Historic Structures

The Kennecott Copper Mines, McCarthy Alaska

George Wilhelm Stellar, a naturalist who accompanied Vitus Bering's Russian expedition in 1741, reported the use of copper knives among the Natives on Kayak Island. Hostile Natives, however, deterred further Russian exploration. Only in 1847, when Rufus Sereberkinikoff and eleven Aleuts ascended the Copper River and wintered at the mouth of the Chitina, did the Russians investigate the river beyond its mouth. Unfortunately, Sereberinikoff antagonized the Copper River Indians who consequently turned on them and killed the whole party. Other traders, Russian and American, followed. But not until 1885 did a white man ascend the Chitina River, which was the source of copper used by the Natives. Lieutenant Henry T. Allen assisted by two men with only limited supplies explored and mapped the Copper and Chitina Rivers. After three weeks of subsisting on rabbits and rotten moose, Allen and his men stumbled half-starved into the camp of Nicolai, tyone of the Chitina Rivers. During his brief stay near the headwaters of the Chitina, Allen observed copper bullets used in double barrel, muzzle-loading shotguns but did not discuss the copper source and certainly did not contemplate that one of the world's richest copper deposits lay only two valleys away.

Schnull & Company Building, Indianapolis Indiana

Henry Schnull, one of the greatest leaders of Indianapolis commerce in the last half of the nineteenth century erected the headquarters for his wholesale grocery firm after the fire of December 3, 1895 destroyed the commercial block that he had previously erected on the site. Schnull & Co. dominated the Indianapolis wholesale grocery trade until the 1930s. Dating back to 1855, Schnull & Co. was one of many businesses started by Henry Schnull in his long, successful business career in Indianapolis. Schnull (1833-1905) emigrated from the German province of Westphalia in 1852 with some business experience. He started a retail grocery business here with Fredrick P. Rusch in 1855, that later became A. and H. Schull & Company with Schnull's brother, August, as a partner. The retail business ended in 1860 and the Schnulls turned their attention to the wholesale trade and to developing and building the Wholesale District. Noted as the Father of the Wholesale District, Schnull erected the first business block on South Meridian in 1863 at the southwest corner of Meridian and Maryland Streets known as the Schnull's Block, abutting the Schnull & Co. Building. The Schnulls sold their business in 1865 and that same year founded Merchants National Bank with Volney T. Malott, David Macy and Alexander Metzger. Henry Schnull served as the bank's first president from 1865 to 1866. In 1868, he formed the wholesale grocery firm of Severin, Schnull & Company in partnership with Henry Severin, a fellow Greman immigrant. Between 1872 and 1877, he was a hotelier operating the Occidental Hotel on the site of the Occidental Building, but returned to the wholesale grocery business in 1877 founding the firm of Schnull & Krag. This firm bacame Schnull and Company in 1889. The results of the 1895 fire were a new building and Schnull's Phoenix brand of groceries, an obvious reference to the firm's recovery after the fire. Schnull commissioned his son-in-law, Bernard Vonnegut of Vonnegut & Bohn to design the new building. Schnull & Co. pioneered vacuum-packed coffee in 1922. The firm occupied this building until 1924 when it moved to larger facilities at 601 Kentucky Avenue. After Schnull & Company vacated 110-116 South Meridian, the Taylor Carpet Company occupied the building until the early 1930s. The Hibben, Hellweg & Company, wholesalers of drygoods and notions, occupied the building from 1937 to the 1960s. L. S. Ayres & Company department store used the Schnull & Co. Building as a warehouse until 1977 when the building was remodeled and occupied by Lascala Italian Restaurant. In 1985 the building was again remodeled by the same owners and it functioned as a night club and discoteque from 1985 to 1988. It was vacant until it was demolished in 1990.

Croghan House - Picnic Place, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

The recorded history of this structure deals mainly with the romance surrounding the elopement of Croghan's daughter with Captain Schenley, and it has been very difficult to get any auithoritative data dealing directly with the building. Although Schenley had nothing to do with the building of the house and only lived in it a year or so, it has always been known as the Schenley House, or, as Croghan named it Picnic Place.

