Bass Building Demolition

We've previously blogged about the George W. Bass Building, which was irreparably damaged by a tornado on April 8, 2020.  While walking through downtown Mooresville over my lunch break, I noticed that the structure is in the process of being demolished.

Bass Building Demolition Under Way (September 22, 2022)

(Click Photos to Enlarge)

(Photos by William R. Buckley)

 

It has been two-and-a-half years since the building collapsed, and although Mooresville citizens are undoubtedly pleased that the ruins are finally being removed, we are also saddened that another piece of local history is being carted away.  Since the structure couldn't be salvaged, however, removal was the only sensible recourse.

We've heard on the town grapevine that a parking lot will be constructed on the Bass site.  While that's beneficial for downtown businesses and customers, it seems a rather pedestrian use of the land.  But nobody asked my opinion, so I'll just sit quietly in an out-of-the-way corner someplace.

You can read all of our previous blog posts about the Bass Building here.

Farewell, Bass Building.  You gave us 130 years of wonderful history.  George W. Bass, wherever you are, would be proud of that.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 29, 2022:   A week after taking the photos above, I returned downtown to shoot some additional photos showing the progress of the demolition.  The concrete structure in the middle of the rubble was the Citizens Bank vault when the bank was located here (1931-1966).  Click the images to enlarge.

UPDATE OCTOBER 15, 2022:  The Bass Building is gone.  These photos (below) were taken on Friday, October 14, 2022.  Since it appears that grass seed has been planted (note straw covering), perhaps the land will now be used as a tiny park space, rather than as a parking lot as rumors previously reported.  An outdoor eating area would be nice.

"Dating" Citizens Bank

Norman Connell

 

(Updated, December, 2024)

Norman Connell (Mooresville High School, Class of 1957) was president and CEO of Citizens Bank from 1975 until his retirement in 2001.   Norman started his career at Citizens Bank in Mooresville, Indiana in 1961 following his discharge from the U.S. Air Force.  He saved some undated, unidentified photos showing Citizens Bank when it was located on the southeast corner of Main and Indiana Streets in downtown Mooresville.  How can we date those pictures?

Knowing when Citizens Bank was at this location is a first step.  According to a Mooresville Public Library (MPL) handout, Citizens Bank occupied 3 East Main Street from 1931 to 1966.    That is a fairly large time range, however.  So our next step is to examine the photos themselves for dating clues.  (Click on the images below to enlarge them.)

(As a quick sidebar:  This structure in the photo below was commonly known as the Bass Building, constructed around 1890 and demolished in 2022 after being destroyed by the April 2020 tornado.)

There's a story behind the clock hanging on the side of the building (above).  We'll talk more about that at the end of this blog post (scroll to the bottom if you want to skip ahead; otherwise, read on).

This exterior shot of Citizens Bank (above) shows late 1950s automobiles, as well as Copeland Appliances, in the background.  The same MPL handout lists Copeland Appliances at 16 South Indiana Street (which appears in the background) from 1956-1974.  (Copeland Appliances was also located at 18-20 South Indiana Street between 1950-1974, but that's further down, out-of-shot.)  So, given these three bits of information, we can safely assume that Mr. Connell's Citizens Bank photos were taken between 1956-1966, the latter date being the last Citizens Bank was situated at the location shown. 

Can we further narrow the time frame?  Let's look at some interior photos of Citizens Bank.

 

See the calendar in the photo above?  It says, Saturday, July 20.  The twentieth of July fell on a Saturday in 1957 and in 1963.  That cinches the date.  These photos were taken on Saturday, July 20, 1957 or 1963.  But there's one factor that suggests 1957 as the correct date, and that is the photographers/developers.

 

How do we know that these photos were all taken at the same time?  They are all printed on the same type of photographic paper and appear to have been taken by the same (or a similar) camera.  More to the point, they were taken and/or developed by the same two photographers/developers, Squires Studio and Awbrey's Photo Service, both of Mooresville during the 1950s.  Their stamps appear on the backs of the photographs (see below).

What did Citizens Bank look like inside on Saturday, July 20, 1957?

