On This Day in Terre Haute History

This evening is one of the most important dates in the history of Community Theatre, the second oldest nonprofessional theater in Indiana. The new playhouse at Twenty-fifth and Washington Streets was opened formally with the production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, the first of five plays produced this season. Community Theatre finally had a home of its own. Since its founding by Madge Polk Townsley in 1926, plays had been produced at a number of places, including Garfield High School, the Hippodrome Theater and the Indiana State Teachers College. Following the purchase of the former neighborhood Best Theater in 1954, construction of a stage and dressing rooms was accomplished under the direction of local architect Juliet Peddle. After the death of Weldin Talley, chairman of the building committee, in 1955, the theater was dedicated as the Weldin Talley Memorial Playhouse. It became the Hazledine-Talley Memorial Playhouse in 2004 in honor of the Hazledine family.

Rose Polytechnic Institute applied to the Department of Commerce to build and operate a radio broadcasting station. A construction permit was granted, and the one-hundred-watt station went on the air on June 15, 1927, from studios and towers located on the campus east of the city. The station, now with studios located in the Hotel Deming, was purchased from Rose Polytechnic by the local Banks of the Wabash Broadcasting Association in 1928; the call letters became WBOW. The Evansville-based Curtis Radiocasting Corporation became the next owner in 1929. Future locations included several addresses on North and South Sixth Streets until a renovated residence at 303 South Sixth Street became the station home in 1938. When this early history was written in 1987 by Ronn Mott, general manager, and other staff members, WBOW Radio 1230 was housed at 1301 Ohio Street with a glass-front main studio.

“The dream began in 1963, planning started in 1964, and construction took shape in 1970,” wrote Barbara Brugnaux, Terre Haute Tribune staff writer. This dream became a reality at the dedication of the $2,250,000 Katherine Hamilton Mental Health Center at 620 Eighth Avenue, with professionals and volunteers from six counties present. The work of the late Katherine Hamilton, Terre Haute pioneer for improved care of the mentally ill; goals set by the Vigo County Association for Mental Health; and the service of Dr. Betty Dukes, Dugger physician and first KHMHC president, were noted. The fulfilled vision established local mental health services for the prevention of mental illness and in-patient and out-patient care to prevent persons with mental health needs from living in institutional settings. Dr. William Shriner was the medical director and George Mayrose the KHMHC president.

The oldest professional orchestra in the state of Indiana claims this day as that of its first performance. A Saturday Spectator review read, “Everyone who was a part of the large audience which heard the debut program of the Terre Haute Civic Symphony Orchestra last Saturday morning at the Indiana Theater under the auspices of the Woman’s Department Club, is still talking about how delightful it was.” Professor Will H. Bryant was the director.

The Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra Association was organized in 1933–34 and the Terre Haute Symphony League (formerly the Women’s Symphony Society) in 1964 to help support this cultural asset of the community. The THSO remains dedicated to excellent performances of symphonic music for people of all ages who live in the Greater Wabash Valley, with David Bowden as director/conductor since 1997.

Construction was now complete on the Terre Haute Ordnance Depot, located on 523 acres east of Fruitridge Avenue and south of Fort Harrison Road. Built at a cost of $5.6 million, its function involved the storage of spare parts, the repair of transport vehicles and the shipment of supplies to military installations. Many women were employed to drive forklifts loading and unloading boxcars. A number organized themselves as WOWs (Women Ordnance Workers), the Terre Haute answer to “Rosie the Riveter.” It became the Fort Harrison Industrial Park in 1967, when the Wabash Valley Economic Development Commission bought the former Tumpane property from the federal government. Early development included Distributor’s Terminal, Bauermeister-Hegeman, Numerical Concepts, General American Transportation, Allstate Vending, Polymar Plastics and Ampacet. The commission turned over control of the property to the city in 1974; Terre Haute became the first city in the state to own its own industrial park.

