Vanderburgh County Historical Society

VCHS programming actually runs from November to November

Programs for 2021-2022

• Tom Lonnberg and Terry Hughes – From Here to Eternity (motion picture) (December 2022)
• Kelley Coures – From the Closet to Main Street: a Look at Evansville’s LGBTQ+ History (June 2022)
• Erick Jones – Wide Open Evansville (September 20202)
• Dr. James MacLeod – Lost Evansville: the Transformation of a City, 1945-1975 (September 2022)
• James Madison — The Klu Klux Klan in the Heartland (April 2022)
• Jon Carl – Bullets by the Billions (March 2022)
• Oak Hill Twilight Tour (October 2022)

Walking Tours

• Main Street in the 1960s – (October 2022)

History Celebration at the Evansville Museum  November 2022

Letter of Support for Old Courthouse Bell Tower

Letter of Support for Browning Genealogy

Maturity Journal Articles –

•           December 2021: Tom Lonnberg – the Vendome Hotel

•           January 2022: Steve Appel – Cooke’s Park

•           February 2022: Dr. Stella Ress – Four Freedoms Monument

•           March 2022: Chris Cooke – Oak Hill Cemetery

•           April 2022: Joe Engler — the Coliseum

•           May 2022: Amber Gowen – Evansville Nurses during WWI

•           June 2022: Dr. Denise Lynn – Albion Fellows Bacon, pt. 1

•           July 2022: Dr. Denise Lynn – Albion Fellows Bacon, pt. 2

•           August 2022: Tom Lonnberg – Evansville’s Inter Urbans

•           September 2022: Terry Hughes – Marilyn Miller

•           October 2022: Shane Raenschert – Evansville’s LGBTQ+ history (not published)

•           November 2022: Tom Lonnberg – James Bethel Gresham

•           December 2022 Joe Engler – Helder-Brandon Residence

Sunday, October 9th at 2:00 PM, starting at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Main Street in Evansville, Indiana

Please reserve a spot to let us know how many are coming. Click the link following to go to the Museum reservation site, fill in the info, and select Main Street Walking Tour. https://emuseum.org/rsvp

Tom Lonnberg and Terry Hughes will lead a guided tour of Main Street as it looked in the 1960s. Starting at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Main Street, the tour will walk the seven blocks to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. We will return via Sycamore.

Tom and Terry will provide a printed pamphlet to illustrate buildings we pass. We invite tour members to share their memories and assist in locating various business along the route. For instance, Terry remembers having his feet X-rayed in the Evansville Store’s shoe department, and Tom remembers Christmas shopping at the Evansville store.

As can be seen in the photo, in the 1960s Main Street was still intact as a four lane street with another lane on each side for parking. Although change was threatening the downtown district in the 1960s, Main Street was still a thriving area. In the picture, we can see Baynham’s (shoes), the Evansville Store (department store), Bon Marche'(department store), Barkers (shoes), the Farmer’s Daughter (restaurant) and WROZ Radio, all businesses gone today from the downtown district.

By the end of the decade, Main Street was its current-day box canyon with the new Civic Center blocking it at Seventh Street, the present day Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. In the next decade the city further choked Main by narrowing it to the serpentine passage it is today. Much of what was is now gone. It can only remain in our memories and photos that have survived. Join us in recreating Main Street in the 1960s. You don’t have to be an older person with memories. Anyone of any age can enjoy the tour. The tour is free and open to the public.

Please reserve a spot to let us know how many are coming. Click to go to the Museum reservation site, fill in the info, and select Main Street Walking Tour. https://emuseum.org/rsvp

Tom Lonnberg is the Chief Curator and Curator of History at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science. He is also the Vice President of the Vanderburgh County Historical Society.

Terry Hughes is a retired educator from the EVSC. In retirement he serves as President of the Vanderburgh County Historical Society. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society.

