York & Overton (1890s)

Those familiar with the over-century-old buildings on the west side of South Indiana Street, just south of the Main Street intersection in downtown Mooresville, Indiana, may be interested in these late 19th century (and early and middle 20th century) photographs of the businesses that occupied the premises. We begin with York and Overton in the 1890s.

York & Overton store (1890s) at

20-18 South Indiana Street in Mooresville

Downtown Mooresville, Indiana

"Make every word tell," instructed Professor Strunk at turn-of-the-20th-century Cornell University, when E. B. White, the great American essayist who wrote for The New Yorker alongside James Thurber, was a student there. (Strunk would have blanched at that last sentence.) Sounder writing advice cannot be found at any price.

Still, as wonderful as words can be in describing historical conditions, a photograph brings those descriptions to life. Here are two handouts (click links below) that present historical photos of downtown Mooresville, Indiana.

 

• Mooresville Town Views

 

• Mooresville Around Downtown

Flash From Your Past (Historical Flashcard Series)

FLASH FROM YOUR PAST

Here's a "flash from your past," if you're a long-time Mooresville resident.  We present our local history flashcard series, featuring old photographs in and around Mooresville and northern Morgan County, Indiana.  Just click the links below to see each flashcard.

• Flashcard #1:  Farmers State Bank
• Flashcard #2:  Mooresville's First Police Car
• Flashcard #3:  Day Grocery
• Flashcard #4:  Covered Bridge on the Old Waverly Road
• Flashcard #5:  Mooresville Sanatarium (i.e., Sanitarium)
• Flashcard #6:  Sam Wade
• Flashcard #7:  Dr. William L. Thompson, M.D. (see this blog post for the flashcard)
• Flashcard #8:  Banner Flour Mill
• Flashcard #9:  Bolton Sorghum Factory
• Flashcard #10:  Comer & Scearce Lumber Company
• Flashcard #11:  Indiana Brass & Iron Bed Factory
• Flashcard #12:  McCracken House (Restaurant & Hotel)
• Flashcard #13:  Allison Grocery
• Flashcard #14:  Northside of West Main Street (1960s)
• Flashcard #15:  Pure Oil Gasoline Station
• Flashcard #16:  Henry Conduitt House (later Comer Sanitarium & Kendrick Hospital)
• Flashcard #17:  Burch Grocery
• Flashcard #18:  Scruggs Dry Goods Store
• Flashcard #19:  Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church
• Flashcard #20:  Mooresville Public Library
• Flashcard #21:  Samuel Moore & Eliza Moore
• Flashcard #22A:  "Old" Town Park
• Flashcard #22:  Old Settlers Picnic #1:  Origins
• Flashcard #23:  Old Settlers Picnic #2 (Rocking Chair Competition)
• Flashcard #24:  Old Settlers Picnic #3:  Parade
• Flashcard #25:  Indiana State Flag (& Paul Hadley)
• Flashcard #26:  Amos Rusie, "the Hoosier Thunderbolt" (all-star professional baseball pitcher)
• Flashcard #27:  Mooresville Town Banner (Flag)
• Flashcard #28:  Mooresville Academy School
• Flashcard #29:  Old Mooresville High School
• Flashcard #30:  I.O.O.F. (Odd Fellows) Building
• Flashcard #31:  First Christian Church
• Flashcard #32:  Fall Creek Furniture Company
• Flashcard #33:  Mooresville Friends Church
• Waverly Flashcard #1:  Waverly School #1
• Waverly Flashcard #2:  Waverly School #2

Lindley Block

The Lindley Block (1905-1925) stood on the southwest corner of the intersection of Main and Indiana Streets in downtown Mooresville. It resembled a modern "mini-mall" in that one walked inside through a common hallway to enter the businesses (although outside ingress was also available).

Q & A from Newby 3rd Graders

Elementary school students ask direct, yet sophisticated, questions about history. They have the enormous advantage of not having decades of academic overlay restricting their inquisitiveness. At Newby Memorial Elementary School, in Mooresville, IN, third-grade students are first exposed to local and state history as part of their curricular requirements, although it is during fourth grade that state education requires Indiana history to be specifically taught. You have already, I hope, seen and enjoyed the original artwork from Newby third graders under the direction of Mrs. Nora Carroll, which was previously featured in an earlier blog post. We have a digitized handout exploring typical local history questions from Newby third graders. You will learn as much from the questions as the answers. These are bright kids, interested in learning more about their hometowns and communities.

Newby Elementary School First Graders (1955)

(click photo to enlarge)

 

Newby Elementary School under construction (April, 1936)

(Photo courtesy of the Mooresville High School Alumni Association)

 

Mooresville Sanitarium

We have prepared a "Treasure Trove" video recounting the history of Mooresville Sanitarium, which subsequently became Comer Sanitarium, Comer Hospital, and Kendrick Hospital.  We have a handout, too.

