IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018

1. 312 S. Downey Av, (1873) This unusual one and one-half story example of French Second Empire structure was built by Nicholas Ohmer as a speculative property in Irvington’s Woodland Addition. Dr. Allen and Silence Benton resided in the home during his tenure as Butler’s president from 1886- 91. One Halloween students, as a trick, took Dr. Benton’s carriage out into the country. After a ride of some distance, the trick was reversed when the voice of Dr. Benton came from inside the carriage saying, “Well, boys. We’ve gone far enough. Let’s go home.”

2. 5432 University Av, GRAHAM-STEPHENSON HOUSE (1889) The home was built by W. H. H. Graham, a Civil War veteran, attorney, and American Consul to Winnipeg, Canada. During the 1920s, it was the chapter house Butler University Greek societies Phi Delta Theta; Kappa Kappa Gamma; and Chi Rho Zeta. In 1923 D. C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, bought the house and added the full height Ionic portico. In March 1925 Stephenson brutally assaulted Madge Oberholtzer while on a train to Chicago. She was brought back to and left in the garage apartment behind the house for a time before she was returned to her home. Madge died the following month and Stephenson was tried for second degree murder and sent to prison. Fifty- one years later in July 1986 the garage apartment was home to three men. An argument ensued over cleaning up a grape Kool-Aid stain on the carpet. Dennis Wayne Brown tomahawked Thomas Felts three times in the back before shooting him in the head. Brown then shot Charles Hoskinson in the head. Brown fled to Florida where he was arrested and returned to Indianapolis. Brown was tried and convicted of the murders and sentenced to 100 years in prison.

3. IRVING CIRCLE PARK Irving Circle Park is Irvington’s centerpiece. The children of Irvington’s first school (located on the outer south east quadrant of the circle) used this park as a playground. Today Irvington children still play in the circle and the entire community enjoys summer concerts. A bust of Washington Irving, the 19th century author of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the community’s namesake, is located on the north side of the park. The park is the site for Spooky Stories during the annual Irvington Halloween Festival.

4. 5631 University Av (Southwest Quadrant), EUDORUS JOHNSON HOUSE (1876) Known as “the Castle,” Eudorus Johnson, the son of one of Irvington’s founders Sylvester Johnson, had this Victorian Gothic house built with three-foot thick walls and turrets at the front and back. The Rev. Harry and Anna Earl resided here in the 1890s. During the summer of 1899 the Earls went to their cottage on Lake Macatawa, Michigan, and it was there that tragedy befell them. Fifteen year-old Percy Earl contracted typhoid fever and died in July. A month later his mother Anna Magarey Earl also succumbed to the illness. The house also served in the ‘20s as the chapter house for Butler College sorority Alpha Delta Pi.

5. 320 S. Audubon Rd, BELZER HOUSE (c. 1895) This Queen Anne Style house was the home of Francis and Prunetta Belzer. Francis “Chief” Belzer was a founder of the Boy Scout movement in . In 1911 he organized Troop 9 at the Irvington United Methodist Church and he served many years as president of the Central Indiana Boy Scout Council. Chief Belzer is memorialized in the name of the Boy Scout Camp in northeast Marion County. IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018

6. 5939 Beechwood Av, KILE OAK This Bur Oak has been preserved in its natural state by the Irvington Historic Landmarks Foundation. The tree is estimated to be over 400 years old. It has a spread of 125 feet and it is over 50 feet in height. It is the largest Bur Oak in any Indiana metropolitan area. Civil War veteran Rev. Oliver Kile had a two-story house built on this lot in 1901 for his family of eight children. Over the years, many visitors came to gaze upon this magnificent tree and record their impressions in the “Kile Oak Visitors Register.” The tree has suffered from recent storms and age.

7. 5751 University Av, IRVINGTON COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL This building was formerly the Marion County Children’s Guardian Home, a public institution for the care of mistreated or neglected children. The home was re- located to Irvington in 1898, and the original wood frame white-painted Colonial Revival structure burned in 1915. It was replaced the next year by this Georgian Revival dark brick building with Indiana limestone moldings. Over the next eighty- three years various additions were added and renovations completed. Irvingtonians have long supported the mission of the home through the community-based Marion County Guardian’s Home Guild and the Pleasant Run Run mini-marathon. The sculpture “Hope” on the front lawn evokes the mission of the former home. In the early 1950s the infamous Rev. Jim Jones was the spiritual counselor and recreation director of the home. The Guardian Home closed 2009 and in the fall of 2010 the Irvington Community High School began holding classes in the building.

