In 1999, to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the founding of Mooresville, Indiana, Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library, wrote and edited a series of newspaper columns entitled Mooresville Moments, which examined the local history of the town and surrounding Morgan County, Indiana. Click the link below to read the articles.
No one knew more about the history of Mooresville and vicinity than Wanda Potts. Mrs. Potts shared her encyclopedic knowledge of the town and its legacy, and, now, you can, too.
We have another episode of Mooresville Moments, a local history video series. This installment explores the I.O.O.F. (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) buildings, which were located on the northeast corner of Main and Indiana Streets in downtown Mooresville.
Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) Buildings (1869-1989)
(Mooresville Moments #25)
by Mooresville Public Library
(click video box above to play)
There are always a few images or newspaper clippings that we don't use in the videos--it's a matter of viewing length and viewer attention spans--so we include those materials below. (See also this blog post.)
Here's an advertisement for Warren Insurance Agency that appeared in the 1980 Mooresville High School yearbook, Wagon Trails (page 146). Warren was the last business to be located in the first floor remnant of the second I.O.O.F. building, which was demolished in 1989.
Click Images to Enlarge
The second I.O.O.F. building's demolition began in 1964, with the top floor being removed; the entire second floor was removed, leaving a first-floor "sliver" remaining, so that Citizens Bank could extend its new building's parking lot in 1965-66. The article headline (below) declares the Odd Fellows building to be 105 years old (in 1964), but that's mistaken. The second I.O.O.F. building (built 1881) was 83 years old in 1964. Even if the reporter had been dating to the first I.O.O.F. building (built 1869, burned down in 1881), the age would only have been 95 years old. The reporter's error arose from the I.O.O.F. capstone (dated 1859), which was installed atop the first Odd Fellows building in 1869, and subsequently placed upon the second Odd Fellows building in 1881. The capstone commemorated the establishment of Mooresville's I.O.O.F. chapter (Morgan Lodge #211), which was founded on July 7, 1859. The capstone was being removed during the 1964 upper-story dismantlement, and the reporter had incorrectly assumed that the capstone's 1859 date corresponded with the building's age.
Mooresville Times
July 23, 1964
After
the Odd Fellows capstone was removed in 1964, it was housed at Citizens
Bank for a number of years. Some time later, it was kept at the
Academy School Museum on North Monroe Street. Since 2017, the capstone has been part of a wall in Mooresville Bicentennial Park (on the site of the Odd Fellows buildings).
Mooresville-Decatur Times
October 21, 2017
Here's a 1962 aerial photo showing the Odd Fellows building (boxed in yellow):
East Main Street in Downtown Mooresville
1962 Mooresville High School
Wagon Trails Yearbook
Ernest L. Hadley had this stereo photograph (taken by local photographer J. P. Calvert) showing the fire damage to the first I.O.O.F. building (July, 1881):
Longtime Mooresville Historian Wanda Potts wrote about the fire in her 1999 newspaper column.
Mooresville Moments
Mooresville Times
June 23, 1999
Pleasant "Pleas" Mills' dry goods store is visible behind the Mooresville High School students celebrating their basketball team's victory over Monrovia High School on February 22, 1922 in the Main-Indiana Street intersection downtown.
The Wikimedia scans are of the images that appear in the yearbooks, with original text from the yearbooks extracted from the original scans and typed out (like ordinary text) for easier reading.
These yearbooks were also digitally scanned (showing the entire pages as they originally appeared in print) and stored on the Mooresville High School Alumni Association Facebook page, but access might be restricted to their authorized FB group members. You can check those links, too, to see if you can access them (click below):
The Mooresville High School Alumni Association has uploaded the complete video, Memories of Mooresville (2011), to YouTube. Click the player (below) to watch the entire video, or visit Mooresville Public Library to checkout a physical copy on DVD (learn more from this blog post).
Take our "virtual" walking tour (click link below) of historic downtown Mooresville, Indiana. Then, using this handout, walk the self-guided route yourself.
