, though it seemed like I had lost that part of my life more than 20 years ago.  As I sat processing so much of what I knew about the man, both highs and lows, it became pretty evident to me that he left a mark on my life I can't shake.  And so, if you will indulge me, I hope to unpack some of that in the coming posts.

I don't know that Indiana has ever had, nor will she have again, a public servant more dedicated to her people.  Enter into your rest, good and faithful servant.

Historic Lakeview

Like so many other county poor farms, the White County Commissioners voted to discontinue service at their facility at the end of 2010.  And, like so many other county farms, the building and land were in jeopardy of being razed and redeveloped.

However, most county homes aren't lakefront properties like the Lakeview Home in Monticello.  It is situated on a bluff overlooking Indiana Beach on Lake Shaffer.  Concerned that "Lakeview" land offered "lake views" some concerned White County residents banded together to see what could be done to save the 100+ year old home.  The thought was to make the building eligible for tax credits by listing it on the National Register so when it went to auction it may entice the right buyer.

The building was designed by a noted local architect, but it should also be noted that by this time a booklet had been developed by the State of Indiana called "Public Charities in Indiana" which was essentially a guideline to design of state hospitals, prisons, orphanages, county jails and county homes.  With any familiarity at all of county homes after about 1890, one can identify the common design features and layout quickly:  middle part/administration and superintendents' quarters, left and right wings/resident dormitories, the rear wing/kitchen and dining, and typically a small addition on the back or a separate building that had actual jail cells with steel bars.  Only the exterior architectural design features and details varied from county to county.  Most county homes employed the Romanesque style, or variants of the Queen Anne or Classical styles.  Here is a link to the1904 book: The Development of Public Charities in Indiana

The "poor farms" were self-sufficient.  They had enough acreage to maintain livestock and grow food for the residents.  Able residents worked the fields and with livestock, if they were men, and worked in the garden or laundry and kitchen duties if they were women.  Barns (most of which have been the first to disappear from the county farm complex), orchards, and even cemeteries.  Frequently the county farms were far enough removed from town cemeteries that paupers' graves were dug in one corner of the poor farm.  Marshall County's poor farm cemetery was razed by over-zealous county commissioners and tenet farmers; the exact location has been lost.

White County's county home still has one barn and another shed remaining on the property-but the main house is intact with only minor remodeling.  It has the prescribed layout associated with Indiana's county home model including an attached jail wing on the back of the building.  It also has an impressive entryway down a long alee of trees.  The county separated the farmland and auctioned the house and its lakeview site.  The developer seems sensitive to the history of the home and can access tax credits since it was listed on the National Register in 2011.

Louis Solomon on the Lakeshore

The Solomon Enclave-Beverly Shores

 The development of the lakeside resort community of Beverly Shores grew quickly in the post-war years.  Many of the seasonal residents were Chicagoans who brought their Windy City architects with them.  One of those architects found respite in the dunes himself and purchased a large lot in 1948 on which he constructed three side-by-side vacation homes for his family.

Louis Solomon was a prolific Chicago architect known primarily for designing large apartment buildings.  Solomon attended the University of Illinois during the 1930s and later established his firm with a brother-in-law who was a contractor.  The firm expanded and continues to this day.  Solomon practiced in the International Style.  The introduction of this style of house in Beverly Shores would have been unusual except for a prior introduction of the style that arrived....by barge!

Interior of one of the Solomon houses

The developer of Beverly Shores, which began in 1927, was a Chicago real estate developer by the name of Frederick Bartlett.  Bartlett's son, Robert, purchased six of the futuristic homes that were located at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair "Century of Progress" exhibition.  He dismantled two-those he could-and trucked them to Beverly Shores in 1934-1935.  The remaining four houses he placed on barges and floated to the new resort.  He hope the futuristic homes would bring attention to the development and attract more home building.  The Century of Progress houses are still located along the bluff overlooking the beach and have been restored through a cooperative agreement between Indiana Landmarks and the National Park Service.

The National Park Service purchased several properties throughout the lakeshore in order to create the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore during the 1960s.  They reached an agreement with the Solomon family as well and currently own the three-home enclave.  The homes were listed on the National Register in 2011.