Here are some Citizens Bank employees who were working that day.  None of the photos identified the persons shown, but thanks to Norman's wife, Ruth Connell, we were able to identify three of them.  You can contact Mooresville Public Library if you recognize any of the others (the library now has these pictures in its Indiana Room's banking vertical file).

Martha Sellars, maybe

Identifying Miss Sellars would be fairly easy--her name plate appeared in the photo--unless, of course, it's somebody else standing at Miss Sellars' window when this photo was taken.  So we would need another photo of Martha Sellars to compare against this one, if we're to be sure that this is Martha Sellars.  Guess that takes us back to square one.  (I seem to recall that Ruth Connell identified Martha Sellers in this picture, but I may be misremembering.  I think that's how I knew her first name was Martha, so I'm prepared to go with Ruth on this one.)

Thelma (Blaschke) Weddle and Ed Fields

 

  

Always identify the people, places, circumstances and dates of your photographs.  They might be of enormous local historical value, especially for historians and researchers.  If  you're reading this article, wouldn't you like to know those details about these "slices" of living history?

The Exterior Clock's History

In the photo (above), there's a clock hanging from the exterior of the building.  Assuming the photo was taken in 1957, we could surmise that Citizens Bank displayed such a clock at that time.  To confirm whether the clock was there then, we could, of course, compare this picture against others shown in digitized copies of Mooresville High School yearbooks from the 1950s and early 1960s, before the bank moved to its present location (in 1967) on North Indiana Street (across the street from 3 East Main Street, where it was in these photos above).  (Mooresville Public Library's Indiana Room has print copies of these yearbooks, if you'd prefer looking through those.)  One thing's for certain:  the clock was there, and it had been, in fact, since 1931, as shown in the photo (below).

1931 Citizens Bank photograph shows the exterior clock (far right)

on the Bass Building (courtesy of Citizens Bank)

Citizens Bank, which began in 1931, acquired the exterior clock from its predecessor, Farmers State Bank, which went out-of-business in 1930.  We know this because we can see the same clock as shown in advertising from 1917 and from check logos from the 1920s.

1917 advertisement from the Mooresville High School yearbook

Counter checks (1920s), with clock shown above entrance

The clock first appeared on the Farmers State Bank building in 1904, when it underwent a major renovation.  You can see the clock hanging above the entrance in this photo (below).

1904 Photo from a Farmers State Bank brochure

(Enlarged below)

You can tell it's the same clock (or, at least, the same exterior casing that holds the clock) if you compare the 1957 Citizens Bank photo with the 1904 Farmers State Bank photo and 1917 advertisement.

When Citizens Bank vacated the Bass Building to move across the street in 1967, the clock apparently didn't accompany them.  At least it doesn't appear in this photo below.

Citizens Bank advertisement photo (1967)

courtesy of Mooresville High School's yearbook,

Wagon Trails

Where did the clock end up, you may wonder?  I certainly did.  Then, one day, I noticed something incredible.  There's a clock atop a post on the south side of West Main Street, next to a parking lot (and a drive-through bank teller building), which is across from Mooresville Public Library's old Carnegie building, which is now used by Citizens Bank (plot point!).

Clock on the South Side of West Main Street

Downtown Mooresville, Indiana

Three photos (above) courtesy of Google Maps (October 2024)

The clock face is approximately the same size as the one shown in the Citizens Bank/Farmers State Bank exterior hanging frame.  What caught my attention was the clock face.  Look carefully at the numbers, especially seven.  Do you see the odd curve at the bottom of the seven?  There's a strong resemblance between the clock face number styles!  Compare the photos (below) and see what you think.

West Main Street Clock

(photo by William R. Buckley)

(December 18, 2024)

Enlargements of the 1957 photo of the exterior clock face

on the Citizens Bank building

Admittedly, it's not a perfect match between clock face number styles shown in the 1957 and 2024 photos, but their similarity is striking, and given the approximate equality in sizes of the clock faces themselves, we might surmise that the clock face currently displayed on West Main Street is the same clock, or, at least, a similarly styled clock, as the one that was once attached to Citizens Bank and, possibly, Farmers State Bank.  It's an intriguing supposition.

