What a modern and accommodating city Crawfordsville must have been in 1908!
Why, we had eight livery, feed, and sale stables in town, along with a wagon and buggy supplier at
121-123 S. Washington (J.M. Thompson Insurance building). Four farriers worked here to serve your
horses. The Crawfordsville Ice and Cold
Storage on the corner of Franklin and Hocum (?) Streets could deliver ice to your
home. For your smoking needs, five shops sold cigars (most in the LaRose on Main
building). If you needed a trip out of
town, you could buy your train tickets at the Big Four Station—corner of
Washington and Franklin Street-- or at the Indiana Northern Traction Station located where Tri-County Bank building is at
224 E. Main Street. If it was Friday
night, you could find fun at any of the seven billiard halls in town.
For other personal
needs, there were 29 grocery stores located in Crawfordsville, along with two
casket companies on West Main Street. One
was located on the same property as the former Lew Wallace Inn.
Crawfordsville was
quite famous at the time for having two
brick factories--The Crawfordsville
Shale Brick Co., located one mile north on the Monon line; and the Poston Paving Brick Company at E.
College and Vandalia Streets.
workers at the Poston Brick Factory
Crawfordsville in 1908 must have been quite a bustling small city. Wouldn't you love to go back in time and visit some of these old places?
No comments:
Post a Comment