From Falls of the Iroquois to Rensselaer

Downtown Rensselaer

Rensselaer.  I have to admit it took me several weeks typing that over and over again before I stopped mis-spelling it.  The little Hoosier city is the county seat of Jasper County.  Its founders decided to confuse future generations of outsiders by deviating the plat, established in 1839, at an angle from true north.  James Van Rensselaer and his son, John, purchased land surrounding a series of short falls and rapids along the Iroquois River in 1835.  Here they platted a town which the state recognized as the county seat of Newton County (prior to the separation of Jasper on the east).  The Van Rensselaers named the town the "Falls of the Iroquois" but the state chose "Newton".  In 1841 the state was petitioned to change the name to Rensselaer....for which it has remained named.

Jasper County Courthouse, 1896

While many of Rensselaer's downtown buildings date to the mid 1800s, the most notable development in the commercial hub of the county happened in 1896 when a new, quite magnificent courthouse was constructed on the public square.  It was designed by Grindle & Weatherhogg of Fort Wayne and was their only Indiana courthouse commission.


An unusual English cottage style diner, c. 1925.

As is often the case when new courthouses are established in a downtown area, the commercial buildings around the courthouse go through substantial renovations often to mirror the new architecture of the courthouse if not in style, certainly in impressive detail.  Such was the case opposite the courthouse in Rensselaer when three notable buildings sprung up.
A great moment in Jasper County history was when President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke at the courthouse in 1962 to honor Rensselaer resident Charles Halleck.  Halleck was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1935-1969.  The downtown was placed on the National Register in 2011.



Buildings opposite the then-new courthouse include the bank (left) and the Odd Fellows' Lodge (right)

Receiving the Mail on the Farm in Jasper County

Rensselaer Post Office with the Jasper County Courthouse in the background.

Until 2009 I had been to Rensselaer only twice in my life.  Once I had driven through it on the way to Remington; actually I was driving through Remington also.  This was back when I would just pick a route in my college days and then just drive.  The second time was on the job for a potential project associated with Drexel Hall (Indian Normal School), a part of St. Joseph College.  But in 2009 I was invited to take a look at the city's New Deal-era post office and its downtown for possible National Register nominations.

So I drove into the Jasper County seat of government, spied their amazing courthouse, and quickly noted that the street grid threw me off my Midwest-mindset that streets go north-south and east-west.  After multiple trips to Rensselaer, I still get confused which way I'm heading until I leave town and become re-acclimated with polar north.

The Rensselaer Post Office, built in 1937, is fairly non-descript and was designed in a style that became known as "starved classicism".  This was due to the fact that leading up to the Great Depression the United States Postal Office was building more and more elaborate buildings in high classical or colonial revival styles and that just wasn't going to fly under the stretched budget of Depression-era America, regardless of the USPS being a recipient of New Deal funding for construction.

So, the post office's chief architect during the 1930s stripped away all the frills of more exuberant times and primarily focused his attention on the entry areas in new construction.  This is why post office after post office constructed during the 1930s all look very much the same (they repeated the pattern almost to a T).  But the Rensselaer Post Office has one exciting thing that differentiates it from the scads of other post offices around the country and puts it in good company with only a handful of other Hoosier Depression-era post offices.  It was the recipient of a large mural in its lobby.

The mural was also created under an arts project of the New Deal.  The mural was painted by John Costigan, a well-known East Coast artist who had received a commission for two other post office murals outside of Indiana.  The Rensselaer mural is called Receiving the Mail on the Farm and it was completed in 1938.  Costigan's commission was $670.  Several other Indiana post offices have retained their historic murals painted under this program (more coming to this blog soon).  Only one has been lost.  A book by John Carlisle called A Simple and Vital Design explores all of Indiana's post office murals.  Occasionally I find myself in a community I recall from Carlisle's book and get the itch to pay a visit to the post office lobby.....one of America's last great meeting places.

"Receiving the Mail on the Farm"

The Rensselaer Post Office's National Register nomination is pending review by...well...the USPS, and it's been 4 years.  At one point the nomination had ironically been "lost in the mail."  No kidding.  The good folks in Rensselaer are anxious to have the mural cleaned and restored.  Godspeed.

