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A TIMELINE OF FAITH AND COMMUNITY:

FOUNTAIN SQUARE, 1820 TO 1996

 

1820	Delaware Indians abandon camp on Pleasant Run to leave Indiana.
1835	Calvin Fletcher and Nicholas McCarty purchase a 264-acre farm.  It will become the Fountain Square neighborhood. Settlement is sparse until 1870, consisting of only a few houses along Virginia Avenue.
1847	Arrival of railroads to Indianapolis brings Irish railroad and industrial workers, who settle below the railroad tracks on South Street. Eventually this area becomes known as "Irish Hill."
1859	St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church builds St. Paul’s Lutheran School on the corner of East and Georgia Streets. Two years later the congregation builds a new sanctuary next to the school.
1860	School #8 opens at 520 Virginia Avenue with a staff of eight teachers. In 1905 the school is renamed for Calvin Fletcher.
1864	Citizens Street Railway Company extends a mule-drawn streetcar line down Virginia Avenue as far as Shelby and Prospect Streets. Because of the streetcar turnaround, the neighborhood becomes known as "The End."
1865	St. Peter's Catholic Church is established at 950 Prospect Street to serve the Irish immigrants in the neighborhood. The congregation changes its name to St. Patrick's in 1871 when it dedicates its new building. The original structure becomes a school.
1867	Olivet Baptist Church is founded. This African-American congregation later locates at 1001 Hosbrook Street.
	German General Prostestant Orphans Home (today known as Pleasant Run Children's Home) is founded at 1404 S. State Street.
1870	German immigrants open shops and stores on Virginia Avenue.  Due to the rapid growth in population along Virginia Avenue and Prospect Street, the neighborhood is platted eight times between 1870 and 1873.
1873	A Methodist Episcopal congregation first meets at a site at Woodlawn and Laurel Streets.  In 1879 a building is constructed at 1006 Laurel Street and named for the pioneer circuit rider Edwin Ray.
	Prospect Street German Methodist Church founded. The building is sold in 1950 to the Church of Christ.
1874	Southern Driving Park is opened on the south side of the city. In 1881 the park is renamed for the recently assassinated President James A. Garfield and is the only public park serving the south side of the city.
1882	School No. 28 (Henry W. Longfellow School) is built at 931 Fletcher Avenue.
1883	St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church, founded in 1842, moves to the Fountain Square area when it erects its third and final structure at 717 S. New Jersey Street.  That same year, St. Paul's and Trinity Lutheran Church form the Lutheran Orphan's Home Assocation.
1884	An eight-room structure is added to School No. 8 (later Calvin Fletcher School) and the new building becomes High School No. 2.
1885	Samuel P. Lorber's Saloon opens at 1638-40 E.Prospect.  It would remain open until 1975.  This and other businesses eventually cluster along a three-block stretch of Prospect Street.  This area remains an active community center through the present day.
1888	Koehring and Sons, Inc., a residential heating company, opens.
1889	A fountain—variously known as the "Subscription Fountain," and the "Lady of the Fountain," and "Lady-Spray"—is erected at the intersection of Virginia Avenue and Shelby and Prospect Streets The neighborhood soon derives its name from this fountain.
1890	School No. 31 (Lillian M. Reiffel School) is built at 307 E. Lincoln Street.
1891	Second English Evangelical Lutheran Church (later named Street Mark's) is founded and begins meeting at 647 Virginia Avenue.
1892	Completion of the Virginia Avenue viaduct opens the southeast side to commuting workers and results in a significant increase commercial growth in Fountain Square.
1893	Second English Lutheran Church relocates to 1001 Hosbrook Street.
1895	High School No. 2 is relocated to the present site of Emmerich Manual Training High School. The building at 520 Virginia Avenue, once again known as School No. 8, becomes known as a junior high school.
1895	School No. 39 (William McKinley School) opened at 801 S. State Street.
1896	Branch No. 3 of the Marion County Public Library opens at Woodlawn and Linden Streets.
	St. John's Evangelical and Reformed Church (known as St John’s United Church of Christ after 1957) founded at Sanders and Leonard Streets.
1899	Emmanuel Baptist Church is founded and located at 920 S. Laurel Street.
ca.1900s	Fountain Square's May Day Celebration becomes a big event.  People come from all over town to see the parade and dance in Garfield Park.
1900	Olivet Baptist Church leaves Beech Grove in the early 1900s and begins meeting at a location at Prospect and Leonard Streets.