The Indiana Historical Society presented its Hubert Hawkins History Award to B. Michael (Mike) McCormick at its annual Founders Day Dinner in Indianapolis. The award acknowledged McCormick’s distinguished service and career in local history. A practicing attorney, he spent many years studying, writing and speaking about the history of Terre Haute. One nomination read, “I dare say there may be no other living person with a more comprehensive knowledge of this area’s history than Mike.” The Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana Historical Bureau appointed McCormick Vigo County historian in 1996. He is the author of Terre Haute: Queen City of the Wabash (2005) and the weekly Tribune-Star column “Historical Perspective” since 1995. His involvement in the Vigo County Historical Society, Terre Haute Landmarks and the Walk of Fame project is a great asset to the community.

“Japanese warplanes made a deadly assault on Honolulu and Pearl Harbor in the foremost of a series of surprise attacks against American possessions throughout the Pacific,” read an Associated Press release in the Terre Haute Star. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed “a grim faced Congress united by the shock of battle and aroused by startling losses to the American forces in the Pacific, approved the declaration of war by an unanimous vote.” On Monday, the local recruiting offices were filled with men wanting to enlist. Vigo County’s four selective service boards estimated that a total of 175 men in Class 1A were available to serve. Terre Hauteans with family and friends in the Pacific waited anxiously, and bad news did arrive. Seaman First Class Wayne E. Newton, a 1937 graduate of Gerstmeyer High School, lost his life on the USS California at Pearl Harbor. Wayne Newton Post 346, American Legion, honors his memory.

This situation arose when two African American women presented tickets calling for seats in the most fashionable section of the theater. They were maids at a household whose members could not use the tickets so the seats were given to the servants, reported the Saturday Spectator. The house management immediately sent the women to the balcony since it was “against theater rules for a colored person to sit on the first floor.” Anne F. Hayman claimed the theater had been rented to her for the Subscribed Artists course and that resolving the embarrassing situation should be left to her—to which the theater conceded. The matter was finally adjusted by changing the seats to the rear of the first floor and withdrawing all other seats on that row from sale. The evening passed without the scene that would have ensued had the servants occupied seats in the fashionable section or had they refused to move to the balcony.

Five months after Colonel Francis Vigo was honored in Terre Haute during the July Fourth celebration, he signed his will, which included a $500 bequest to Vigo County for a courthouse bell. He died in Vincennes, and it was not until 1875 that the funds he had given to equip General George Rogers Clark in the campaign to capture the Northwest Territory from the British were repaid. The bell, still a part of the courthouse, was purchased, in part, with his $500 gift.

Vigo, born in Sardinia (now Italy) in 1747, enlisted in the Spanish army and was sent to New Orleans. He established a fur-trading business and took up the American cause. Local residents of Italian descent organized the Francis Vigo American-Italian Club in 1972 to preserve their heritage. In 1986, the U.S. Postal Service issued a postcard commemorating his life. A mural honoring Vigo by Bill Wolfe is part of the courthouse rotunda.

The opening of Ohio Street across the Evansville & Terre Haute tracks affected the offer of Sarah Deming, made in 1894, to give the city a park as soon as the street was opened. Another communication from Mrs. Deming in 1898 stated she would increase the size of the plot to eighty acres and commented, “It is recognized fact that Terre Haute is lacking in parks and the addition of the Deming Park would put the city on an equal with other cities who are already blessed with pleasure places.” Some twenty-three years later, negotiations were completed, with the Park Board paying the Deming Land Company $155,000 for the 155 acres east of Fruitridge Avenue. Of that amount, $100,000 would be given to the Rose Polytechnic Institute and the other $55,000 spent for a boulevard leading to the site. The park was dedicated on July 23, 1921.

The Farrington’s Grove annual Christmas Walk showcased several of the historic homes in the oldest remaining neighborhood in Terre Haute. The area is bordered by Poplar and Hulman Streets and Fourth and Seventh Streets. One of the homes on this year’s walk was the residence of David Lewis at 900 South Fourth Street, the oldest structure in the neighborhood. Originally built in 1849 on South Sixth Street, the house was later cut in half and moved to its present location. Today, warm cider and the piano music of Bill Cain provided holiday cheer.