For 200 years...the best we can come up with?!

The new...and boring...Indiana license plate.

Not being aware of any major unveiling of our newest state license plate that will take us into our Bicentennial celebration in 2016, the forgettable plate made its first appearance to me while I was waiting in a drive-thru line at Starbucks.

And I thought-no way.....is this the best we can come up with for our 200th anniversary of statehood?  There probably is some symbolic message we are sending, not so much with the artwork, but by the lack of imagination on display for the rest of the country to see on our backsides.  Maybe it really does represent what we are?  Oh geesh.

Here are some words I think best describes our new plate design: bland, boring, drab, dull, humdrum, insipid, lifeless, mundane, prosiac, and vapid.  Yes-I googled synonyms for boring.  And I can't imagine having that plate on my car for the next 6+ years.  I found what must have been a specialty plate design for our 150th, along with what must have been standard issue.

1966 standard issue plate?

 

1966-150th-special issue plate?  I think this looks familiar.

I also found many of the new plate's predecessors so I felt like I should share them.  I remember many of them and wonder if you remember them too?  How about the state of Wander?  Or just the plate with stripes at the bottom during the 80s?  I guess the new plate could be worse.

1928-when a plate was nothing more than a plate!

1980-not a bad design, just hard to see.

1981-pretty boring

1984-outsiders thought we were the state of Wander.

 

An Avenue through the Forest

This c. 1929 home has the appearance of a French manor house.

Hammond's wealth abounded and while much of the downtown may have lost its link to the city's vibrant past, one area of the city retains the atmosphere present during its glorious heyday.  There is a long strip of residential development that occurred between the Illinois state line and Hohman Avenue, south of the downtown.  These blocks straddled Forest Avenue, aptly named because of its development in untouched areas.  The development occurred during the late 1890s but blossomed during the 1910s and 1920s.

A simple Dutch Colonial Revival home, c. 1925.

As the city extended further south, the neighborhoods were serviced by electric car lines on Hohman.  The developments became known as Moraine, Southview, Roselawn, and Ivanhoe at the southernmost end of Forest Avenue.  Southview and Ivanhoe were some of the most desirable locations and carried the most prestigious addresses.

One of a multitude of bungalow style homes in the Moraine neighborhood.

The neighborhoods appear much as they did during the height of their development, save a few more garages and drives.  While construction fell off during the 1930s and early 1940s, it rebounded after the war and held strong into the 1950s.  Simple bungalow and Colonial Revival designs were popular in the Moraine area, while Southview and Ivanhoe displayed  robust wealth and finer tastes with massive examples of Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival homes.  Several of the homes have a storybook look as if they fell out of the pages of a childrens' fairy tale.  The string of neighborhoods were placed on the National Register in 2009-2010.

The shingled roof of this Tudor Revival home is supposed to mimic the thatched roofs of the English countryside.

Hammond's downtown isles

Hohman Avenue, Hammond, looking south

I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about downtown Hammond prior to 2009.  That area of northwest Indiana was simply a place to drive 70 mph through on the interstate toward western destinations.  Then at the end of 2008 I began to make trips off-interstate into what was once one of the wealthiest locations outside of Indianapolis in the Hoosier state.

Unfortunately the grandeur once associated with downtown Hammond has been largely scarred by tear-downs due to abandonment, urban "renewal", and major transportation corridor projects.  In fact the downtown hardly exists as a whole anymore, but is rather two enclaves as if a sea of asphalt flooded the downtown and only a few blocks on higher ground were saved.  One of those downtown enclaves is located along State Street, which was listed on the National Register several years ago.  The buildings that remain along State Street have largely become a part of the Hyles-Anderson First Baptist Church campus.  The fundamentalist mega-church and its college located in Crown Point have recently endured a great deal of less-than-fun-damning scandal that has left its own pall on Hammond's downtown.

Hohman Avenue, Hammond, looking north toward St. Joseph's Catholic Church

The other, certainly more marketable and vibrant downtown enclave is situated along a three block area of Hohman Avenue.  The buildings that remain demonstrate the city's impressive gilded past as a banking and insurance center in the Midwest.  The Great Depression spun the city around on its heels, though it managed to stage a comeback into the 1950s.  But urban renewal and transportation corridor development in many ways doomed the city's core to a deserted island with little coming and going....mostly going.