	The Southside Turnverein, a German athletic and community center, opens on Prospect Street.  The building is now the location of the Madison Avenue Athletic Club.
1901	Abraham Lincoln School No. 18 is opened at 1001 E. Palmer Street.
1902	Villa Avenue Methodist Protestant Church founded at Villa Avenue and Prospect Street.  In 1919 the church moves to a new building and changes its name to Victory Memorial Methodist Protestant Church to mark the recent victory in WWI.
1903	A pagoda, built to house musical performances, is added to Garfield Park.
1904	Emmaus German Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) is built at 1224 Laurel Street.  St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church organized the church in order to serve the second wave of German immigrants who had been settling in the Fountain Square neighborhood.
1905	The Morris Street United Methodist Church, an outgrowth of Ames Methodist Church, is built at 335 E. Morris Street.
1908	The Fountain Square State Bank opens; it closes in 1922.
1909	The Fountain Square Theater, the first theater in the neighborhood, opens at 1058 Virginia Avenue.
1910	Second English Lutheran Church changes its name to Street Mark's Evangelical English Lutheran Church.
	The Airdome Theater, later known as the Green Theater, opens at 1044-46 Virginia Avenue.  Other theaters, such as the Fountain Eagle Theater (1113 S. Shelby Street) and the Fountain Airdome Theater (1106 E. Prospect Street) soon follow, establishing the area's reputation as a theater district.
1911	Edwin Ray Methodist Episcopal Church is lifted, turned, and rebuilt at 1006 Laurel Street
1913	Josie Ragale organizes a settlement house under the auspices of Fletcher Place Methodist Episcopal Church; by 1928 it is known as the Fletcher Place Community Center.
	A conservatory is added to Garfield Park.
	The Sanders (Apex) Theater is built by Frederick W. Sanders—one of the city's first movie operators—on the site of the Fountain Airdome Theater. The Sanders has a seating capacity of 600 and serves the neighborhood until 1952.
	The Iris Theater opens at 1637 E. Prospect Street, but closes two years later.
	Laurel Street Tabernacle (Assemblies of God) is organized at Prospect and Laurel Streets.  The congregation constructs a church building in 1915.
1914	The Green Theater closes, but the building is purchased by Roy Bair and renamed the Bair Theater; it closes in 1918.
1915	A four-room addition is added to School No. 8, and shop and home economic classes are introduced to the curriculum.
1916	Emmanuel Baptist Church erects its present building at 920 Laurel Street.
1919	Victory Memorial Methodist Protestant Church opens at 1928 Woodlawn Avenue.
	The "Subscription Fountain" is accidentally toppled by local merchant's banner (which was tied to the statue) when a "wind blew up."  The fate of the statue is unknown.
1920	Calvary Evangelical United Brethren Church organizes and locates at 725 S. State Street.
1921	St. Mark's Evangelical English Lutheran Church sells its Hosbrook structure to the Salvation Army and relocates to its present site at 1301 E. Prospect Street.
1922	The Home News combines with Southside News in 1922 to serve as the south side's local paper.
	Mayor Samuel "Lew" Shank decides Fountain Square should receive a bequest for a fountain in honor of former Congressman Ralph Hill.  The Ralph Hill Memorial Fountain, designed by Myra Reynolds Richards and topped by her sculpture, "Pioneer Family," is unveiled on September 9, 1924.
1927	St. Patrick's four-year-old building is destroyed in a fire set by an arsonist on June 20, 1927. The crash of the burning steeple is considered one of the spectacles of the decade. The present church is built later on the same site.
	The Fountain Square Post Office opens and remains in operation until 1963.
	Olivet Missionary Baptist Church moves into its present building, the former St. Mark's Evangelist Lutheran Church, at 1001 Hosbrook Street.
	Grace Baptist Church forms and builds its current structure at 1907 E. Woodlawn Avenue.
	St. Mark's Evangelical English Lutheran Church builds an addition to its structure.
1928	The (second) Fountain Square Theater opens at 1105-15 S. Shelby Street.  The theater seats 1,800 and boasts a divided pipe organ.
1929	The Granada Theater opens at 1045 Virginia Avenue.  The theater is part of the Universal Picture Chain [with a seating capacity of 1,142].
	The G.C. Murphy Company opens a store at 1053-55 Virginia Avenue.
1930	Fountain Square’s population estimated at 26,285.  Three percent are African-American; other minorities represent four percent..
	Greater St. James Baptist Church organized.
