History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 46

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 46

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mainly, and has done it well, so that no change is perceptible. The city department is admirably con- ducted by Mr. Joseph E. Cobb.

The Sunday Times, now usually a double quarto, is one of the most attractive publications in the coun- try. The weekly of the Times is the Industrial Times, and is made an entirely non-partisan paper. It is an excellent publication for working men and families of all classes. The Journal, it may be noticed here, publishes a folio supplement on Satur- day, the Sentinel a quarto supplement sometimes, sometimes a folio on Sunday. Both the Sunday papers are admirable publications, and have a very large circulation. The News usually publishes an eight-column page on Saturday evening, instead of the ordinary seven-column page. The German Spott- vogel is a Sunday paper. About the 1st of Novem- ber, 1883, the " Indiana Publishing Company" began the publication of a humorous weekly, with cartoons, in the fashion of Punch and Puck and all the comic papers of the past and present. The illustrations as well as the reading-matter promise to make the enterprise as successful as it is entertaining. It should be noted here that both the Sunday Times and Sun- day Sentinel have a department devoted exclusively to the interests, social and political, of women, called the Women's Department. That of the Sentinel is edited by Mrs. Florence Atkinson, and that of the Times by Mrs. Mary Wright Sewall. Both are well written and carefully made up.

The list of little dailies and weeklies and month- lies that have come up and flourished a few months or years and died, and left no sign of their existence but a name that few remember, is a long one, and probably impossible to make complete, but as nearly as it can be done it is done in the following state- ment : Of dead dailies there is, first, the Dispatch, published by W. Thompson Hatch about the year 1850, mainly to provide a place for eulogistic notices of members of the Legislature. It died in a few months, and has been wholly forgotten ever since. In 1857, Cameron & McNeeley began the publication of the Citizen, and kept it in pretty brisk existence for about two years, when John D. Defrees bought it and merged it in his Atlas, which he started, in 1859,

on South Meridian Street, printing it with an Erics- son hot-air engine, the first one ever brought here, and the only one, probably. Mr. Defrees kept his paper going till after the election of 1860. In 1861 he sold it to the Journal, which thus absorbed the Citizen and Atlas. It may be as well noted here that the Journal subsequently bought the Evening Gazette (about 1867), the Times in 1870, and in 1871 the Evening Commercial. In June, 1870, the Daily Times was started by Dynes & Cheney nom- inally, but really by James H. Woodard, the well- known correspondent "Jayhawker." It died in a week, and was bought as just stated. The Evening Commercial was first published by Dynes & Co. in 1867, and then sold to M. G. Lee, who conducted it till 1871, when it was sold to the Journal and made the Evening Journal.

The weeklies established recently and still living, besides those already referred to, are The Inde- pendent, by Sol. Hathaway, a non-partisan, but not " neutral" paper, of decided opinions and a large local circulation, maintained by Mr. Hathaway's well- known humor and ability to treat commonplace things entertainingly ; the Indiana Baptist, pub- lished by Elgin & Chaille ; Indiana Farmer, 34 East Market Street; The Indianapolis Leader, organ of colored citizens, by Bagby Brothers ; The Indianapolis World, also an organ and champion of colored rights; The Educational Weekly ; The Live Stock Review, 476 South Illinois Street ; The Republican, 42 North Delaware Street; The Moni- tor Journal, published by M. E. Shiel, old Sentinel building on Market and Circle Streets ; Southside and Country, after some years of existence and in- fluence, has been suspended and succeeded by the Ga- zette ; Monroe's Ironclad Age is the quaint title of a " free-thinking" paper, conducted on North Illinois Street by Dr. J. R. Monroe, for many years one of the foremost and best-known writers of the State, and a poet of great fertility of fancy, and vigor not to say vehemence of style. His paper is largely read by "sceptics," " evolutionists," and "agnostics," and commands correspondence from all parts of the country ; Western Citizen, started by Thomas Mc- Shechy and his brother five or six years ago, was

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recently suspended and succeeded by the New Record, as a sort of Catholic organ ; Western Sportsman and Live Stock News, published by Nelson Randall, 18} North Pennsylvania Street; the Zukunft, a German paper published by the Gutenberg Company, 27 South Delaware Street. The Grand Army Guard was started in July, 1883, as the organ of the great patriotic body from which it takes its name. It is edited by Ben. D. House, long connected with the city, and known all over the State as one of its first poets. The only semi-weekly is the Bulletin. These, with the older weeklies, make as complete a list as is now attainable. Those that have died, besides those already named, are the Organette, published by Sam- uel Leffingwell ; the Iconoclast, of unsavory reputation ; the Torchlight, of which little is known but the name.