8. 5802 University Av, OBERHOLTZER HOUSE (1909) Dr. Franz Abendroth, a specialist in treating women’s diseases, had this Queen Anne Style house with Colonial Revival details built for his home and practice. In 1916 it became the home of George Oberholtzer, an inspector for the U. S. Railway Mail Service and vice president of the U. S. Railway Mail Clerks Association. In the spring of 1925 his daughter Madge Oberholtzer, a Statehouse secretary, was brutally assaulted by Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson while accompanying him on a train trip to Chicago. Following the attack, she was brought back to her Irvington home where she died from infection in the wounds that Stephenson inflicted upon her. As she lay on her deathbed, black sedans, presumably driven by Klan members, from time to time drove past the house to intimidate the Oberholtzers. Madge provided a deathbed statement which was instrumental in Stephenson’s subsequent trial and conviction.

9. IRVINGTON SCHOOL (255-261-263 S. Audubon Rd; 5703 University Av – Southeast Quadrant (Site) The Free Classic and Craftsman Style double-houses on this site mark the location of the Irvington schoolhouse. Built in 1873, the schoolhouse was a two-story building with a mansard roof and tower. It burned in 1898 and a second schoolhouse was erected. It was also destroyed by fire in 1903 and a third schoolhouse, Indianapolis Public School #57 George W. Julian School, was built at East Washington St and Ritter Av. 10. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD For almost 130 years Indianapolis was served by a rail line running due east of the city. The Indiana Central Railway was completed in 1853 and, through various mergers, this railroad became the “Panhandle,” (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad), and later Railroad. With the location of the Irvington Depot at the northeast corner of South Audubon Rd at the railroad crossing, this area quickly became the town’s business IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018 district. The railroad brought joy and sadness. In 1865 President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train came to Indianapolis along these tracks, and there have been wrecks and crossing accidents with the loss of life. Apprehension accompanied departing troop trains with elation accompanying their return, and there were happy greetings on the arrival of a friend or relative. The depot closed in 1922 and was razed. West of this crossing at Ritter Av stood a signal house atop a massive steel pillar. By 1982 the line was abandoned and the double tracks removed. The land was sold to adjacent property owners and, in some areas, fill dirt and new construction have obliterated evidence of the railroad. Indianapolis Greenways developed the “Pennsy Trail,” that starts at Ritter Av and will eventually extend east to Cumberland.

11. 115 S. Audubon Rd, GEORGE W. JULIAN-CLARKE HOME (1873) This Italianate Style house was built for George Washington Julian, brother of Irvington co-founder Jacob Julian. An ardent abolitionist, Julian was a founder of the Republican Party and United States Representative from Wayne County, Indiana. He championed homestead legislation, served on the Committee on the Conduct of the War, authored the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and sponsored the first bill providing for women’s suffrage. While residing in Irvington, he was appointed Surveyor General of New Mexico. His daughter, Grace Julian, married attorney Charles Clarke. Both were influential on the social issues of the day. Grace was active in the organization of the Federation of Women’s Clubs and wrote a column in The Indianapolis Star. Charles was active in the Democratic Party and served a term in the Indiana State Senate. Over the decades the Julian- Clarke residence hosted such persons of note as Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Presidents Cleveland, Harrison and Wilson.

12. 108 S. Audubon Rd, DR. ROBERT LONG HOUSE (1875) Dr. Robert Long had this house built and resided here until 1889. Long Hospital at the Indiana University Medical Center complex is named in his honor. Dr. John F. Barnhill had his practice in this house when three Irvington boys rushed to it in August 1895 to tell him of a gruesome find. The lads had been exploring the cellar of a house at Bolton and Julian Avenues that had been rented to H. H. Holmes the previous year. In their searching, one boy reached into an opening in the chimney and pulled out the remains of eight year-old Howard Pitezel, who had been in Holmes’ care. Subsequent investigations revealed that this was only one of the many murders attributed to Holmes. H. H. Holmes was tried, convicted, and hanged in Philadelphia for the murder of Pitezel’s father. In the spring of 2017 while preparing for its series The American Ripper, the History Channel conducted an archeological dig on the property near where the Holmes house stood and discovered a cache of ash, bone fragments, and a button. These items are consistent with what souvenir hunters reportedly found around the Holmes house in 1895.

