Anne__archie

Welcome to my love of historic architecture! I am a Hoosier, just traveling around taking photos of old buildings and structures.

05/25/2026

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of this year’s Preservation Month series with . I have one more Art Deco-style building for you.

Now, 125 E. Main is pretty unassuming. I know I’ve passed by it for decades without ever really noticing it. Art Deco details are like that sometimes, especially in a downtown mostly constructed in the 1880s.

At least as early as 1887, 125 E. Main was a drug store (Photo 3). In 1900, Jacob Dick had purchased an interest in the drug store. In 1910, Dr. Charles Riley (Photo 4, look at that handsome dude) had formed a partnership with Dick. The Dick & Riley Drug Store operated until 1933, when it burned down in the large fire on that block (Photo 5). At that point, Dick retired. Riley’s obituary states that he had worked there until 1931, when he left to practice medicine in New Ross (he died of a heart attack while working there in 1937) (Photo 6). Dick passed away in 1944 (Photo 7). Interestingly enough, they both lived on West Main Street three blocks apart, and even more interesting to me, Dr. Riley rented rooms in the house I myself lived in at 311 W. Main.

Obviously, the block was not built back in a day, and in 1934 the lot was still vacant. In 1936, it was listed as the “Gt. A & P Co.,” which stood for the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. What would become the ubiquitous A&P Grocery occupied the newly built one-story Art Deco-style store. The building was significantly smaller than the previous one. It was (is) covered with buff glazed brick, had a brick geometric design, and vertical decorations at the corners of the roofline. By 1942, the A&P became a Merit Shoe store, and then even later, Kenney Shoes (Photo 8). By the 1980s (and likely well before), the original facade was covered mostly by porcelain enamel panels, which are still there today.

Let me know any memories you have of this building! Thank you for coming along with us this year!

05/18/2026

Welcome back to the third installment of the 2026 Crawfordsville Main Street Preservation Month Series! We’re continuing our tour of Art Deco/Moderne buildings.

Today we’ll be talking about the Nye-Booe Drug Company that was located at 111 N. Washington St. The three-story brick building dated to 1856. In 1864, Willis May purchased it and opened up a drug store. Willis’ two daughters both married druggists in 1881 - Hattie married Marshall Nye in April and Eva married John Booe in October. The couples resided right next to each other at 215 and 219 E. College St (Photo 9).

Both men had been working with other druggists in town prior to going into business together. By 1888 Booe sold out his shares of Moffett & Booe. In 1890, 111 N. Washington was listed in the city directory as Nye & Co. By 1891, the store was listed as Nye & Booe. Check out the 1913 Sanborn that shows it being three stories tall (Photo 8). In 1937, the building had its third floor removed and the facade was redone in the popular style of the day - Art Deco (Photo 5).

The store stayed in the family until it closed in 1973. Can you imagine how much a drugstore would have changed in that time? “Medicines” that druggists used in the late 1800s/early 1900s were more of a home remedy than an exact science and often contained ingredients that probably shouldn’t have been given to anyone. Photos 6-7 show a small advertising booklet that touted “S.S.S.” tonic that could cure most anything. Newspapers of the time have a multitude of personal testimonials about miracle products. Today the building belongs to Clore Insurance Group.

Thank you to Brad and Becky Hurt for some of this information, and of course my dad for his research assistance. Stay tuned for our last post next week!

05/11/2026

Welcome back to the second installment of the 2026 Crawfordsville Main Street Preservation Month Series!

While this building doesn’t scream Art Moderne, I do think it’s a pretty late version of it. Art Moderne is very similar to Art Deco, but includes curved walls, with windows that curve with them, along with the stucco color. Think more horizontal lines in comparison to Art Deco’s vertical ones. The Goodyear building at the corner of Market and Water Streets was built in 1947 as a Dodge dealership under the ownership of O.K. Galloway. He is the real story here, not the actual building.

Oliver K. Galloway was born in 1893 in Fountain County. As he told it, his older brother was a sickly baby, but when he himself was born, he dad proclaimed that he was “OK!” His mother found a name to fit that assessment. In 1909 a neighbor who owned a Haynes car asked O.K. if he’d like to accompany him on a trip to Kokomo for some parts. Of course he did, and they traveled to the Haynes factory, which he said was churning out 2-5 cars/day. After that he was hooked. In what was truly a bootstrap story, O.K. and his brother started a garage in Stone Bluff, which then turned into a dealership in Waveland (there were two plus one garage then, can you imagine?), and then Crawfordsville. In Waveland, he was selling (among others) the Willys-Knight car for $1,600, which at that time was top of the line. His first location in town was on East Pike Street, then South Green, and finally the location we’re talking about today. O.K. really did see the spectrum from the birth of automobiles to late 20th century versions. Today the building houses Pomp’s Tire Service, continuing the auto legacy of the location.

How do I know all of this (and the great details that won’t fit here)? Because I found an interview recorded with O.K. before he died, which is every historian’s dream. I could do an entire series just on him! Anyway, enjoy these photos and let me know if you knew O.K. and/or bought a car there!

05/04/2026

Welcome to the 2026 Preservation Month Series! We will be showcasing four downtown buildings this year, one every Monday of the month to celebrate.

The southwest corner of E. Main and Green Streets has a storied history of department stores. The existing building was built after a major fire that took out most of the block of buildings in 1933. Bischof’s Big Store occupied 127-129 E. Main St. starting in the late 1880s with Jones Drug Store on the corner (check out the 1913 Sanborn). The building was a whopping four stories tall, and featured a vast array of dry goods, clothing, shoes, etc. By the 1920s, Bischof’s Big Store became Goodman’s Department Store, which maintained steady business. Tragedy struck on January 10, 1933 when a fire that began in the basement of Goodman’s took out a quarter of a city block. By the end of that year, Goodman’s had rebuilt, now taking up the corner lot at 131-133 E. Main St. The new building had a basement (prominently accessible when you first walked in), and two floors of department store goods with a mezzanine level between the first and second floors (now covered over with diagonal siding).

By the 1950s, Goodman’s had become Dellekamp’s, continuing on with the department store business. My own dad worked there in the early 1970s, not long before it closed in 1972. Peep a portion of his paycheck stub from 1970 when he was making $1.50/hr 😳. After Dellekamp’s closed, the building sat empty for a bit and had a variety of stores/businesses for the next few decades. Dance by Deborah opened in the early 2000s and has occupied the building ever since.

The Art Deco style was popular in the 1920s and early 1930s. The Dellekamp Building has a very restrained version of this, as evidenced by a beige brick that mimics a stucco wall, horizontal lines of windows, and those small decorative horizontal accents with a single vertical line in the middle. I think it’s fun to imagine the almost 100 years of high-end, customer service-focused, huge department stores in downtown Crawfordsville! Did you shop at Dellekamp’s?

12/25/2025

Merry Christmas 2025!

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