The living monthlies, including the semi-monthly Manufacturer, published by Max Hyman, are first and foremost the Farmer. The Indiana Farmer was established by Osborn & Willetts as early as 1835 or 1836, but ran out about 1840, when Mr. Noel revived it, with Henry Ward Beecher as editor. If the latter knew nothing much about farming he knew a great deal, instinctively or experimentally, about human nature, and made his magazine quite as valuable and a good deal more interesting than men would who were better farmers. It went down when Mr. Beecher left in 1847, but it has been revived and suspended several times since, till some ten or a dozen years ago, when the Northwestern Farmer, started by T. A. Bland, was taken in hand by Mr. J. G. Kingsbury and Mr. Caldwell, and made one of the permanent and indispensable agricultural publica- tions of the West. The Drainage and Farm Jour- nal, published by J. J. W. Billingsley, No. 32 Thorpe Block; Gleaner ' and Miller, published by Andrews & Moore-it does not appear in the mailing list of the post-office ; Indiana Official Railway Guide, , published by Hasselman & Co., Journal building ; Crown of Glory, succeeding Happy Pilgrim, No. 88 East Georgia Street; the Indianapolis School Jour- nal, published by William A. Bell, Journal building ; Industrial Journal, No. 70 East Market Street; Masonic Advocate, published by Martin & Rice, No. 14 Masonic Temple; Millstone, an industrial paper

published by the Nordyke & Marmon Machine- Works Company, edited by David H. Ranck ; National Lesson Paper, by the Standard Publish- ing Company, No. 35 Thorpe Block ; National Presbyterian, published by the same company ; Odd- Fellows' Talisman and Literary Journal, published by John Reynolds, Odd Fellows' Hall; Physio- Med- ical Journal, No. 71 East Ohio Street ; Pythian Journal, No. 27 South Meridian Street ; Rough Notes, an insurance paper published by Rough Notes Com- pany, Thorpe Block ; Scholar's Monthly, by Stand- ard Publishing Company, Thorpe Block ; The School News, Henry D. Stevens publisher, Plymouth Church building; The Jersey Bulletin, a record and publica- tion in the interest of breeders and fanciers of Jersey cattle, published by F. M. Churchman, one of the most noted breeders of Jersey stock ; the Indiana Medical Journal, The Pharmacist, the Wood- Worker, Western Record, Organizer, Fanciers' Ga- zette, Indiana Law Magazine, Missionary Tidings, succeeding Woman's Own ; Midland Monthly, suc- ceeding the Telephone; Agricultural Press, pub- lished by Cyrus T. Nixon.

The recently-started monthlies that have a little more recently disappeared are Farm, Herd, and Home, begun some two or three years ago by Austin H. Brown and A. Abromet, very recently suspended ; After Supper, the fanciful title of a literary and family publication ; the Telephone, a very promising literary magazine, suspended within a year and re- placed by the Midland Monthly ; Woman's Own, replaced by Missionary Tidings; Trans-Continental, recently suspended ; Cock and Hen, succeeded by the Fanciers' Gazette ; Our Folks, stopped about a year ago. The Champion and Revista are dead monthlies of which nothing is left but the name.

In concluding this sketch of the history of the press justice to the present management of the lead- ing papers requires a recognition of the great im- provement in them in two directions, aside from their greater resources, better systems, and larger enter- prise. Personalities have almost wholly disappeared. Attacks on private character are nearly unknown. Editors don't coddle or "cuss" each other by name, as they did thirty years ago or twenty years ago.

