Blog post by Randi Richardson On October 1, 1918, as nature dressed the trees in lovely autumn colors, many life-changing events were occurring within the Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) on the IU campus. That morning, precisely at 11 AM, President William Lowe Bryan met with 1,200 inductees assembled on Jordan Field in an oath-taking
Blog post by Randi Richardson On April 6, 1917, more than two years after the beginning of World War I, the United States declared war on Germany. A military draft was instituted in the U. S. for all men between the ages of 21 and 30 and was soon amended to include all men from 18-45.
Blog post by Randi Richardson Golden eagles, not to be confused with bald eagles, are one of the largest, fastest, nimblest raptors in North America. They hunt on land and in the air. They are capable of preying on land animals the size of a small deer with a grip strength said to be 100 times
Blog post by Randi Richardson For many years, in many homes and restaurants, tins of Winterlein lard and other Winterlein meat products were a common sight. Bloomington Packing Company, manufacturer of Winterlein merchandise, was founded in 1922 by Ernest Reuter, Elzie L. Baldwin and Fred G. Baierlein, all former residents of Muncie. Winterlein was created
Blog post by Randi Richardson Looking at the busy parking lot in front of Kroger at Second and College today, one would see little or no evidence that the property was once the original campus of Indiana University. But before the last remaining building was demolished, several relics were removed and made a part of
Blog post by Randi Richardson Deed books include property transactions and slaves were considered property. Occasionally, then, even in those states where slavery was banned by constitutional law, deed books include contracts of indentured servitude, one of the ways whites maneuvered to keep possession of their slaves in spite of the law. John Sedwick,
Blog post by Randi Richardson In 2017, in a blog item on this website, Joshua O. Howe was credited with assembling the first horseless carriage to run on the streets of Bloomington. But there seems to be another side to the story. Mary Loftin, in an article published in the Bloomington Daily Herald Telephone on
Rev. Moses M. Porter, who for 50 plus years was pastor of the Second Baptist Church, was during his lifetime one of the best known blacks in Bloomington. He was the best known preacher this town ever had, according to Howard “Doc” Lewis in a newspaper article from the Bloomington Sunday Tribune and Star Courier
Blog post by Randi Richardson The Grant Street Inn at 310 N. Grant Street, Bloomington, Indiana, wasn’t always an inn. And it wasn’t always on Grant Street. It is a house with an interesting history wrapped around the various people who lived there and some interesting events. It isn’t quite certain when the house was built. Originally
Blog post by Randi Richardson Tim Rea, a resident of Evansville, Indiana, stopped by the Monroe County History Center a few weeks ago after learning that his mother, Mary (Steen) Rea, had been featured in one of the History Center’s blogs. He was eager to learn whatever he could about the Roxy Theatre which was at the
Blog post by Randi Richardson I met Charles Gromer at the Monroe County History Center garage sale in June 2019. He was thumbing through a thick stack of orphan photographs, those pictures abandoned by their families without identification. “It’s sad,” I said “to see photos of people discarded without identification and separated from the families
Blog post by Randi Richardson There once was a funeral home in downtown Ellettsville. If you didn’t live in Ellettsville during the 1940s and 50s, you probably have no memory of it. In the span of history, it existed only briefly. The two-story building at 112 N. Sale Street is believed to have been built
Blog post by Randi Richardson Every year at the MCHC annual garage sale I find, without much effort, an artifact or two from Bloomington. This year it was a large, framed picture of the Showers Furniture Factory taken sometime in the 1930s, a June 1929 diploma from Bloomington High School made out to Lucille (variously
Blog post by Randi Richardson Two men with deep roots in Monroe County served as governor of Indiana. Paris Chipman Dunning was one of those two. He came to Bloomington with his mother when he was quite a young man and studied law under Gen. Howard and James A. Whitcomb. He obtained his law degree
Blog post by Randi Richardson Lots of people from Monroe County had kin that lived in Brown County located adjacent to Monroe County on the east. Some of those kin may be among those noted in the June 2019 issue of the Brown County Journal dedicated exclusively to hucksters—the vehicle operators and the families and communities they