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Martinsville
Commercial Historic District
The artwork on this sign was done by Chelsea Kouns as
part of the 2004-05 "Designing Place" class taught by Kathryn Maxwell at
West Middle School in Martinsville.
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Click
here
to view National Register of Historic Places nomination. |
Morgan
County was established in 1821. The following year, Martinsville was platted
and named the county seat. The settlement may have been named for John
Martin, the senior member of a board of commissioners appointed by the state
legislature to lay out the town.
As a county seat,
Martinsville had an advantage over other Morgan County settlements. The
earliest county roads led to Martinsville, enabling residents to pay their
taxes and perform other necessary business, as well as establishing it as a
market center. Professional men such as attorneys and physicians started
practices here to centrally serve the people of the county. Martinsville
stores, restaurants, inns and other ventures prospered as the county was
settled and the population increased.
Its position on
the White River also contributed to Martinsville’s growth as a center of
shipping for agricultural and industrial products in the early years of its
history. Railroad lines--some of which were constructed in the 1850s but
were possibly not operational until after the Civil War--would eventually
link Martinsville with the entire country through a nation-wide system,
increasing the town’s shipping capacities and encouraging the growth of
local industries.
From
Martinsville’s founding, political and governmental activity has always
centered on the courthouse square. The first permanent courthouse was begun
in 1857 and completed two years later. The Morgan County Courthouse exists
yet today as one of eight pre-Civil War courthouses in Indiana; it was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The courthouse
lawn, long the site of community festivals and activities, is punctuated
with historic and commemorative monuments, including a Civil War cannon and
mortar and stone tablets dedicated to some of the county’s notable sons,
among them two Indiana governors, Emmett Forest Branch and Paul Vories
McNutt, and U. S. Senator William G. Bray.
Morgan County Courthouse (1857-59)
The city of
Martinsville is governed by an elected mayor and seven-member council. The
Martinsville City Hall with attached fire station at 59 S. Jefferson Street
has been the seat of city government since 1917. Prior to that year, the
city offices were located in various second floor rooms in the commercial
district.
Martinsville City Hall (1917)
The third
government building in the Martinsville Historic Commercial District is the
U. S. Post Office at 10 South Main Street. In 1937, the Martinsville post
office was the recipient of a WPA mural painted by Alan Tompkins of
Indianapolis; the mural, “Arrival of the Mail," was restored (some say
"redone") in 1974.
United States Post
Office (1935) and WPA mural (1937). For more about Indiana's post office
murals, see A Simple and Vital Design (1995) by John C. Carlisle.
Since the founding
of Martinsville, commercial activity has always centered on the courthouse
square. Nineteenth century Martinsville businesses included those of the
type commonly found in small county seats, including clothing and shoe
stores, drygoods stores, jewelry stores, hardware stores, banks,
restaurants, groceries, meat markets, bakeries, hotels and liveries.
Many of these
businesses thrived for decades on the patronage of wealthy visitors to
Martinsville’s many sanitariums. During the first half of the twentieth
century, Martinsville was well-known as one of the nation’s leading health
resorts. The discovery of mineral water in 1887 led to the development of
Martinsville’s eleven sanitariums, whose guests came from all parts of the
world. Many of the sanitariums were located just outside the courthouse
square.
Martinsville’s
identification as a city of sanitariums is reflected in the large neon sign
(c.1930) on the roof of the Union Block in the commercial district, which
reads “MARTINSVILLE CITY OF MINERAL WATER.” Another nickname, one that is
still used for the city’s high school athletic teams is “Artesians”--”Arties”
for short.
Neon
sign (c.1930). Restored 2003 (but no longer operational).
Because of the
sanitariums, certain types of commercial businesses were particularly
successful. Gift shops and clothing stores, especially for women and
children, for example, were among those that prospered. Martinsville also
had a surprising number of motion picture venues, especially in the first
decade of the twentieth century when this form of entertainment was still a
novelty. Other entertainment and recreation facilities in the commercial
district included roller skating rinks and bowling alleys, pool halls and
taverns. Seasonal festivities such as Fourth of July gatherings, carnivals
and circuses, the county’s centennial celebration in 1922, political rallies
and a variety of commemorative activities have also traditionally taken
place on the courthouse lawn and surrounding streets.