13. 30 N. Audubon Rd, FORREST-HOWE HOUSE (1909) Butler College professor Jacob Dorsey Forrest had this Tudor-Gothic Revival Style house built on the “north circle,” a site in the Irvington plan originally set aside for a “female college.” Forrest who would become the general manager of Citizens Gas Company sold the house to Butler College president Thomas Carr Howe in November 1914. Five months earlier, Howe’s nineteen year-old daughter, Mary Elizabeth Howe, had committed suicide at the family home on South Audubon Road while she was getting ready to attend a reunion dance. Ten years later, the fiancé of Charlotte Howe, Gaines Young, was a guest at the Howe home when he became ill and was taken to Methodist Hospital. Following an operation he died. Thomas Carr Howe subsequently sold the house to the Irvington Methodist Church which built a new sanctuary on the north end of the house.

IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018

14. 6415 E. Washington St, DIETZ’ GROVE Located adjacent to Irvington outside the town limits, Dietz’ Grove was a popular picnic and dance site from the late 1890s through the first quarter of the 1900s. The Grove, lying south of the Pennsylvania Railroad between Arlington and Kitley Avenues on the farm of Christian Dietz, hosted gatherings of social clubs and political meetings in addition to providing an entertainment venue for individuals, couples, and small groups. A number of prominent speakers addressed groups at the Grove including Mother Jones, “The Most Dangerous Woman in America,” who spoke to over 1,000 Socialists on the Fourth of July 1913. The Grove, however, was not popular with the good people of Irvington. Complaints of disorderly conduct of persons attending events at the Grove were often made and nearby property owners were often annoyed by members of clubs renting the grounds. The Grove’s Sunday beer sales drew the strongest protest.

15. 6201 E. 10th St, ANDERSON CEMETERY The Ghouls came to Irvington in the late summer of 1902. Shortly after fifteen year-old African-American Stella Middleton had died of typhoid fever and was laid to rest in Anderson Cemetery, her mother found a note under the door of her home saying that Stella’s body had been stolen from her grave and could be found at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons. The note’s message was true, and Stella’s body was retrieved by her tearful mother and re-buried. Glendore Gates, a twenty-seven year-old woman succumbed to consumption (tuberculosis) that had wasted her body and was laid to rest in Anderson Cemetery. Late one evening, a carriage pulled up in front of the Gates home at Bolton Avenue and East Washington Street and the driver summoned Glendore’s father to the side of the carriage. From within its darkened interior a voice told the aged man that his daughter’s body had been stolen from its grave at Anderson Cemetery and could be found at the Central College of Physicians & Surgeons. The Gates family went to the college and did not find her body, but a few days later police found her body in sack that had been cast aside in an alley near the college. The grave of John Dietz was also a target of the Ghouls, but it was not disturbed because “there were so many flowers on the grave.” Rufus Cantrell, self- styled King of the Ghouls, and his gang were convicted and imprisoned for grave robbery. However, the physician who bought the bodies, Dr. Joseph C. Alexander was acquitted. These sad events led to the Indiana legislature creating the state anatomical board that could receive and distribute unclaimed bodies to state medical schools for study.

16. 955 N. Campbell Av, BENJAMIN OSBORN HOUSE - “BEECHCROFT” Built in 1905 on what would become Irvington’s third circle, this Arts and Crafts Style house was the home of Benjamin Osborn, an early settler of Warren Township. Over 60 species of trees are said to be on this site. In addition to farming, Osborn was a traveling Methodist Sunday school superintendent and he was instrumental in the organization of the Irvington Methodist Church. The house was later the home of Richard Guthrie who served as Speaker of the House in the Indiana General Assembly and was a member of the Indianapolis School Board. The narrow roadway that became Campbell Avenue was known as “lovers’ lane” during the Butler College days.

17. 5602 E. 10th Street, JOHN ELLENBERGER HOUSE (1863) This brick Italianate style house was remodeled and the resulting stuccoed exterior gives the house a four-square style appearance. John Ellenberger came to Warren Township in 1853 and was a tenant farmer on land that would become Irvington. He bought farmland that encompassed present-day Ellenberger Park and land north of 10th Street just prior to the beginning of the Civil War. Ellenberger was a butcher by trade, and he would often use his well-sharpened knives to dress pieces of meat for his neighbors. IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018

18. 1500 N. Ritter Av, COMMUNITY HOSPITAL Irvington Dr. James Denny’s efforts to build an eastside hospital culminated in the ground breaking for the first building of Community Hospital on September 23, 1954. Irvington residents lined East Washington Street and North. Ritter Avenue, while school children filled the grounds of School 57, to see Vice President Richard Nixon arrive for the ceremonies

19. ELLENBERGER PARK A long-time Irvington picnic and recreational space, Ellenberger’s Woods became part of the Indianapolis parklands in 1911. Landscape architect George Kessler did not propose planned walks, drives or formal plantings, but rather he wanted to retain “…the old woodland paths, which were worn there years ago, by feet now grown old, to still be paths for younger feet.”