Farrington’s Grove Historical District Inc. was created in 1976 and named after James Farrington, whose farm was located in the area in the 1840s. In 1986, Farrington’s Grove became the first residential neighborhood in Terre Haute to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Just days after the Pearl Harbor attack, Mayor Joseph P. Duffy was ordered by the federal government to call for the observance of “Keep ’Em Flying” week. His proclamation:

I urge all citizens of our city to inform themselves as to the needs of our armed forces; all merchants to display “Keep ’Em Flying” signs in their stores and in their advertising. All young men interested in becoming officers of the air corps to prepare and receive their examinations and all of us to promote the air forces of the Army, the Navy and Marine Corps.

He added, “During the three days of the coming week, the Aviation Cadet Examining Board will be in our city for the express purpose of giving physical examinations to all young men desiring to attend the Aviation Cadet school, often known as the Army ‘West Point of the Air’ and become Army officer pilots.”

Bethesda Corporation held an option to purchase about nine acres of former mayor Vernon McMillan’s property, located at 1616 South Twenty-fifth Street. Plans called for the construction of a $2.9 million, one-hundredunit complex for older persons. Ground was broken in 1979, and the ribbon was cut opening the doors on July 10, 1980. The name Peddle Park was chosen to honor Juliet Peddle, Terre Haute architect, artist and historian, who had died just the year before. Descended from Vigo County pioneers, she was one of the first women in Indiana and the country to practice architecture—a field dominated by men. She designed homes, Crawford School and several remodeling projects for the First Congregational Church and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. A devoted member of the Vigo County Historical Society, she founded its newsletter, Leaves of Thyme, in 1949 and edited it for twenty-nine years.

A sellout crowd of more than ten thousand people packed into the new multimillion-dollar Hulman Civic University Center for the Indiana State University versus Purdue University basketball game. The center was named in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Anton Hulman Jr., who had contributed the initial $2.5 million. Following their challenge gift, a campaign, chaired by Donald E. Smith of Terre Haute First National Bank, raised almost $1.2 million. “This is the greatest joint venture ever undertaken by the university and citizens of Terre Haute,” Mayor William J. Brighton commented. Hulman added some of the thrill of his Indianapolis Motor Speedway, calling out, “Gentlemen, start your game!” as he tossed out the ball to begin the action. Final score: Purdue over ISU, 81–69.

The “Wall of Fame” in the building honors and preserves the names of Terre Haute Olympic gold medal winners: Clyde Lovellette, basketball, 1952; Greg Bell, track and field, 1956; and Terry Dischinger, baskeball, 1960.

Terre Haute had not received so much publicity since the Saturday Evening Post dubbed us “Sin City” nearly twenty years ago. This time it was another magazine, Playboy, which was responsible for bringing our city to public attention, but it was almost the exact opposite of the prior charges against us. Steve Martin called Terre Haute “the most nowhere city” he had ever played in. The noted comedian’s remark drew immediate and good-natured responses from local leaders, primarily Mayor William Brighton. The upshot was a quickly-put-together media event that featured Martin’s return to Terre Haute. [More than 150 reporters and photographers from thirty-five news organizations covered it.]…It’s all in good fun and most of the local citizenry seemed to take it that way. That in itself says something about Terre Haute. If we can laugh at ourselves, we ought to be in pretty good company.

A Hungarian Christmas, celebrated at the Vigo County Historical Museum, recognized the heritage of the local Hungarian community. At least forty immigrant families had settled near Nineteenth and Maple Streets near the Malleable and Manufacturing Company plant in the early 1900s. The Terre Haute First Hungarian Working Men’s Benefit and Death Society was organized in 1909 “to financially assist sick members, to bury its dead members, to celebrate the spirit of Brotherhood, and to preserve and strengthen the Hungarian culture and heritage.” The organization purchased two lots at the corner of North Twenty-second and Linden Streets in December 1912, and ten years later, the Hungarian Hall was built on the site. The hall, maintained by the Terre Haute Hungarian Lodge, continues to serve as a place for meetings, dances and wedding parties. The annual Harvest Dance is a lasting tradition.