Veraestau - Holman-Hamilton House, Aurora Indiana

Jesse Lynch Holman, original owner of Veraestau, studied law in the office of Henry Clay who remained a life-long friend. Holman was admitted to the Kentucky Bar in 1805. He is regarded as Kentucky's first native novelist, and after moving to Indiana in 1810, he became Indiana's first resident novelist. More importantly, he served for fourteen years as Judge of the Indiana Supreme Court and for eight years as Federal District Judge in Indiana. Holman was a delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention at Corydon in l8l6 when the state's first constitution was drafted. He was defeated in a United States Senatorial election by one vote in the legislature. Jesse Holman laid out the town of Aurora in 1819 and remained a civic leader there. He was active in the creation of the Indiana Historical Society in 183O and served as its vice president. He was also a Baptist minister in Aurora and one of the founders of Franklin College Indiana.

John T. Beasley Building - Citizens Gas & Fuel Company, Terre Haute Indiana

The Citizens Gas & Fuel Company Building is directly associated with the development of utilities in the midwest, and with the use of gas for lighting, heat and cooking. Gas light illumination moved slowly westward across the Appalachians, from its first installation in Baltimore in 1817. By 1848, when Washington DC saw its first gas light company organized, demonstrations of the new marvel had been held in the midwest, in such metropolises as St. Louis, Dayton and Cincinnati. Only five years later, in 1853, the Terre Haute Gas Light Company received its city charter, although it would be three years more before the community could claim to be an illuminated city. Terre Haute in the nineteenth century was a small town with big ambitions. The railroads had come through in 1852, the Wabash & Erie canal ran north to Lafayette and south to Evansville and the National Road (now Wabash Avenue) was the highway to the far west. Even though, according to the 1850 census, the population was only a little over four thousand people, several intrepid local entrepreneurs planned a gas works which would serve nearly 50,000 inhabitants. The original plant, which was under construction in the summer of 1855, was built by a Mr. Bickwell of Philadelphia at a reported cost of $40,000. Like most town gas companies, Terre Haute Gas Light Company manufactured coal gas, storing it in a large gas holder at the plant, and distributing it to customers through gas mains of between three and six inches in diameter. Meters recorded the amount drawn down by each user. When the community was first lit up with gas, in 1856, between 14 and 15 miles of gas lines had been laid, 329 street lamps were illuminated and between eight and nine hundred meters had been installed. The farsighted planners had, from the beginning, looked forward to the community's growth and development. The advantages of gas-lit city streets were proudly proclaimed by the local paper in October of that first year of light: Lighting our streets with gas has commenced. Night walking will soon be brilliant.

Andalusia Mansion - Nicholas Biddle Estate, Andalusia Pennsylvania

The house is the work of Thomas U. Walter, architect of the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C. He enlarged a smaller and earlier house to create this Greek Revival masterpiece. The house is one of the finest examples of the temple form in the country, and is one of the few country seats left which still has its out buildings. The architect's client and the owner of the house was Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1795, John Craig, a Philadelphia merchant with business connections in the Old World, purchased land that had been used as a farm. In l8ll Nicholas Biddle married the Craigs' daughter, Jane, and acquired Andalusia.

Indiana Hotel, Hammond Indiana

The original incorporated (1883) town of Hammond evolved to the north and south of the Grand Calumet River, expanding outward from settler Hohman's cabin (1851). The western boundary has always been the Illinois state line. Hohman was one of the earliest settlers in this area. In the 1880s there had been pressure from the Post Office to establish a name for the town. According to Harold Hammond, (the grandson of Thomas Hammond, brother to George Hammond who had started the first meat-packing plants in Hammond) there was a coin toss between Marcus M. Towle (Towle founded a residential-industrial area that would become part of Hammond) and Thomas Hammond at Four Corners (State and Hohman) to decide the name of the town. Hammond won, and succeeded Towle as Hammond's second Mayor, in May 1888 for two consecutive terms.

Fisher-Fallgatter Flour Mill, Waupaca Wisconsin

In 1884, Robert N. Roberts and Samuel T. Oborn built the Crescent Mills in Waupaca, a community established on the banks of the Waupaca River in the Southwest corner of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. With the assistance of a millwright from Neenah, the two men erected a three-story frame flour mill and they cut a channel across the neck of a small loop in the Waupaca River enabling water to flow beneath their mill to drive turbine-powered machines. Roberts and Oborn built their mill during a period of revolutionary change in the technology of the flour milling industry and they were able to install the latest in flour milling equipment. Today, the Crescent Mill stands intact, although with expansion, renovation and several changes of ownership, the name has been changed to the Fisher-Fallgatter Mill. After eighty-five continuous years of producing flour for the state and nation, the mill was shut down in 1969.