20. NW Corner, East Washington St & Emerson Av, BROWN TRIANGLE a Hilton U. Brown, Jr Memorial Marker – Hilton U. Brown, Jr was killed in action during World War I. His boyhood home occupied a hill top on the south side of Washington St directly opposite this park. b William Forsyth Marker – The marker commemorates William Forsyth, a member of the Hoosier Group of regional impressionist artists and the Dean of the “Irvington Group” of artist. Forsyth’s home and studio were at 15 S. Emerson Avenue from 1906 until his death in 1935. c Sahara Grotto “Blue Devil Zouaves – One of the worst automotive tragedies in Indiana history began to unfold at this corner on the evening of October 14, 1927. Sahara Grotto members of the “Blue Devil Zouaves” and their wives parked their cars along Washington St at this site and boarded a flatbed trailer pulled by a truck for a trip to a night spot northeast of Indianapolis. Traveling north on Emerson Av, the trailer was struck by an interurban train north of 21st St. Twenty people were killed, many of whom were Irvington couples. The row of empty parked cars at this site silently waiting for their owners, most of whom, never returned was an eerie sight the following morning

21. 5120 Julian Av, WILSON-PARKER PIONEER CEMETERY John Wilson made his home in this area in the fall of 1821 and these grounds adjacent to his cabin became a family burial ground. At least ten known and at least six presumed burials took place here in addition to John Wilson and his wife. Also, Wilson’s Native-American servant Machage was probably buried here giving rise to the belief that this was the site of an “Indian burial ground.” There are stories of guests at the Wilson-Parker tavern, which was a short distance east on the National Road, who died with no known relatives and were buried in these grounds. One mysterious guest arrived with a small, unusually heavy trunk. For days prior to his death he went out into the surrounding lands with a short handled digger claiming he was looking for ginseng. But after his death when the trunk was opened it contained only some clothing and a few scraps of paper. What accounted for its heaviness was unknown. It was speculated that the trunk contained coins that the stranger buried somewhere in what is now Irvington. Over the years the headstones have disappeared from the cemetery; many making their way into Irvington backyards. The stone of Rebecca Jones, John Wilson’s mother-in-law, was given to the Irvington Historical Society and is on display at the Bona Thompson Memorial Center.

IRVINGTON HALLOWEEN TOUR 2018

22. 15 S. Emerson Av, WILLIAM FORSYTH STUDIO [Site] Adjacent to west side of the cemetery was William Forsyth’s studio. Some years after his death his daughter saw several neighborhood boys around the building and went out to ask them what they were doing. “There are ghosts in there,” the boys replied. When she told them there were no ghosts in the studio, they told her, “Look, you can see them in the windows.” Looking through the windows there were, indeed, white ghostly figures; the plaster busts and statuary that the artist had created.

23. 222 S. Downey Av, HISTORIC IRVINGTON FLATS From 1928-1995 this was the national and international headquarters of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The center, darker red-brick building in this complex had been the College of Missions, a missionary training school affiliated with Butler College, from 1910-1928. The church offices expanded between 1946 and 1958 when three adjacent red brick buildings were added. After the headquarters moved to downtown Indianapolis in 1995, the buildings were converted into 72 senior citizen apartments.

24. 5350 University Av, BONA THOMPSON MEMORIAL CENTER (1903) This Neo-Classical Revival building designed by architect Jesse T. Johnson of Dupont & Johnson and served as Butler University’s library from 1903-28. It is the last remaining Butler building of the former Irvington campus. Edward and Mary Thompson donated the land and funds for the construction of this building in memory of their daughter who died of typhoid fever shortly after her 1897 graduation from Butler. In addition to serving as Butler’s library, the building was a branch of the Indianapolis Public Library system from 1904-14. After Butler left Irvington in 1928, the building complex on this site was known as the Missions Building. Renovated by the Irvington Historical Society, the Bona Thomason Memorial Center serves as the Society’s headquarters and contains the organization’s archives and collection of Irvington Group art. A recent paranormal investigation and other observations have detected at least four spirits in the building.

Researched and Compiled by Steven R. Barnett, Executive Director Irvington Historical Society October 2018 www.irvingtonhistorical.info