On Thursday, September 8 at 6 pm, Dr. James MacLeod will present the talk “Lost Evansville: The

Transformation of a City,” 1945-1975 at the Evansville Museum.
From 1945-1975 Evansville, like many other places, underwent an almost complete transformation as the wartime factories were closed or repurposed, iconic companies either closed or moved away, the old downtown was largely replaced by new structures, and road-building projects cut apart traditional neighborhoods. All these issues raised huge challenges and opened opportunities – and they profoundly shaped the city that we see today. There was much that was lost, but this is also a story of what came in its place.
Dr. MacLeod chairs the Department of History, Politics, and Social Change at UE. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Evansville in World War Two, which was published in 2015, and “The Cartoons of Evansville’s Karl Kae Knecht,” published in February 2017. In 2016 he wrote and co-produced a two-part documentary on Evansville in World War II for WNIN PBS titled Evansville at War. He is currently working on a history of the city for the History Press entitled “Lost Evansville,” to be published Fall 2023.
This event is presented in partnership with the Vanderburgh County Historical Society.
As seating is limited, please make complimentary reservations at https://emuseum.org/rsvp.

Sometime in the late 1870s, Philip C Helder built his large home on the edge of Rowleytown. Rowleytown was a small neighborhood northeast of downtown platted by an Evansville judge Nathan Rowley. Several of the roads have changed names as the area was eventually merged into the city limits. Helder was the one of the partners in Blemker, Tillman, & Co Excelsior Stove Works. The two-story brick home was located at 420 William St, what is now the corner of E Sycamore and Elliott St.

Around 1889, M C Brandon of Holt and Brandon Ice became the owner of the house, but by 1895 he
built new residence nearer downtown. The home passed through various owners for next several years, but the it was fairly well kept.

The Old Folks Home Association bought the house in 1921 and turned it into the Colored Old Folks Home. It was a home for “aged and needy colored people.” In 1924, a health clinic opened in the home to treat tuberculosis patients.

In 1929, the property came under the umbrella of what was later Welborn Hospital. Serving African American community, the Walker Annex was run by registered nurses with doctors from the hospital visiting as needed to perform surgeries. It was officially renamed the Welborn-Walker Annex in 1933 and then Welborn Annex in 1944 as the main hospital changed names.

The Welborn annex closed in 1953 in an effort to desegregate the hospital. The neighborhood was close in proximity to Baptistown and the home continued to cater to the African American population. It was the Bell’s Tourist Home (colored) in 1954 and continued as a hotel through at least 1962.

As the area became less residential and more industrial the property became run down. In the early 1980s, fixtures including chandeliers and mantels pilfered from property while it sat vacant. Efforts to save building began by Evansville NAACP for its historical significance to black community. The sketch below shows the plans to rehab the home for offices for Six Sons Construction Co.

Sadly before the plans could ever materialize the company backed out. The building, which was the last one on the block, caught fire overnight on April 7, 1984. It was badly damaged and torn down shortly afterward.

7:00 PM on June 2, 2022. In the Fellowship Hall of First Presbyterian Church at 609 SE Second Street, Evansville, IN

First Presbyterian Church is at the intersection of Second Street and Mulberry in Evansville, Indiana. Click for directions

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Join the VCHS in learning about Evansville’s LGBTQ history presented by Kelley Coures. Coures will tell the story of Evansville’s LGBTQ history beginning with local coverage of the trial of Oscar Wilde and ending with the current LGBTQ narrative.

Kelley Coures is an Evansville native who earned his BA in economics and history from the University of Southern Indiana. Coures has been Evansville’s Director of Metropolitan Development since 2014. He is also the winner of the 2011 Sadelle Berger Civil Rights Award, and the 2012 winner of the Leadership Evansville Social Service Award. Coures has been an Emeritus member of River City Pride from 2019 to the present.

Noted Historian, James Madison, to Speak in Evansville

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Dr. James “Jim” H. Madison’s most recent book, The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland begins with this sentence: “The Ku Klux Klan was a dark as the night and as American as apple pie.” In his talk—presented in a partnership of the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science, the Evansville African American Museum, and the Vanderburgh County Historical Society—Madison will attempt to explain that seemingly contradictory statement. He will focus on Indiana’s Klan of the 1920s, its goals and methods, its members and opponents, and its place in in larger contexts down to our own time. This program explores this regrettable and all too often glossed-over history.

Jim Madison is the Thomas and Kathryn Miller Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University. An award-winning teacher, he is the author of several books, including Eli Lilly: A Life; Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys: An American Woman in World War II; Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana; and A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America. The Midwestern History Association recently honored him with the Frederick Jackson Turner Lifetime Achievement Award.

