Armantrout Bros. Orchestra

CDPL recently acquired numerous artifacts from the estate of the late Robert Garner who was a life-long Crawfordsville citizen. In fact, his father, Sherman Garner owned Garner's Grocery that was located on Chestnut Street. The store closed sometime in the mid 1950's.






Included in the donated items was this business card advertising the Armantrout Bros. Orchestra. This dance orchestra was from Ladoga, Indiana. Three of these gentlemen were brothers.

The musician playing the banjo (sitting in the foreground of the photograph) was not a brother. However, the back of the business card has his name listed as Henry Armontrout. The spelling is actually different than the spelling of the three brothers. Originally, this appears to be a typo, but it may very well have been purposefully done to designate him as a cousin or nephew.

Wabash Football

Wabash College football dates back to 1884, when Wabash gathered a team and beat Butler University in Indiana’s first ever intercollegiate football game. Football at Wabash is a storied program, as Wabash and Depauw have played each other in the annual Monon Bell Classic game 122 times. The Little Giants lead the all-time series 60-53-9.
Wabash has only had one losing season since 1976. The only year Wabash made it to the Division III National Championship game was in 1977, but Wabash has never won a national championship.  Recently, the Wabash football program has been making strides toward that first national championship crown. Wabash has reached the playoffs seven times since 2002. This past Saturday Wabash ended their season, losing to St. Thomas University in the quarterfinals of the DIII playoffs. Wabash ended their season with a school best tying 12-1 record.

Christmas shopping in 1915

A century ago, in December 1915, Crawfordsville’s commercial district was advertising and preparing for the busy holiday shopping season just like today.  Similar to today’s holiday season, a great deal of advertising for holiday shoppers appeared throughout the Crawfordsville newspapers directly after the Thanksgiving of 1915.  The December 7, 1915 issue of the Crawfordsville Review ran an independent ad claiming, “SHOP EARLY IN THE SEASON." If your Christmas giving is to measure up to the true spirit of the season it should not be neglected until the last possible moment.   In the November 30, 1915 issue, the popular Louis Bischof Big Store ran an advertising relaying the message, “We urgently request of Patrons to make their Xmas purchases as early as possible.”  Commercial venues have always advocated for “early” shopping, but there was no mention of holiday shopping in the 1915 papers earlier than November 30 and after Thanksgiving.  This was the case because the tradition of “Black Friday” shopping did not begin until the late 1930s when President Franklin Roosevelt made the national proclamation of making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.