By the end of 1934, 18 percent of the Vigo County population was on relief. As part of making the holidays a little brighter, the Tribune-Star Publishing Company raised money at a two-night Christmas Frolic at the Hippodrome Theater to add to the Basket Fund. Tickets were seventy-five cents (reserved seats) and fifty cents. Marsee A. Cox directed the two-hour production, which included Jimmie Trimble, magician; the thirty voices of the Kiwanis Glee Club directed by Carl C. Jones; Louise and her Rhythm Boys on loan from the Mayflower and Marine Rooms at the Terre Haute House; and students from the Ernestine Myers, Archileen Chambers and Nita Leonard Cooper dance schools. Leo Baxter and his All Stars played from the orchestra pit. Baskets filled with food and toys were given out from fire stations to 800 Terre Haute and 125 Taylorville families the day before Christmas.

The Terminal Arcade, constructed in 1911 for use by interurban passengers, was now open as a busy bus terminal with sixteen lines using the facility. They included All American, Arrow Coach, Blue Bird, Clinton-Terre Haute, Greyhound, Illinois Transit, Indiana Railroad, National Motor, Rankin Coach, Siscoe, Southern Limited, Swallow Coach, Terre Haute Motor, Wabash Valley, Western Indiana and Western Motor. Within one year, it was the focal point for three hundred daily bus runs to and from the city. In addition to the passenger business, the buses also served as package freight carriers. A twenty-four-hour restaurant was added in 1950. This Terminal Arcade served as the bus terminal until 1972, when the new Greyhound/Trailways bus station opened at Second and Cherry Streets.

According to the Terre Haute Evening Gazette, “Holocaust of Hell Descends: This department store fire on the northeast corner of Fifth Street and Wabash Avenue was started by a short circuit in a window Christmas display igniting the cotton used for snow.” The fire destroyed the block and led to the deaths of Captain John Osterloo of the Terre Haute Fire Department, volunteer fireman Henry Nehf, store clerk Kate Mahoney and Claude Herbert, who was employed as Santa Claus at the store. Herbert, only eighteen years old and recently returned from service in the Spanish-American War, was helping shoppers from the basement to the first floor and out of the building before he died in the flames. A memorial fountain, erected at the corner site by Spanish-American War veterans in 1905, was replaced by a stone marker in 1928. A stone monument has stood in the area between City Hall and the courthouse since 1980.

Havens and Geddes salesmen set their appointments with customers by postcard. Courtesy J.S. Calvert Collection.

The fourth-annual Kiwanis Charity Newsie came off the press and was sold all day by members of the club. Published by the Terre Haute Star, the Newsie contained news about the Kiwanis Club, its members and what they had done for underprivileged children of the city. Members were helped by old-time newsboys of Terre Haute under the leadership of Charles T. Nehf, president of the Old Time Newsboys’ Association and member of the Kiwanis Club. The day began with breakfast at the Terre Haute House, where the first edition was auctioned off by C.L. Bartley. Immediately following the sale of the last paper of the first edition, the word “go” was sounded, and the members rushed from the hotel to the street to start selling to the general public. This fundraiser was a local holiday event from 1938 through 1958.

Construction had begun on the multimillion-dollar Vigo County Annex and Security Center in the summer of 1980. Located adjacent to the courthouse, it was now near completion. Several hundred people participated in the tours hosted by the Vigo County commissioners to view both sections: the office complex and the security (jail) section. The Board of Health Offices, formerly located in the Annex at 130 South Seventh Street, was the first to move into the new building. Other departments included the offices of the commissioners, recorder, auditor, treasurer, assessor and building inspector, as well as the air pollution division, the area planning department and the county computer system. Commissioner Jim Adams said that about one hundred county employees were working in the new complex. Sheriff Andrew Atelski and his department had moved into the new security section. Later, the inmates would be moved from the old jail building, which had served the county since 1882.