This program is made possible through a grant from Indiana Humanities, in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Time & Date: Thursday, April 21, 6 p.m.

Location: Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science
411 SE Riverside Drive, Evansville IN

For complimentary reservations: Visit https://emuseum.org/rsvp and choose “Dr. James Madison’s Presentation” under “Event Selection”.

Movie

On Saturday December 4, 6:00 PM, at the Evansville Museum, there will be a special screening of the 1953 classic movie From Here to Eternity. Starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, and Donna Reed living in Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. This drama romance won eight academy awards including for best motion picture. Retired EVSC film studies teacher Terry Hughes will provide commentary on the film’s place in cinema history. Popcorn will be provided before the movie. Tickets for the show are $10 per person. As seating is limited, please contact the Museum at 812-425-2406 to purchase tickets in advance.

Click the link to purchase tickets online. https://www.gatemastertickets.com/store/webevents.aspx?CompanyID=gm232&catid=10 Click Availability on the top left. Scroll the calendar to December 4th. Select the From Here to Eternity Event.

Presented in Partnership with the Vanderburgh County Historical Society

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Lecture
On the 80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Tuesday, December 7, Dr. James MacLeod, chair of the history department at the University of Evansville, will present Evansville in the Era of Pearl Harbor at 6:00 p.m. at the Evansville Museum. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the city of Evansville became one of the most important cities in the country, manufacturing hundreds of ships, thousands of fighter planes and literally billions of other items that contributed hugely to the Allies’ victory. In this lecture, illustrated with scores of images, MacLeod explains how all this industry came to be in Evansville, reveals the enormous impact that it had on social, economic, and cultural life, and analyzes how the city dealt with what was a time of astonishing transformation.

Following the program, Pearl Harbor collector Rex Knight will be present in the Museum’s current exhibition Remembering Pearl Harbor to share insight into the items on display.
Rex Knight has been a student of American military history since the age of 10. With more than 50 years of experience studying historical artifacts from the American Revolutionary War to World War II, Knight is an expert in evaluating and identifying historical military memorabilia. Knight has also written historical articles featured in World War II magazine and in 2001 authored the book Riding on Luck: The Saga of the USS Lang DD399. His collection of Pearl Harbor artifacts is among the most extensive and well documented in private hands.

As seating is limited, please make your complimentary reservation by calling the Museum at 812-425-2406.

Presented in Partnership with the Vanderburgh County Historical Society

Old National–looking to the future–spurned the NeoClassical building it had built in 1916. Apparently a few decades is about their threshold for newness. In 1967 it began plans for a new bank next door on Main St. They had the old Lincoln Hotel and several other old buildings at the corner of 5th and Main demolished.

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With the site cleared, construction began in earnest in 1968. The Old National building was designed by architect and real estate developer Jack W. Kelley from Tulsa, OK. The 18-story skyscraper was the tallest building in Evansville, though it was officially eclipsed by the silos at Igleheart Bros mill on First Ave.

The bank would move into the new building once completed and the old building was planned to be demolished for enclosed parking. The final complex would take up an entire quarter block and was estimated at $5 million to build. Interesting side note: the tower did include a 13th floor, often skipped in other tall buildings because of the unlucky nature.

The structure took nearly two years to build, and we were lucky to obtain several construction photos from the Clements family. As a worker at Industrial Contractors, he captured a handful of images on July 11, 1968 for his employer. The gallery below shows the tower being erected when it was about three stories tall.

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The bank embodied a modernist architecture, but its unwelcoming lower levels had a flare toward brutalism. The monolithic structure failed to stimulate downtown business and in some ways portended the struggles of Main St in the late 90s. Old National Bank moved to its new riverfront building in 2004, and the 420 Building sat mostly vacant.

Tapped for redevelopment (shown above), the cost of renovations proved too costly. Ironically, the old 8-story bank was a more suitable size for Evansville. The new plans for redevelopment call for the pending demolition and several mixed-use buildings none higher than 6 stories.

You can say goodbye to the 420 building this Sunday with its implosion scheduled for 7am. The 5/3 Bank Building will then become the tallest building in town.