Summers Plantation, Opelika Alabama

The land on which the house is located was deeded to a Creek Indian named Sphiyike by the United States Government around 1832. Sphiyike sold it to Nat Macon Thornton on April 3, 1834, who in turn sold it to William Long on April 16, 1837. Shortly after purchasing the property, Long constructed the core section of the house. Before the Civil War he lost his wife and some children, who are buried near the house. On September 28, 1869, he sold the property to John Summers (1844-1896) and his wife, Rebecca Lenora McClendon of West Point, Georgia. Summers added three bedrooms, a large central hall, and a kitchen connected to the breezeway. John and Rebecca Summers and their eight children had a prosperous plantation which included cotton, wheat, corn, cattle, a blacksmith shop, and a store. After Rebecca Summers died on January 11, 1926, the house was occupied by her daughter, Berta Summers. In the spring of 1954, she sold the house to Arthur W. Cooper and his wife Dorothy Summers Cooper, granddaughter of John and Rebecca Summers. The house was used for storage until 1988 when the Coopers started restoring the building.

Hampton Mansion, Towson Maryland

The tract of land on which Hampton Mansion was built had been acquired in 1735 by Colonel Charles Ridgely (1702-1772) from Clement and Ann Hill. The 1500 acre tract, Northampton, had been inherited by Ann Hill from her father, Henry Darnall, who had patented it in 1695. The land, in the Gunpowder River valley of Baltimore County, formed the nucleus of the Ridgely holdings which at one time totaled more than 24,000 acres. Captain Charles Ridgely (1729-1790), Colonel Ridgely's son and for whom Hampton Mansion was built, inherited the property in 1772 after his father's death. The Captain died July 28, 1790, six months after Hampton Mansion traditionally was completed. His wife, Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely (1739-1812), according to his will had the option to retain eight acres and the house in which she and Captain Ridgely lived prior to the completion of the mansion, probably the Overseer's House, or the mansion and 300 acres.

Owen Plantation House, Bessemer Alabama

Like the nearby Saddler House, the Owen House is a fine example of an important folk house type in 19th Century Alabama. The two story frame structure with an unenclosed central hall or dogtrot is a common variation of what is generally called an I house, and represented a high economic and social status. Constructed during the late 1830's by Thomas H. Owen, the house reflects a taste for elegance in the wainscotting which is painted to resemble marble, the shiplapped wall treatment and paneled box columns of the front porch, and the finely executed mantels. In 1833, the same year that he married Mellissa Saddler, Thomas Owen purchased several acres of land along the Eastern Valley Road and built a small, two-room house. By 1838, he had enlarged his land holdings and begun construction on a larger and finer house. The Owen family was one of the early pioneer families in Jefferson County, having arrived in 1816 from South Carolina, and like the other members of his family, Thomas Owen devoted much of his time to his community and church. A devout Methodist, he was one of the founders of the Pleasant Hill Methodist Church and was instrumental in the establishment of the Pleasant Hill Academy, one of the leading educational institutions in early Jefferson County. In addition to his plantation, Owen operated a small general store in Jonesboro.

Joint High School, Rochester Indiana

The original name of Joint High School is from the joint agreement between the City of Rochester School System and Rochester Township to form one high school. Rochester High School was started in 1874 in Central School, which was across Pontiac Street and was commissioned by the State Board of Education on December 16, 1884. By 1912, there was a need for more classrooms and laboratories which made the construction of a new high school necessary. The school board spent several years working on developing a plan for the new structure. These efforts included visiting other schools in other cities, examining plans, and hiring an Indianapolis architect, Charles E. Bacon, to perfect the plans. City school board members were Mr. True, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Copeland. The township trustee was Mr. Wylie and his advisory board was Mr. Kline, Mr. Matthias, and Mr. Rogers. These men are given credit for providing a building the community really needed.

Thames River Railroad Bridge - Groton Bridge, New London Connecticut

The national railway network that was to be one of the critical catalysts in the industrialization of the United States was largely completed between 1840 and 1880. Most early railroads were short lines that attempted to tap economic resources of the hinterlands of cities. By the second quarter of the 19th century, cities east of the Mississippi, particularly those in the northeast, began to build longer lines and consolidate shorter ones to tie them more closely together. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad provides an excellent example of how railroad systems were created and how they advanced transportation technology, including movable bridges, with their economic power. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was first formed by a consolidation of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad Company with the New York & New Haven Company, when the two railroads entered into a partnership agreement. The capital was divided, and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad was established on August 6, 1892. Lengthy and intricate patterns of acquisiton were common to railroading in the late 19th century. Empires were created as well as monopolies on the transportation of goods. The peak growth years of the American railroads were the early 1900s and, of those, the teens (1911-1919) were the final surge. The decline of the railroads after those years was due partly to the excesses of transportation monopolies in the last quarter of the 19th century and partly to a combination of rising costs and competition from other modes of transportation.