MPL Indiana Room Treasure Trove Handouts Available Free Online

You can download free copies of Mooresville Public Library's Indiana Room "Treasure Trove" handouts (in PDF format) by visiting our local history links blog post and scrolling down to the "specific local historical topics" section. Click the links to access each document. Save or print copies. Exchange them with family and friends. Make really cool paper airplanes . . . Wait, no, that's a bad idea. Enjoy them. That's the ticket.

Historical Mooresvile Houses & Other Sites

Here are two handouts featuring several local historical sites in Mooresville, Indiana.

• Historic Houses & "Moore" Handout #1
• Historic Houses & "Moore" Handout #2

Paul Hadley's house on East Washington Street

(no longer standing)

Mooresville IN Historical Fun Facts

Click here to discover some historical fun facts about Mooresville, Indiana.

Old Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) cemetery on

West Washington Street in downtown Mooresville

North Side of West Main Street

This handout discusses the history of the north side of West Main Street in downtown Mooresville, Indiana.

Since the time this handout was written (July, 2008), Charlie Nelson has, sadly, passed. He was a tremendous wealth of local historical knowledge, and he was a kind and considerate person. I will miss his stories.

North side of West Main Street, Mooresville (July 18, 1920)

(Photography by Manley Brown)

North side of West Main Street, Mooresville (early- to mid-1960s)

G.R. Scruggs Dry Goods Store (1891-1918)

Downtown Mooresville, Indiana has been home to many businesses during the past 186 years, beginning with Samuel Moore's trading post on the northeast corner of Main and Indiana Streets. Before there were huge discount marts, there were department store, but, before that, there were variety, or "five-and-dime" stores. Before that, there were "dry goods" stores and general stores. Learn more about G.R. Scruggs Dry Goods from our online handout.

George R. Scruggs (age 86)

(click images to enlarge)

(back of photo shown below)

Scruggs dry goods store (above, 1891; below, 1904)

(Photographs by J. P. Calvert)

Advertisement from the Mooresville Guide, December 13, 1895

Scruggs sold his store in 1918 to Ad Sellars & Cal Bellows

(Mooresville-Decatur Times, January 6, 1993)

11 West Main Street & Old M.E. Church

Pace Thompson’s dry goods store as it looked during the early 1900s

(Photograph by J. P. Calvert)

(click images to enlarge)

Read about Pace Thompson's businesses at 11 West Main Street, as well as the old Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church on West Washington Street, at the site of the Old M.E. Cemetery (est. 1829), in our online handout.

Pace Thompson's house at 40 East Main Street in Mooresville

(Above:  after renovation; below:  before renovation)

(Photographs by J. P. Calvert)

Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church (1914)

on the northeast corner of Indiana & Harrison Streets

in Mooresville

(Photograph by J. P. Calvert)

Marshall "Major" Taylor, World Bicycling Champion, 1899-1901

Marshall W. Taylor was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Nov. 26, 1878. His family moved to Indiana from Kentucky following the Civil War. As a teenager, Marshall worked for a bicycle shop, performing stunts while wearing a soldier's uniform as a costume. This earned him the nickname "Major." During the ensuing decade, he set multiple world records and won numerous cycling championships. He was a world champion cyclist and athlete, and he was, and continues to be, an inspiration to anyone seeking to overcome the oppressiveness of racial prejudice and bigotry. Indianapolis belatedly honored Taylor in 1982 when it opened the Major Taylor Velodrome near Marian University (formerly, Marian College).

Our book trailer gives a preview of one of Taylor's biographies, Marshall "Major" Taylor: World Champion Bicyclist, 1899-1901, by Marlene Targ Brill (21st Century Books, Trailblazer Biography Series, 2007; ISBN 9780822566106).

Anyone interested in further readings about Taylor should consult another of his biographies, Major Taylor: the Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, by Andrew Ritchie (Van der Plas/Cycle Publishing, 2nd ed., 2009; ISBN 9781892495655). Ritchie took part of his book's title from Taylor's self-published 1928 autobiography, a copy of which is difficult to obtain today (e.g., facsimiles are listed on Amazon.com for over $100).

Indiana students interested in Indiana history should consider "Major" Taylor as a Hoosier biographical subject. He led a fascinating life and achieved greatness by overcoming enormous barriers.

Interurban Railway

Interurban railway car on East Harrison Street
(circa 1910), by J. P. Calvert
(click images to enlarge)

Read about the Interurban Railway as it served Mooresville and surrounding Morgan County, Indiana communities from our website handout.  All aboard!