Hammond's Masonic Temple, demolished in 2009

I sense that the downtown is due for another comeback.  In order for that to happen the city has to capitalize on its financial foundations and easy access to Chicago.  In this on-line world, the large office buildings offer immense expandable space for new tech development companies as the recent Innovation Center on Hohman can attest.  Retailers follow white collars, as is evident from the metro-style cafe' that opened in 2009 across the street.  But the tear-downs have to stop....hopefully the Masonic Temple, one of the largest in Indiana, will be the last lost to the sea of asphalt.  It was demolished before the ink was dry on Hohman's National Register certificate.

Family roots in the Old (Indiana) Northwest

Andrew Moore, pioneer of Lake County

Several weeks ago I wrote about a project that took me over the state line to Beecher, Illinois.  Since the outing was largely charitable in nature, I combined it with a little genealogical research that I had wanted to do in the area so that the sting of giving away services wasn't felt too deeply.

During the 1820s through 1830s two branches of my family traveled through northwest Indiana to settlements on the border of Lake County, Indiana and Kankakee County, Illinois, probably down the Sauk Trail.  The trail was an ancient Native American game route, also confirmed as a mastodon trailway around the south edge of Lake Michigan.  The Sauk Trail was incorporated into a supply route to Fort Dearborn from Detroit by the federal government in 1825.  The road became known in Indiana as the Chicago Road.



Adam Hamilton, pioneer of Kankakee County, IL

Adam Hamilton was born in 1793 to English immigrant Thomas Hamilton.  Thomas, though born under the Union Jack, was part of the First Virginia Regiment during the American Revolution and was camped with General Washington at Valley Forge.  Adam married Margaret Howard in Ohio in 1819 and then moved to Jackson County, Indiana.  Adam purchased property in Kankakee, Illinois in 1835 and 1836.  In 1841 he bought property on the west side of the Illinois/Indiana border, east of Sherburnville.  This became his permanent home.  The farmhouse is still there on the south side of Route 2, immediately across our state line.  After his death his farm was sold to Washington Allen.  Adam's son, Jacob, continued to live in the area and became the first supervisor of the township.  While no gravemarkers remain, it is believed Adam and Margaret are buried in West Creek Cemetery, a stone's throw from their farmstead, in West Creek Township, Lake County.  Jacob and several other Hamilton's are buried here, along with Washington Allen.



Village hall and church in Sherburnville, Illinois

Jacob Hamilton's wife's grave in West Creek Cemetery

Adam and Margaret's daughter, Rebecca Hamilton, met William Moore and were married in 1858 near Momence, Illinois.  William was called away to duty for the Union army, enlisting in Company H of the Illinois 100th regiment.  William was wounded in the Battle of Stone River, TN, captured, and imprisoned during which time he carved a ring from "a generals horse's bone which had been shot out from under him".  I've never been able to confirm that story.  We do know it was carved while he was held, and I wore it in my wedding thanks to the generous folks at the Marshall County Historical Society.


William Moore, Col. Company H, 100th Illinois Infantry

William Moore was the son of Andrew and Hannah Cole Moore, and one of a long line of William and Andrew Moores that stretch back to the 1600s in Connecticut.  Andrew was born in 1806 in New York and married Aurena Hine in 1825.  They moved from New York through Adrian, Michigan, where William was born in 1836.  They purchased 160 acres in West Creek Township, Lake County, Indiana the following year.  He was the first justice of the peace in the township and helped organize the first Methodist church in the area in 1838.  They lived several years in the Sherburnville area before permanently settling in Indiana.  All seven of Andrew's sons volunteered for service during the Civil War; three died and the other four suffered from life-long disabilities.  William and a brother, Frank, began a sawmill operation in Argos, Indiana.  The work proved too much for the wounded vets and William began a drugstore in the community.  Andrew sold his land holdings in 1865 and moved to Lowell where he opened a mercantile until his retirement in 1872.  He and Aurena are also buried in West Creek Cemetery.