Mooresville Public Library has begun a new video series (see playlist) called Mooresville Moments: Our Local History, based upon its collection of local history postcards and flashcards. The title is borrowed from the popular newspaper column, "Mooresville Moments" (1999), written by town historian Wanda Potts (1921-2012), who served as MPL's Indiana Room librarian from 1966 to 2002.
In this first installment, we feature the official Mooresville Town Banner, designed by Bonita Marley, who served as library director from 1961 to 1984. The flag commemorated the 150th anniversary of the town's founding. You can see it flying downtown in Bicentennial Park.
Mooresville's Town Banner (video)
(Mooresville Moments #1)
by Mooresville Public Library
Thanks to Wanda and Bonita, the library has an extensive local history collection preserved to share with the public. We hope this new video series does justice to their treasure trove of Mooresville history.
In the July 20, 1916 edition of the Mooresville Monitor, Solon M. McNabb wrote a newspaper article entitled "Mooresville's Oldest Mystery." It was reprinted in the September 1, 1999 newspaper column, Mooresville Moments (below), edited by Wanda Potts, local historian and Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library, Mooresville, Indiana.
Click (above) to enlarge
There's a video available, too (click below to watch).
If you're as old as I am, you may remember drugstore soda fountains in downtown Mooresville during the 1950s and 1960s. Which stores had them? Take my super fun quiz to find out!
Grandpa Billy Bob's Mooresville History Super Fun Quiz #7,
by Mooresville Public Library
Did you guess Brown's Rexall Drugstore or Hayes Pharmacy? Both had full-service soda fountains. Brown's was operating at least as long ago as the early 1940s at 13 East Main Street and was in business into the 1970s. In 1947, Gene Hayes took over for Cooper Drugstore (ca. 1906-1947) in the Cooper building at 6 West Main Street and continued to operate there until 1965.
Advertisement from the 1964 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
(click photos to enlarge)
Advertisement from the 1963 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Advertisement from the 1962 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
That's the owner's son, Butch Brown, in the advertisements above.
Photo of the South side of East Main Street
from the 1963 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Enlargement of the above photo shows Brown's Rexall Drugstore
between Western Auto and B. F. Jones' Department Store
Advertisement from the 1959 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Photo of the North side of West Main Street (cropped)
Advertisement from the 1958 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Another downtown establishment had a soda fountain/lunch counter, at least through the mid-1950s. Franklin Ice Cream Store opened in 1936 and operated at 16 South Indiana Street through circa 1955. Copeland Appliance Store, which operated next door at 18-20 South Indiana Street (1950-1974), extended into Franklin's building in 1956.
Advertisement from the 1956 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Copeland Appliance Store at 16-18-20 South Indiana Street
(circa 1970 photo)
Franklin Ice Cream Store listed in the 1954
Robinson's Mooresville City Directory
Franklin Ice Cream Store
Grand Opening Advertisement
Mooresville Times, June 18, 1936
Franklin Ice Cream Store Advertisement
Mooresville Times, November 6, 1944
Mooresville Historian Wanda Potts' article
about Franklin Ice Cream Store in the
"Mooresville Moments" feature
(Mooresville-Decatur Times, 1999)
There were, of course, many other businesses that served ice cream in Mooresville during the 1950s and 1960s--Dairy Queen and Kelly's Restaurant immediately spring to mind--but if you were hanging out in downtown Mooresville, especially if you were a teenager, you likely dropped in at the soda fountains at Brown Rexall, Hayes, or Franklin.
This installment of Mooresville Moments (June 23, 1999) (below) reviews the more famous fires that ravaged businesses and houses in Mooresville, Indiana, throughout its history, and it refers to the history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) buildings that once stood on the northeast corner of the intersection of Main and Indiana Streets in downtown Mooresville.
Click (above) to enlarge
Mooresville Moments was written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library, in 1999 to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the town's founding in 1824.
In November, 1999, Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library (Mooresville, Indiana), compiled this tribute (first three articles below) to local veterans in her Mooresville Moments newspaper column.
Lula Mae Bucker, a long-time Mooresville resident, wrote several guest columns for Mooresville Moments (1999). One of her columns (May 26, 1999) about the veterans' memorial, as it appeared in 1999 in Mooresville, is reproduced below. Click the articles below to enlarge them.