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Tom Smith, of the Brushburg Bugle, doesn't ask Bill Harris, of the Oakridge Owl, to " drop in and take something the next time he is in the town," or ask him "how his lame leg is;" and such things were common in the country papers in the decade preceding the war, and not unknown to city papers. The identification of the editor and his paper was nearly as absolute as his identification with his name, and even " metropolitan" journals often spoke of an editorial outgiving as something coming from that " fool, Jones," or the " shrewd and judicious Brown." It is not thirty years since Greeley told Raymond he " lied," and called him a " little villain." A reform was begun, though by no means completed, in this direction by the same influences that reformed the country-village fashions of the daily Journal and Sentinel in 1854, and thenceforward. The practice of alluding to the paper impersonally, excluding all personal reference, took root then, and spread in time to the country papers. Now it would surprise an In- dianapolis reader to see his paper calling the editor of another paper a " liar" or mentioning his name at all in connection with any editorial utterance. The access of impersonality has greatly improved the tone of the press by enhancing its sense of its dignity.

The other direction in which there has been a decided improvement is the relaxation or disregard of party discipline. Party organs sometimes criticise party action and party leaders in a way that would have made a leader or editor of 1844 or 1852 " stare and gasp." Not only so, but very many more papers disclaim all party allegiance, and hold themselves free to act as they deem best than formerly. It was the common reproach of neutral papers thirty years ago that they had not "brains enough to form an opinion." And there was so far a basis for it that, while neutral papers were very neutral and very far from being un- common, an independent paper was very uncommon. Now all this is changed. A neutral paper, that is, a newspaper, not a literary or specialty paper, is a rarity ; an independent paper with opinions on all public sub- jects and a ready declaration of them is a familiar existence. Thirty years ago a partisan editor would as soon have repudiated his wife as any public declara- tion of a leader or any assertion of a platform. He

felt bound to stand by everything the party did or demanded, to magnify every good thing and excuse or palliate every bad one. He "never scratched a ticket" or questioned a nomination. There are plenty of these "thick-and-thin" partisans yet, and always will be, but there are ten who will not put on such manacles now to one that was as self-supporting thirty or even twenty years ago. The party paper of the decade before the war never quoted anything from one of the "adverse faction" except to contra- dict or ridicule it. Now it is common for partisan papers to copy antagonistic articles and let an oppo- nent speak for himself. There is no doubt more sor- didness, more meanness, more sneaking corruption in parties nowadays than there used to be, but there is also more liberality of sentiment, more courtesy, and more general and accurate information in party dis- cussions in the press than there ever was before.

CHAPTER XI.

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS-(Continued.)

Public Buildings-Public Halls-Theatres-Lectures-Concerts -Musical and Art Societies-Literary and other Clubs- Hotels.

Court-House .- The old court-house, of warich a complete account appcars in the general history, was found to be inadequate long before its removal and replacement by a better one were decided upon in 1869-70. But for the heavy expense caused by the payment of bounties to volunteers to avert a conscrip- tion, a new building would have been commenced several years sooner. The new court-house fronts southward towards Washington Street, eighty feet from the street line, with east and west entrances, little inferior to the main front, on Alabama and Dela- ware Streets, seventy-two feet from each. The north side is nearly half the length of the square south of the line of Market Street. This space is reserved for any future buildings that may be needed, the chief of which will probably be a city prison. The length of the structure is two hundred and seventy-six feet six inches by one hundred and six feet five inches, exclu-

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sive of the projections, which are eight,-one on the centre of the south front, seventy-four feet six inches long by seventeen deep; onc on the rear or north side, eighty-nine feet four inches by thirteen feet ; one twenty-four feet two inches by six feet nine inches on the centre of each end on the east and west fronts; four on the extremes, two of which are twenty-six feet by three feet eight inches on the south front, and two are twenty-one by one foot three inches oo the rear. These, together with the intermediate spaces, form the several bays of the building, all of which terminate within the line of the main roof, except three projections which constitute a part of the tower and the pavilions, which are raised above the apex of the main roof, the former ninety-seven and the latter twenty-eight feet. The height to the top of the backing above the main cor- nice, which has a common level, belting both tower and pavilion, is sixty-two feet nine inches ; height to the top of the crest cornice, seventy-nine feet; height to the apex of the main roof, ninety-four feet ; height to top of crestings of pavilions, one hundred and twenty-two feet; height to top of tower, one hundred and ninety-four feet, measuring from the ground line, which is raised four feet eight inches above the street grade (in early times the court-house square was lower, so that water stood in puddles over it after a rain). The main edifice consists of three stories, ex- cept that portion occupied by court-rooms, which is two stories in height, exclusive of the basement and mansards, the former extending under and the latter over the entire building. The basement is sixteen feet high ; the first story, sixteen feet ; second story, thirteen feet six inches; third story, thirteen feet six inches; court-room stories, twenty-eight feet; man- sard, twenty-one fcet. Some forty or more polished red granite pillars, from Peterhead, Scotland, decorate the upper projections.