A sales receipt for merchandise at William Moore's Argos mercantile.  These were made out to his daughter Lucy Chapman (my great x2 grandmother) and his son, Charles.  Based on the date, it appears that the merchandise was part of their inheritance from their father who had died a few weeks prior in 1893.  Check out the prices!

An interesting story about another of William's brothers, James, relates to his occupation.  He had a contract to build railroad depots along the Union Pacific Railroad, which included depots for the new transcontinental line between Omaha and Promontory Point, Utah.  He was witness to the driving of the golden spike that joined the railroads in 1869.

Angola's Public Square: Second only to Monument Circle

Angola's Public Square

Toward the end of 2008 I was contracted by the City of Angola to place their downtown on the National Register.  Worthy of the listing?  Absolutely.  I had been to the city in northeast Indiana only a few months prior to being contacted.  The most remarkable space is their downtown "square" which evolved into a large round-about after a war memorial was placed in the center of the square in 1917.  As far as Indiana town squares go, Angola is second only to Indianapolis's famed Monument Circle, but has a hometown flare all its own.

With the opportunity to stay over at Pokagon State Park, I took the family for a weekend get-away while I worked over their Christmas break.  Unfortunately, the toboggan run at Pokagon had closed for the season.  And it was cold....I should know....I spent hours walking up and down the city streets in a brisk sub-zero wind.
Angola was platted in 1836 and was established as the county seat of Steuben County in 1837.  The town's founders incorporated a public square on the highest point in the original plat.  The purpose of the square was to serve as a space for both civic functions and for farmers to bring their crops to a public market.  As automobiles gained in popularity and the important cross streets in the square needed more definition at their intersection, the community devised a plan for a monument to soldiers of the Civil War.  The 70 foot tall monument includes an inscription of Lincoln's Gettysburg address and is topped by a statue of Columbia.

TWO downtown theaters on the Square

Some of the city's most important architecture front the public square.  This includes the 1868 Steuben County Courthouse, a large Masonic Hall, impressive First National Bank building, and the Angola Opera House.  Near the middle of the 20th century the square boasted two movie theaters, still in operation today.  The historic county jail and sheriff's residence is located immediately behind the old courthouse and is used as a museum.

In 2009 I was part of a team that worked toward new streetscaping in the square and on Maumee Street (Highway 20).  I returned to Angola in 2011 to see the finished product.  Impressive.  The downtown was placed on the National Register in 2010.  Here is a post from my first trip to Angola:  Landmarks and the Powers Church



Comfort in Lincoln Park

On the first day without employment....or I guess I should say the first day of self-employment, I received an email about another National Register nomination.  I thought, sure I'm interested, I'll ride this as far as God wants to take me.  It was a New Deal project in Mishawaka on the Saint Joseph River.

The Lincoln Park Comfort Station was constructed in Lincoln Park in 1934 by the Civil Works Administration (CWA).  It was part several projects constructed in Mishawaka by the CWA, and part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal program, that provided jobs to Americans left struggling financially by the Great Depression.  The Lincoln Park Comfort Station was constructed to provide additional amenities to Lincoln Park, sandwiched between the Lincoln Highway and St. Joseph River at the west edge of Mishawaka.

For all us Hoosiers who complain about FDR and the New Deal-some interesting stats reveal that our ancestors felt much differently.  Indiana ranked as one of the top beneficiaries of wages paid out.  By the end of 1933, 104,000 persons had been given employment throughout Indiana under the CWA banner with a weekly payroll of $4,500,000.  The first week of January, 1934, South Bend, Mishawaka and the townships of St. Joe County, showed 4,742 men who were receiving weekly wages amounting to nearly $75,000 from federal funds.  Given that, the actual average weekly pay per employee was about $15.82.

 

An article in the South Bend Tribune from 1934 was a bit prophetic if you ask me:  "only the passage of time will reveal to the fullest extent the lasting benefits that may be derived from the gigantic CWA program".  As well we know, the benefits are unmeasurable.

The CWA and other New Deal, get America back to work, programs used materials readily available for construction of stone walls, buildings and other park related structures.  Often the public works projects in Northern Indiana used native granite fieldstone for structure and building materials.  In other parts of the state, other locally quarried or available material was used such as limestone or sandstone.  The materials were then adapted and configured into an architectural style that became identified as "Park Rustic".