Indiana National Bank Building, Indianapolis Indiana

After a fire on 18 Sept. 1895 that destroyed the bank's quarters, the directors commissioned D. A. Bohlen and Son, Architects, to design a new building. Oscar D. Bohlen of the architectural firm and bank president Volney T. Mallott went to New York City to look at banks. Construction began 1 Feb. 1896. The building was occupied on 12 Jan. 1897. The building was designed in the Classic style and was fireproof. The exterior was of Indiana oolitic limestone, carved by H. R. Saunders, sculptor. The interior was finished in white Italian marble. The dimensions were given as 128 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 36 feet high. It is interesting to note that The American Architect and Building News carried drawings by Marsh, Israels and Harder, architects, titled Competitive (Unsuccessful) Design..., dated 1895. This plan centers on a circular, domed rotunda, quite different from the rectangular banking chamber of Bohlen's design. A competition, then, preceded the award of the commission to D. A. Bohlen and Sons.

Charles Major School, Shelbyville Indiana

The school was constructed on the former site of the Shelbyville Seminary. Although the seminary could have remained on the site when the new building was constructed, it was not practical. The seminary was constructed in 1822 with another building added in 1855. The new school building, constructed in 1922, was named after Charles Major, a local author of childrens' books. A statue depicting a young boy from one of Major's books, The Bears of Blue River, was placed outside of the main entrance of the school. It has since been moved to the Town Square. The original building was constructed in 1922; an addition was built in 1949. The addition was constructed to replicate the original portion of the building. There has been some alteration to the windows on the rear facade, and all of the doors have been modernized. A 2-story arched window and two oriel windows have been infilled on the southwest facade.

Montgomery County Jail, Crawfordsville Indiana

Designed by architect E.J. Hodgson and built by Hinkley and Norris in 1882, the Montgomery County Jail was an unusual experiment in penal engineering: a cylindrical cage which rotated around a central axis. The Montgomery County Jail is the oldest of six human squirrel cages, lazy susan jails, or rotary jails built in the midwest, and used a rotary system patented by W.H. Brown, S.F. Haugh, and John L. Ketcham. The rotary system proved dangerous in operation, but it represented in theory an attempt to use 19th century engineering methods to solve current social problems. In 1882 the idea of employing a circular design in prison architecture was not new. In his treatise on prison reform, The Penopticon, Jeremy Bentham suggested a circular prison, and in 1791 he designed a circular prison with stationary cells built into an exterior wall. In 1800 Benjamin F. Latrobe modified Bentham's idea of a circular prison in the design used for the state prison in Richmond, Virginia.

Bells Ford Covered Bridge, Seymour Indiana

In 1834, Indiana's first covered bridge was built on the National Road near Straughn. Historians estimate that at least 600 covered wooden bridges were built in Indiana. Over time, most of these bridges were lost to floods, replacement, neglect or arson. In 1930, when the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana Highway Department formed the Covered Timber Bridge Committee to document the state's surviving covered bridges, there were less than 200 remaining. Today, there are ninety covered bridges in Indiana. The Bells Ford Bridge is the only surviving combination Post truss bridge in the United States. It symbolizes the significant role railroads played in the development of bridge truss technology in the mid-nineteenth century. It is an excellent example of the work of McNairy Claflen & Company of Cleveland, Ohio, an important nineteenth century bridge fabricating firm.

Union Pacific Railroad Depot, Kelso California

Construction of the railway line between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, via Las Vegas, began in 1901 with the formation of the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad Company by prominent Senator Williams Andrews Clark. In 1902, half of the railroad's stock was acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad, which was looking for an outlet to the California coast from its terminus in Ogden, Utah. The line opened for business on 1 May 1905. In 1916, the company shortened its name to the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. In 1921, the Union Pacific Railroad bought the remainder of the railroad's stock from Senator Clark, although it continued to use the LA & SL RR name until 1988. The settlement at Kelso began in April 1904 as a tent camp for the railroad construction crew, known as Siding No. 16. By 1906, several warehouses, as engine shed, a lunchroom with attached sleeping quarters, and a small wood frame depot had been constructed. The settlement was renamed Kelso after one of the camp's warehousemen. Kelso became an important railroad town both because of its location as a helper station where trains could take on an additional locomotive for climbing the Cima grade to the east, as well as because local wells provided a reliable source of water for refueling steam locomotives.