The stairways descend into the basement from the south and east and west fronts. From the first floor they ascend to the second from near the centre of the hall, which opens clear to the roof and is lighted by skylights. A broad bridge joins the halls on each side of the balustrade surrounding the open space over the stairways. At each end a stairway ascends from the

second story to the third, in a line with the lower stairway, but set forward some thirty feet or so. The halls are finished in " carton pierre," or paper-stone, and fresco, with a bewildering profusion of colors and figures that make a stronger impression of gaudiness and "gingerbread" work than richness or elegance. The court-rooms are of much the same character, with emblematic frescoes on the ceilings which are certainly no marvels of artistic taste or skill. A gal- lery entered from the third story surrounds three sides of each of the three Superior Court rooms, the Circuit Court room, and the Criminal Court room. This last, on the north side, is the largest in the building, and is used as the hall of the House when the Legislature is in session. The room next to it at the east end, one of the Superior Court rooms, is used as the Sen- ate Chamber. The basement is wholly occupied by city offices; the first floor by county offices and the county library ; the second by court-rooms and the necessary appendages, jury-rooms and the like. The mansard is occupied by court-room galleries, by court-rooms when the Legislature is in session, and by rooms for old records and other uses. In the tower is a good clock with a bad face, hard to see two squares away in the daytime, and invisible at night under the weak illumination it gets from inside. The bell can be heard at the city limits at night, rarely at all in the daytime anywhere out of sight of the clock dial. The style of the building is the " Renaissance." The architect was Mr. Isaac Hodgson ; the stone-masons, Scott & Nicholson. The artistic finishers were Italians brought here from the East to spoil a fine work that would have been grand in its simplicity if left untor- tured by bad taste. The building was finished in July, 1876, and cost one million four hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars, nearly twice the original estimate. It is one of the handsomest public buildings in the United States, and well built, except in the in- ferior character of its finishing. The county board by which the work was mainly done was composed, at one time and another of the six years, of the late Aaron McCray, 1867-73; Lorenzo Vanscyoc, 1868- 71; John Armstrong, 1870-73 ; Samuel S. Rumford, 1871-74 ; Charles A. Howland, 1873-76 ; Alexander Jameson, 1873-76 ; Samuel Cory, 1874-77.

MARION COUNTY COURT -HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.

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CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

In the general history it is said that the temporary building erected for a political meeting-place on the southeast corner of the court-house square in 1864 was the only structure of that kind placed on the square. There was one on the southwest corner for a very short time in 1860, and another en the north- west corner in 1872, where Gen. Butler made a speech on the enly occasion that he ever visited the city. Gen. Hawley, of Connecticut, also spoke there about the same time. These "wigwams," as they were called, were not allowed to remain long after their special use was completed, while that of 1864 re- mained for a year or so. In the campaign of 1880 a " wigwam" was erected near the corner of Mary- land and Mississippi Streets, and is still standing.

7 44

COURT-HOUSE BUILT IN 1823-24; TORN DOWN 1870.

City Buildings .- The city has never had any public buildings but the two market-houses and the station-house, excluding engine-houses. Its office- rooms have been rented always except during a few years when the Town Council meetings were held in the upper room of the Marion Engine House, on the Circle. Within a year an ordinance was passed by the Council and Board of Aldermen to build a city hall and market-house on the East Market space, with a large bequest made by the late Stephen Tomlinson for that purpose ; but some doubt as to the expense being brought within the limits of the bequest and of the other resources,-the city license of liquor-saloens especially,-with some informality in letting the con-