“Where to park the car in a business district is the most critical transportation issue of the day,” wrote Dan Anderson, “We Motorists” columnist in the Terre Haute Tribune and Sunday Star. Herbert N. Mace, in business downtown since 1919, had an interesting point of view on this issue, according to the Wabash Valley Press Club and Vigo County Public Library Oral History Project, 1980–81. Recalling congested downtown parking before the opening of shopping centers, he said:

I personally think the merchants needed more parking, but they weren’t willing to pay for it. They wanted the whole city to pay for it; I advocated us uptown people pay for whatever parking we needed ourselves. I’ve had a lot of criticism about my stand, but I believe that it’s not right to tax everybody in town to have subsidized parking…I think the shopping centers pay for their own parking for their customers in the rent they charge.

The Terre Haute Daily Express reported, “The condemned man walked with a firm step, but with head bowed down, out the gate and through the enclosure to the steps of the scaffold which he mounted and took his place.” Oliver Anson Morgan, a carriage blacksmith and Civil War veteran, had been sentenced to hang for the murder of John Petri, proprietor of a grocery store. Invitation cards had been given to thirty persons to witness the execution inside the enclosure at Third and Walnut Streets. Court officials, physicians and reporters from as far away as New York were in this group. Two other men had been executed by hanging in the county before this time. Sam Dias was hanged on July 5, 1844, at the foot of Strawberry Hill for the murder of George Brock. Lewis Bradford met the same fate outside the jail on January 4, 1861, for the murder of John L. Brooks.

Chauncey Rose, one of the greatest philanthropists in Terre Haute history, was born in Wethersfield Meadows, Connecticut. His story, told by himself in 1875, is part of the Old Settlers Society records reprinted in C.C. Oakey’s Greater Terre Haute and Vigo County (1908):

In the fall of 1817, I traversed the states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama looking for a location at which to reside and engage in business. I spent several days in Terre Haute, which had been laid out the previous year. The following winter I spent in Kentucky. Favorably impressed by the location and the people in and about Terre Haute, I returned and became a resident in April, 1818. There were two cabins…and the nearest boardinghouse was at Fort Harrison…In 1819, I moved to Parke County and engaged in the milling industry…I returned to Terre Haute in 1825.

President Warren G. Harding pardoned Eugene V. Debs, labor organizer and socialist leader. Debs had been imprisoned at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, since March 1919 for validation of the Espionage Act after denouncing U.S. involvement in World War I. Debs arrived home on Wednesday night and was welcomed by thousands of people at Union Station. He climbed in a waiting truck to take him home while the crowd cheered and the band played “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.” Mrs. Debs was on the front porch to greet her husband. Mayor Charles R. Hunter, standing on the top step, extended his hand and. in the name of the city of Terre Haute, welcomed home the returning prisoner. Debs said, “I could not make a speech tonight, but I can love you for your beautiful demonstration, and I do love you all again from the very depths of my heart.”

“Twist, twist and twist again at Terre Haute’s Peppermint Lounge—Club Idaho, 719 Hulman Street (members only). Free instruction by Cizek Academy of Dance and music by ‘The Blue Rollers’ band.” So read the advertisement in the Terre Haute Tribune. Although Arthur Murray of dance fame had said, “It will not last more than three months,” it was the dance in the city through 1962. The Grand Theater held over the movie Twist around the Clock in February, and by April, a Giant Twist Contest with prizes was held on stage at each show. “Twist and Square” was the theme chosen for the 1962 Newcomer Club dance. Three albums by Chubby Checker, the twenty-year-old dynamic “father of the Twist” were among the Top 20.

Fast-forward to 2004: the summer kickoff concert at the twenty-first-annual Wabash Valley Festival in Fairbanks Park headlined “Chubby C” (also known as Chubby Checker).

