Another Noblesville Fire and Other Reader Feedback

Time for some reader feedback!

After the column on downtown Noblesville fires ran, Michael Kobrowski and Larry Cloud both brought up a blaze that took place March 24, 1957 on the north side of the courthouse square.

I didn’t include that fire in the earlier column because: A, there were no deaths or serious injuries, B, I’d decided to stick to fires during my lifetime. (Okay, technically, I WAS alive then, but I’m not sure I was even potty-trained yet,) and — mostly — C, the column would have turned into a two-parter, which I wasn’t prepared to do.

That doesn’t mean the 1957 fire wasn’t a spectacular, expensive event. According to the Noblesville Daily Ledger, the damages were initially estimated at $150,000.

The exact cause of the fire never seems to have been determined, but It was believed to have started in Todd’s Feed Store. The feed store, crammed with inventory in anticipation of the spring farming and gardening season, was a total loss.

The Sportsmen’s Store, next to Todd’s on the west, was also destroyed, as were the Moose Lodge and a vacant apartment located above the feed store and Monty’s Furniture Mart. Monty’s, which was east of the feed store, was heavily damaged by water, but being on the street level, it largely escaped the flames.

Syd’s bar, west of the Sportsmen’s Store, and the Electric Hatchery which occupied the building east of Monty’s, suffered water and smoke damage, as did several upstairs apartments. (If I have the placement of these businesses wrong, somebody please correct me.)

Luckily, a northeast wind kept the flames confined to the buildings on the square. Otherwise, the Pinnell-Dulin lumberyard, which was across the alley to the north, on the corner of Eighth and Clinton, might have added to the conflagration.

Departments from Sheridan, Westfield, Carmel, Tipton and Anderson responded to the fire, while Lawrence sent an emergency first aid and loud speaking unit to help with communications and crowd control.

As destructive as the fire was, the only injuries reported were two Tipton firemen who were overcome by smoke. Even the 5,000 to 6,000 chickens at the Electric Hatchery were unharmed!

Peggy Georgi, the Public Affairs Officer for the Hamilton Heights School Corporation, sent an article from the Cicero history book and a number of newspaper clippings that were related to the history of Jackson Township’s Bear Slide school.

According to the Cicero history book, the school’s official name was “Harmony Hill,” but it later came to be called “Bear Slide” and was better known by that name. I’m afraid the origin of the name, “Bear Slide,” is still a mystery.

Sandy Lynch, the director of the Hamilton County Historical Society Museum, sent some photos from a couple of new exhibits she’s working on.

One exhibit features Noblesville’s old Union Sanitary Manufacturing Company plant. Sandy included a shot of a miniature bathtub that was created as a “salesman” sample of the products made at the factory. She said this exhibit will be around through the end of the year.

She’s also working with the Noblesville Fire Department on an exhibit that will be on display later.

The museum is in the old Sheriff’s Residence and Jail on the courthouse square and is open Friday and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.

Bonnie Zarins reminisced about her grandparents’ small apple orchard and the “epic” apple pies her grandma, Cleo Blasser, used to make. According to her grandma, the secret was using Grimes Golden apples.

Bonnie planted some Grimes Golden trees on her farm to carry on the family tradition, but she says her apples don’t look anything like the ones in the old orchard.

Sigh. I guess even apples are different these days. Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com