tract, opened the way for a legal obstruction of the work, and it was abandoned. Very recently, how- ever, the market-house project has been revived, and seems in a fair way to ge through. The station-house on South Alabama Street is a product of the last decade. In 1866 the expense of boarding city pris- oners in the county jail became se great that the Council determined to build a station-house. A lot was bought for four thousand dollars, en Maryland Street between Meridian and Pennsylvania, and there the effort ended for four or five years, when a lot on Alabama Street, on the corner of the first alley south of Washington, was bought, and a house of fair size and safety put there. About the time of the pur- chase of the station-house let en Maryland Street, propositions for the sale of a site for a city hall, or for renting suitable buildings, were made by different proprietors. The old Beecher church property was offered for fifteen thousand dollars in city bonds ; An- drew Wallace offered his block on Maryland and Delaware Streets, and the Journal company offered to build a hall on the then vacant west half of its lot, where the Times office is now. The Council rejected them all, deing its first effective work in that direc- tion in 1883. The county has an " Asylum," once the " Poor-House," in Wayne township, on a large farm, with a building that cost some one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and affords good any com- fortable accommodations for more than a hundred iomates constantly, but being some distance from any frequented road,-the old Lafayette pike passing near- est it,-the public generally know little of it, except as the papers note the annual visits of the county beard and the festive occasions made of them. The build- ing is a large and handsome one, becoming the wealth and standing of the county, with an average of over one hundred inmates always.

The incurable insane of the county, like these of other counties, have been kept in this county asylum when necessary. Hereafter they will go to one of the three-net five, as stated in the sketch of the history of the State Insane Asylum, page 124-institutions for the incurable insane provided by the act of the last Legislature, though recommended by Governer Baker as early as 1869. One of these is te be at

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

Evansville, one at Richmond, and one at Logans- port.

State-House .- Of the legislation touching a new State-House prior to the act of 1877, little need be said. A committee was appointed a dozen years ago to consider the subject, procure plans, and make a report to enlighten the Legislature, but nothing eame of it except the recommendation of a really fine plan of Mr. Charles Eppinghausen, of Terre Haute, to which no attention was given. In 1877 an act authorized the Governor to appoint four eom- missioners, two from each of "the two leading po- litical parties," the Governor to act as one ex officio in addition, to " organize to build a State-House," limiting the cost to two millions of dollars, and levy- ing a tax of one cent on the hundred dollars in 1877, and two eents in 1878, " for a State-House fund." On the 24th of May, 1877, the Board of State- House Commissioners was organized. The Gov- ernor, the late James D. Williams, appointed Gen. Thomas A. Morris, of this city, and Wm. R. Mc- Keen, of Terre Haute, from the Republican party, and Gen. John Love, of this city, and I. D. G. Nelson, of Fort Wayne, from the Democratic party. Mr. McKeen resigned in a few months, and Prof. John M. Collett, now State geologist, was appointed in his place. The board, after examining the four plans specially noticed by the Legislative committee, -that of Eppinghausen being preferred,-returned them all to their authors, and invited new plans. They also visited the capitals of Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, and various publie buildings throughout the country, gathered information about material, had tests made, and, finally, on the 11th of December, 1877, had received twenty-four plans. On the 28th of August previously they sold the old building to John Martin for two hundred and fifty dollars, who agreed to remove it by the 1st of April, 1878. After a good deal of discussion and examination by experts, the board chose the plan of Edwin May, of this eity, who died a year or two after the work began, and proceeded to excavate for the basement and to construct a sewer for the joint use of the State and the city, as has since been done with the State's " Female Reformatory" and the city sewer connec-

tion. The city authorities vacated Market Street from Tennessee to Mississippi, thus giving the new building an unbroken area of two squares and the intervening strect, about nine acres. Proposals to build the whole structure or portions of it were advertised for, and on the 13th of August, 1878, thirty-one bids were opened, some proposing to take portions, but ten proposing to take the whole work at a cost ranging from $1,611,672.25, made by Kanmacher & Denig, to $2,114,714.13, made by the " New England and Granite Stone Company." After due inquiry the contraet was given to Kan- macher & Denig, with a reservation of $102,051 for " steam heating," " encaustic tiles," " marble mantles," " washstands," " hardware," and " vault doors," which it was thought could be more favor- ably contracted for at some later period. This left the price of the work, under the lowest bid, $1,509,- 621.25. The whole estimated cost of the building, ineluding the reserved articles, sewer construction, glass, and basement excavation, was $1,638,603.76. The corner-stone was laid Sept. 28, 1880, with a poem by Mrs. Bolton and an address by ex-Gov- ernor Hendricks.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 46

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942