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Super Sports
Supply, 59 East Washington Street, originated as Switow's Dream Theater in
1914. The building was remodeled for the first time in 1927 and became the
Grace Theater. After a fire in 1939, the theater underwent extensive
remodeling before being renamed the Indiana Theater.
Locally-owned
eateries--cafes, grills, confectioneries, bakeries, ice cream parlors--also
thrived on the patronage of sanitarium guests, who often visited with the
locals and other guests while strolling, shopping and eating out. In this
way, business owners successfully built up a loyal clientele. Such was the
case with one of Martinsville’s best-loved businesses, the Martinsville
Candy Kitchen, started by James Zapapas in 1919. Located on Main Street, the
Candy Kitchen featured handmade candies, hand-dipped chocolates, ice cream
treats, plate lunches and a unique specialty still made today: hand-twisted
candy canes. It was very common for sanitarium guests to stop in for ice
cream treats or their favorite candy and order several pounds of “Jimmy the
Greek’s” specialties to be shipped home to family and friends.
The
Martinsville Candy Kitchen was moved to 90 North Main Street in 1978.
The seasonal
influx of visitors to Martinsville demanded a large amount of temporary
residential facilities. Boarding houses, private homes opened as guest
houses and hotels were all quickly established to fill the need. Among those
found in the Martinsville Commercial Historic District were the Mason House/Grand Hotel on the corner of
Main and Washington Street. Occupying sites in the immediate proximity to
these businesses were livery stables, which thrived by transporting
sanitarium guests and their luggage to and from the sanitariums and depot,
downtown commercial district, city churches and resort, picnic and fishing
sites on the White River a few miles north.
The
Mason House/Grand Hotel is now home to the VIP Print Shop and Berries and
Ivy Country Store.
Perhaps the
best-represented profession in Martinsville during the sanitarium area
(1887-1950) was that of physician, with many of the doctors being associated
with the sanitariums. Many had their offices in the various sanitariums.
Others had offices in second floor rooms scattered throughout the downtown
area.
A large number of
pharmacies supplemented the physicians; among the notable were Tarleton
Drugs, the original occupant of the Moore/Kivett’s Five and Ten Cent Store
located at 110 North Main Street, and Rigrish Drug Company, later Siler’s,
at 142 North Main Street.
Tarleton Drugstore, later Kivett's 5
& 10
(1860/1900) |
Advertising mural for Rigrish Drug
Company
on north wall of 142 North Main Street |
The presence of the
Morgan County Courthouse led to an abundance of professional offices in the
commercial district. Among the attorneys who hung their shingle in
Martinsville were Emmett Forest Branch, governor of Indiana from 1924-1925
(he completed the final term of Warren T. McCray, who resigned); Paul Vories
McNutt, who served as Indiana governor from 1933-1937 and held many national
political offices through the 1940s; William G. Bray, U. S. Senator from
1951-1975; and John E. Hurt, a leader in the Indiana Democratic party from
1932 to the mid-1970s.
Fraternal orders
are also well-represented in the Martinsville Historic Commercial District,
with the largest occupying upper floor rooms in buildings the organizations
themselves erected. In 1893, the Independent Order of Oddfellows, instituted
in Martinsville in 1867, built the impressive, three-story business block at
the northeast corner of Morgan and Jefferson Street. The Improved Order of
Redmen built their own lodge hall, the WIGWAM at 55-65 West Morgan Street in
1908.
IOOF Hall (1893) |
Redmen's Hall, the Wigwam (1908) |
The growth of the
fraternal lodges reflected the growth of the Martinsville population, which
proceeded at a fairly rapid pace from the time the first railroad reached
the town, nearly doubling each decade between 1850 and 1880, when it finally
reached 1,942. After that point, the rate of increase of the population
declined until the onset of the sanitarium era. By 1900, after seven
sanitariums had been built, the population was 4,038. After 1900, the rate
of increase again declined. In 1940, the Census recorded 5,900 residents.
With the gradual close of the sanitariums throughout the 1940s--the last to
close was the Home Lawn in 1968--the population stabilized.
Today, the
Martinsville Commercial Historic District is a vital commercial area
comprised of buildings constructed between the years c.1847 to 1935.
Professional trades have largely replaced earlier retail businesses, with
numerous attorneys' offices and abstract and title companies plus print
shops, taverns and various retail businesses clustered around the Morgan
County Courthouse. |