But that's not all we have to go by.  A few years ago, during a downtown historic walking tour I gave for patrons of Mooresville Public Library, one woman saw the clock and said that her father, who had once worked at Citizens Bank, had told her that the clock on West Main Street was the same as the hanging clock from pre-1967 Citizens Bank.  Unfortunately, we have misplaced her name, but we think she may have been Norman Connell's daughter (see photo at the beginning of this blog post).  How's that for circling around to where we started?

A 130-Year-Old Landmark in Downtown Mooresville

One of the many tragedies of the tornado that devastated downtown Mooresville, Indiana on April 8, 2020, was the second-story collapse of the Bass Building, constructed circa 1890 on the southeast corner of the intersection of Main and Indiana Streets. (Click images to enlarge.)

The Bass Building at 3 East Main Street
after the 4/8/2020 tornado
(photograph © 2020 by Andy Hendricks)

Structural Support to the Bass Building (July 2020)

(photograph & video by William R. Buckley)

George W. Bass (1842-1924) was a Civil War veteran who moved to Mooresville in 1878. Around 1880 Bass built a single-story, wood-frame building to house his drugstore. We have a photo from about the time Bass opened for business. which shows the original structure, which was "a one-story, Greek Revival, gable-front frame building with Doric columns supporting a portico over the sidewalk," according to architectural historian Joanne Raetz Stuttgen.

(Circa 1880 photograph by J. P. Calvert,
donated to Mooresville Public Library
by Bonita Marley, October 23, 1968)

  (Circa 1885 photograph by J. P. Calvert showing East Main Street--Bass Drugstore is on the right)

 

 George W. Bass' house in Mooresville

(circa 1880 photograph by J. P. Calvert)

Around 1890, George Bass decided to upgrade his wooden structure, replacing it with a two-story brick building that has served the community for 130 years.  It was one of the oldest structures in downtown Mooresville.

The South side of East Main Street in downtown Mooresville

(Bass Drugstore is on the corner) 
(circa 1910 postcard photograph by J. P. Calvert)

1931 Photograph shows the Bass Building (far right)

when it housed Citizens Bank

(courtesy of Citizens Bank)

The Bass Building as it appeared in October 2007

(Photograph by William R. Buckley)

Compare the 1885 picture (below) with the 1920 picture (further below) to see the difference between the single-story and two-story buildings.  Both photos were taken from atop the Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church steeple, facing north.  Local photographers J. P. Calvert and Manley Brown took the 1885 and 1920 photos, respectively.

(1885 J. P. Calvert photograph courtesy of the
 Mooresville Times, August 8, 1974)

(Photograph by Manly Brown, 1920)

Let's add a couple of arrows to make the comparison easier.

The second floor consisted of a stage and large meeting room, which was used for town hall meetings, plays and musicals.  It was commonly called the "Mooresville opera house" around the turn of the 20th century.

The basement was the location for many businesses, including a barbershop (1890s-1920), and, most recently, a video store (2000s).

The first floor of the building was divided into two halves, which housed:

• West half:
• Bass Drugstore (1890-1920)
• First National Bank (1920-1927)
• Mooresville State Bank (1927-1930)
•  East half:
• Burch Grocery (1890s-1920)
• George Allison's Grocery (1920-1927)

 

Burch Grocery occupied the east half of

the Bass Building.  Burch used horse-drawn wagons

to delivery groceries
(circa 1908 photograph by J. P. Calvert)

Burch sold out to George Allison in 1920.

Allison operated his grocery there until 1927,

when he moved to South Indiana Street

(circa 1920 photography by Manley Brown)

Interior of George Allison's grocery

(George is standing on the right)

in the east half of the Bass Building

(early 1920s photograph)
 

In 1931, the separating wall was removed, allowing the entire first floor to be used by Citizens Bank, which operated in the Bass Building until 1966, when it was replaced by a clothing store (into the 1970s).

1931 Photograph shows the Bass Building (far right)

when it housed Citizens Bank

(courtesy of Citizens Bank)

(Below) Advertisements from the 1955-1968

Wagon Trails, Mooresville High School's yearbook

Those last three advertisements show Citizens Bank at its current location on the east side of North Indiana Street downtown.

The Bass Building has been an important part of Mooresville history for well over a century.  Restoration was not possible, but at least we can honor its place in our hometown community story.

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