Mooresville Times, October 1, 1981

Historical marker at site of Interurban car barns

West Harrison Street (next to Mooresville Public Library)

True Hoosier Ghost Stories: Haunting at Sycamore Lake and Shelf Doll, by Karl C. B. Muilliwey

Ordinarily, I devote this blog to historical descriptions of Mooresville and the surrounding portions of Morgan County, Indiana, but, as today is a special family day, I would like to feature a book trailer discussing an eastern Indiana haunting.

Our YouTube book trailer video appears below:

2011 UPDATE:  Karl Muilliwey, the author of Haunting at Sycamore Lake, has written a second real-life paranormal book.  Watch our book trailer below for details.

If you like real-life ghost stories, you should enjoy these.  A digital edition, as well as a printed copy, of the serialized version of Haunting at Sycamore Lake is available in our Evergreen Indiana online catalog, or you may purchase a copy online (Kindle eBook or paperback) from Amazon.

Farmers State Bank

Dr. Steve Nelson, an academic colleague at the University of Great Falls (Montana), was fond of positing, "Why reinvent the wheel?" whenever faced with repetitious tasks. Sound advice, this is. (Writing like Yoda in Star Wars, I am.)  So I link one of our website handouts.

Therein lies the tale of the Farmers State Bank, once a pivotal commercial landmark of Mooresville, Indiana, but, alas, this fine institution succumbed to the Great Depression. The building still stands, fortunately, at the heart of downtown--the Main and Indiana Street intersection. This is arguably the highest ground upon which the town is situated. Founder Samuel Moore, as noted Mooresville historian Wanda Potts (1921-2012) said, had the supreme good sense to plat the town on high ground to avoid flooding from nearby White Lick Creek.

(Click images to enlarge.)

Farmers Bank of Mooresville at 2 West Main Street (on the northwest corner of  the  intersection  of  Main  and  Indiana  Streets),  as  it  appeared  during  the  1880s  until  1904,  when  the  building  was  removed.    Its  replacement,  which  still  stands  today,  is  shown  in  Figure  2.    Notice  the  wooden  “guards”  around  the  tree  trunks  to  protect  the  tree bark from hungry horses.

1917 advertisement from the Mooresville High School yearbook

Counter checks (1920s)

More from Wanda later. She was the Indiana Room librarian at Mooresville Public Library (1966-2002) and was the greatest living authority on our local history. She knew everything about this community's history, and what she didn't know, never happened. (If it happened, she remembered. It was amazing, really.) You wouldn't be reading this blog right now (assuming, of course, that you're here, reading it) if it weren't for her dedication to preserving Mooresville's past.  Learn more about Wanda from this 2012 blog post and her obituary.

Bass Drug Store

Then... George W. Bass Drug Store (c. 1880)

(3 East Main Street, Mooresville, IN). This photograph (circa 1880) shows the first building to house the George W. Bass Drugstore, which operated for 35 years. [FN 1] George W. Bass (1842-1924) was a Civil War veteran who moved to Mooresville in 1878. This photo shows the original structure, which was "a one-story, Greek Revival, gable-front frame building with Doric columns supporting a portico over the sidewalk." [FN 2] (Photograph donated to the Library by Bonita Marley, 10/23/1968).

Then... George W. Bass Drug Store (c. 1902-1920)

(3 East Main Street, Mooresville, IN). The original frame structure was replaced by the existing two-unit, two-story brick building sometime between 1890 and 1902. In 1902, this structure, which still stands, housed the G.W. Bass Drugstore in the west portion, while the Burch Grocery occupied the east part. A barbershop was in the basement. There was a dividing wall between the first floor rooms; the second floor was used as the town hall/opera house. By 1910, the opera house replaced the town hall with stage and scenery, while the first floor remained shared by G.W. Bass Drugstore and Burch Grocery. By 1920, First National Bank had replaced G.W. Bass Drugstore in the west room, but Burch Grocery, which later became George Allison's grocery, continued business in the east room. A "hall" was designated as the second floor user in 1920 instead of the opera house. [FN 3]

Now... (2007)

2020 UPDATE:  On April 8, 2020, the Bass building was destroyed by a tornado.  After considerable delays, demolition of the structure was slated for Summer, 2022 (photos below courtesy of Andy Hendricks).  Learn more here.

 

OCTOBER 2022 UPDATE:  The Bass Building was demolished in September/October, 2022.  Learn more from this blog post.

 

 

FOOTNOTES & REFERENCES:

 

[FN 1] Marylou Smith, M.L.S., A Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Mooresville (Mooresville Public Library, April, 2007).

 

[FN 2] Joanne Raetz Stuttgen, Morgan County Historic Preservation Society, Nomination of Mooresville Commercial Historic District, Morgan Co., IN, National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Section 8, Page 31 (Dec. 19, 2001) [hereinafter cited as National Registry Nomination].

 

[FN 3] National Registry Nomination, Section 8, at pp. 31-32.

 

© 2008 by the Mooresville Public Library. All Rights Reserved. Photographs reprinted by permission.