We continue with Mooresville Moments, the 1999 newspaper column written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library. Mrs. Potts wrote and edited the column to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the founding of Mooresville, Indiana (1824), as well as the 200th anniversary of the birth of the town's founder, Samuel Moore (1799-1889). Today's installment (December 8, 1999) (below) examines historic sites in and around Mooresville, Indiana.
In her August 25, 1999 newspaper column Mooresville Moments, Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library, paid tribute to Miss Elsie Record, who taught in the Mooresville, Indiana schools between 1907 and 1947.
Here is another Mooresville Moments newspaper column (October 13, 1999) (below) written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library. This installment explores the history of the Mooresville, Indiana fire department, based upon information from the library's vertical files.
In her newspaper column Mooresville Moments (August 18, 1999) (reprinted below), Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library, wrote about the unofficial "town song" of Mooresville, Indiana and its composer, Rev. Dr. Frank Claude Huston.
Click (above) to enlarge
To learn more about Rev. Dr. Frank Claude Huston, click here.
In today's excerpt from Mooresville Moments (April 7, 1999), Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library, shares 100 interesting historical facts about the town and surrounding Morgan County area.
Click (above) to enlarge
Much of the information in this article was drawn from Ralph H. Storm's 100 Facts About Mooresville and Brown Township, Morgan County, Indiana (1936), which is available online. Storm was assistant Morgan County historian at the time.
Today we reprise an installment of Mooresville Moments, a newspaper column written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library. This installment (October 20, 1999) (below), written by guest columnist and longtime Mooresville resident Lula Mae Bucker, examined the history of the "little red covered bridge" that once spanned the East Fork of White Lick Creek on the Old Waverly Road, where today the intersection of State Roads 144 and 67 is situated, just east of Mooresville, Indiana.
We continue our reprint series of Mooresville Moments, a 1999 newspaper column written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library, Mooresville, Indiana. The column examined a multitude of local historical themes to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the town's founding in 1824. This installment (December 1, 1999) (below) recalls the memories of children of the Great Depression and how their lives were affected.
Sarah C. K. Marine was the earliest published author from Mooresville, Indiana. This installment of Mooresville Moments (September 15, 1999), written and edited by retired MPL Indiana Room Librarian and local historian Wanda Potts, examines Marine's legacy.
We feature another Mooresville Moments newspaper column (March 31, 1999) (below), written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library, which discusses the history of the Society of Friends (Quaker) Church and Cemetery in (and near) Mooresville, Indiana.
Mabel Leigh Hunt (1892-1971), Hoosier author, was born in Coatesville, Indiana and lived in Greencastle (until age 10) , Plainfield (until her father passed over), and Indianapolis. She attended DePauw University (1910-12), and, in 1923-24, she attended Western Reserve University Library School (Cleveland, Ohio). In 1926 she began her career as a librarian at the Indianapolis Public Library, a position she held until 1938, when she became a full-time writer. Hunt's best known novel, Lucinda: a Little Girl of 1860 (1934), was partially based upon her mother's experiences growing up among Quaker families. The characters from the book were derived from actual people Hunt and her family knew in Mooresville, Plainfield, and the surrounding countryside of Hendricks and Morgan Counties. Mooresville Public Library has, in its Indiana Room vertical files, a handwritten note from the author indicating the real people from which her novel's characters were drawn. Our reprint (click below to enlarge) from Mooresville Moments (1999), written by town historian and retired MPL Indiana Room Librarian Wanda Potts, includes two installments about Mabel Leigh Hunt.
We continue our reverie of the 1924 Centennial celebrations of the founding of Mooresville, Indiana by reprinting another installment (July 28, 1999) of Mooresville Moments, a newspaper column written and edited by Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002), Mooresville Public Library. The columns celebrated the 175th anniversary of the town's founding in 1824.
In her newspaper column Mooresville Moments (1999), Wanda Potts, Indiana Room Librarian (1966-2002) at Mooresville Public Library, described many popular businesses that comprised a significant place in Mooresville, Indiana history. This column (below) discussed Franklin Ice Cream Shop.