Lembeck and Betz Eagle Brewery, Jersey City New Jersey

The Lembeck & Betz Eagle Steam Ale Brewery was founded by Henry F. Lembeck, a businessman from Jersey City, and John Betz, a beer brewer from New York City. Betz was the son of John F. Betz, the first German ale brewer in America, who operated the John Betz brewery in Philadelphia. It was in his father's brewery that John Betz learned his trade. Lembeck operated a grocery store in New York City which he moved to Jersey City. At some point in time, Lembeck was a sales agent of John Betz Ale and made the acquaintance of the younger John Betz. In 1868, Lembeck and Betz formed a partnership to build a brewery, which they named the Lembeck & Betz Eagle Steam Ale Brewery. In 1869, they completed construction of a four-story brick brew house on Ninth Street between Grove and Henderson Streets in Jersey City, New Jersey, and opened for business. As the business grew during the 1870s, the brew house was expanded with additions to the east and to the rear, the addition of another story to the main building, and changes to the facade. By 1879, Lembeck & Betz produced 31,532 barrels of beer, ranking it third among the 57 breweries in New Jersey which together produced nearly 520,000 barrels annually. One of the main factors in choosing the site was the availability of good industrial land located adjacent to a branch line of the Erie Railroad which ran down Tenth Street. Bulk commodities moved by rail, and the Erie provided direct rail connections to upstate New York, the primary source of hops and malt for beer making. Naturally, the close rail line also facilitated the delivery of coal, building materials, and equipment necessary for the continued operation and expansion of the plant. The 1928 Hopkins map shows a rail siding coming down Tenth Street and entering the complex between the Bottling House and the Original Brew House. The date of the building of this siding was not determined. By 1893, Lembeck & Betz were obtaining malt via the Erie Railroad from Lembeck's malt house in Watkins, New York. The H.F. Lembeck and Co. malt house fronted on Seneca Lake and was the principal feature of the town. Following the incorporation of the brewery, the ownership of the malt houses came under the corporation. To what degree the railroad was used for transport of the finished product is not known. Presumably the majority of the beer was delivered to homes and taverns by the company's horse-drawn wagons. By 1893, the company owned 72 horses, 24 new beer trucks, and 12 ale trucks.

Beechwood - Isaac Kinsey House, Milton Indiana

The Kinsey house and farm complex were constructed during 1871-73, and designed by Richmond architect Joel Stover, his only known extant work in Indiana. The two-story High Victorian Italianate residence is distinguished by polygonal side hays, and an ornamental entry porch, delicately detailed in wrought-iron, with a main doorway completely framed by an arch of square stone blocks with beveled edges and embossed panels. Articulating the hip roof is a deep denticulated cornice braced with elaborate decorative brackets. A rectangular cupola trimmed at the eaves with sheet-metal brackets and cresting crowns the main roof. The house is adjoined by a dairy house and smoke house, and eleven additional outbuildings stand on the property. Isaac Kinsey (1821-1896) was a prominent farmer and industrialist in Wayne County during the second half of the 19th century. The eldest son and the fourth of nine children of Oliver and Sarah Kinsey, Isaac was born May 19, 1821 in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Central of Georgia Railway Station, Savannah Georgia

The Central of Georgia Railroad was organized in 1833 and by 1850 had outgrown its original facilities in Savannah. Trackage increased from 190 miles in 1843 to 527 miles by 1855. To meet these demands, William M. Wadley, then Superintendent, conceived a plan for a comprehensive, integrated complex, including passenger and freight depots and shops for the construction and repair of locomotives and rolling stock. When completed in 1855, the Central's facility was described in Zerah Colburn's New York Railroad Advocate as the most complete and elegant railroad station in the country. The construction of the passenger depot building is an illustration of the impact of the events of April 1861 on the industry of the South. Begun in 1860, the completion of the head house was interrupted by the Civil War. It stood unfinished for over fifteen years, gradually decaying until 1874 when the railroad was finally able to resume construction on the station. By that time, much of the timber framing had deteriorated and had to be replaced. It was finally opened in 1876.

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