The Hotel Deming was one of the social centers of the city, with banquets, dances and service club luncheon meetings from 1914 to the 1960s. Courtesy J.S. Calvert Collection.

The sale of this downtown hotel to Hulman and Company was another point in its long history. One year later, it was purchased by Indiana State College and renamed Hulman Center to use as a men’s residence hall and, later, as an office and conference center. At the time, Mayor Ralph Tucker objected to the sale, which took the property off the tax rolls. The hotel was sold again in 1978 to the Bethesda Corporation. A $4.5 million project renovation made it into the Deming Center for low-income older residents and those with disabilities. The Indianapolis-based Core Redevelopment purchased the building in 2014 for a downtown apartment complex.

One hundred years before, the eight-story fireproof Hotel Deming had been completed on the site of the former Congregational church property at Sixth and Cherry Streets. A large lobby served guests in the 250 rooms, 200 of which were equipped with baths.

An Associated Press release from Hollywood reported the death of Theodore Dreiser:

Theodore Dreiser, one of America’s leading modern novelists, is dead…an outstanding realist who came in with the present century and rose to literary eminence through critical derision after abandoning a newspaper career, which he claimed was “too brutal.” Born at Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871, the son of a German couple, John and Sarah Dreiser, Theodore began early to brood over the “brutalities” of everyday life—a despair that soon etched itself firmly in his writing which consistently ran to tragedies…Dreiser never maintained very close relations with Terre Haute.

His older brother, Paul Dresser, famous Tin Pan Alley composer, had changed his name, but Theodore kept the family name of Dreiser. Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy are the best known of his works. Dreiser Hall, a classroom building at Indiana State University, was named in his memory.

Representatives of all twelve township school corporations in the county unanimously agreed to transfer the assets, liabilities and operation of their school facilities over to the newly appointed Board of School Trustees of Vigo County. With two members dissenting, the Terre Haute Board of School Trustees also adopted a resolution to turn over all the assets of the city schools to the new Vigo County School Corporation as of January 1. Attorney Thomas A. Patrick had advised under the School Corporation Reorganization Act of 1959 that the trustees were “mandated to consummate the changeover.” Max Gabbert was the acting superintendent of the new school corporation.

Stillman Taylor, librarian of the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library, was named acting librarian of the Vigo County Public Library, which had been established as part of the school reorganization transition.

For fifty-seven years, the Wabash Valley High School Basketball Tournament was in play. It became one of the largest non-state scholastic athletic competitions in the nation, but time was called after the 1972 event. Now, this tradition was resurrected at Terre Haute South Vigo High School with the first Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic. Teams from twelve high schools in Indiana and Illinois were competing, with Turkey Run and Sullivan playing the opening game. Host South Terre Haute, North Vigo, West Vigo, Hamilton Southeastern, South Vermillion, Cloverdale, Bloomfield and Rockville in Indiana and Marshall and Bridgeport Red Hill from Illinois also competed. The Bloomfield Cardinals and Hamilton Southeastern Royals advanced to the championship game, with the Royals winning 79–46. Jim Jones and Pat Rady, Terre Haute coaches, and Gary Fears of Pizza Hut were to be congratulated for renewing this Wabash Valley tradition.

The Y2K fear that technology couldn’t handle the date change from “10” to “20” had spread throughout the world. Max Jones, Tribune-Star editorial writer, wrote this column on New Year’s Eve 1999. It was printed the next day, the first day of the new century:

Instead of suffering through our first official hangover of the year 2000, you’re sitting in the middle of those Y2K supplies wondering what the devil you’re going to do with all this stuff…That leaves you with enough batteries to light Times Square until next New Year’s Eve, a lifetime supply of bottled water and plenty of bread to feed the world. It didn’t seem like paranoia at the time, of course. The media marketers deluged us with notso-veiled hints of impending catastrophe when computer calendars rolled over, rendering technology crippled and confused about what century it was in…You can see that the world is not much different today from what it was yesterday.