1932	The Granada becomes the first theater in Indianapolis to show a foreign sound movie, “Terra Madre.”
1934	School No. 18's paper, the Lincoln Log, is awarded a superior rating in a nation-wide contest sponsored by Kappa Pi Beta.
	Calvary Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church moves to the neighborhood at 902 E. Fletcher Avenue.
1935	School No. 39's news magazine, the Broadcaster, receives an All-American Honor Rating from the National Scholastic Press Association and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
1939	Laurel Street Tabernacle is remodeled.
1946	The PTA and the Federation of Churches institutes a Week-Day-Religion project in School No. 39.
1950	Fountain Square’s population peaks at an estimated 27,242; four percent are African-Americans and other minorities.
	Fountain Square Church of Christ is organized by Irvington Church of Christ.  The new congregation takes up residence in a building at Spruce and Prospect Streets.
	The Laurel Street Tabernacle moves to 1601 Laurel Street, across from its original site at Laurel and Prospect Streets.
1951	The Granada Theater closes, and the building is taken over by the G.C. Murphy Company.
	Arthur's Music Store opens at 931 Shelby Street.
1954	Fountain Square's fountain is moved to Garfield Park.  The following year the statue is moved into the conservatory.
	Rev. James W. "Jim" Jones establishes the Community Unity Church, an integrated congregation, at Hoyt and Randolph Streets.  (Two years later, Jones opens the first People's Temple Full Gospel church at 1502 N. New Jersey Street.)
1955	English Trolley Coach discontinued and replaced by motorbus. Neighborhood merchants call for destruction of Shelby Street trolley barns for parking. The barns are razed in 1957.
1957	City announces plan to use federal highway funds to construct a highway system connecting to a proposed interstate road network. Local plans call for an outer belt encircling the city and freeways connecting with downtown Indianapolis.
	Fountain Square merchants are faced with new competition when Twin Aire-Center, one of the city's first malls, opens on Southeastern Avenue.
1960	Fountain Square Theater closes.
	St. John's United Church of Christ begins new construction of a new building in Southport. By 1967 the congregation has moved out of Fountain Square.  Its old building is razed in 1970 for interstate highway construction.
	Proposed plan for interstate highways includes roads through Fountain Square neighborhood. State officials begin purchase of homes, businesses, and churches in the highway right-of-way.
1961	Opening of Southern Plaza Shopping Center attracts more shoppers away from Fountain Square stores.
	Emmaus Lutheran Church constructs a new education building and opens a kindergarten.
	WGEE broadcasts the daily show of popular radio personality Jimmie Logsdon from the Fountain Square Theater Building.
1964	Residents of Fountain Square and other neighborhoods in the path of the proposed interstate protest prices offered for homes and businesses. Community Service Council of Indianapolis urges additional aid for displaced families.
1966	A fire the previous year forces the relocation of School No. 28 from 931 Fletcher Avenue into a new building located between English, Spann, Olive, and Laurel Streets.
1967	The German General Protestant Orphan's Home, which consolidated with other German orphanages in 1941, celebrates its 100th anniversary.
	Father Joseph Wade of St. Patrick's creates the Fountain Square-Barrington Recreation Project, which was housed in the former St. John's Evangelical and Reformed Church until the building's demolition in 1970.
1968	United Southside Community Organization (USCO) is founded at a meeting held at Street Patrick's School.  Founding organizations include Southside Community Council, Neighborhood Pride, Inc., Irish Hill Neighborhood Association, Fletcher Place Neighborhood Association, and twenty other local groups. The following year, USCO represents forty-two neighborhood groups and agencies on the south side.
	Members of Fletcher Place United Methodist Church and the Fletcher Place Community Center lead drive to create the Southeast Neighborhood Health Center, a public health facility, at 630 Virginia Avenue.
1969	The fountain is returned from Garfield Park Conservatory to Fountain Square as a result of pressure from USCO. In addition to this and other neighborhood beautification efforts, USCO begins Fountain Square Days, a neighborhood festival.
	USCO and the Southeast Pastor's Alliance co-sponsor a meeting on behalf of southside homeowners to address dislocation from highway construction. Despite protests, construction begins on a portion of I-70 on the west side as well as I-65 on the northwest side.
	The Prospect Branch Library moves to 1831 E. Prospect Street.
1970	Fountain Square area population declines over 24 percent from the previous decade to an estimated 19,736. Minority population rises to six percent.
	Community Service Council of Metropolitan Indianapolis releases a report, “The Appalachian in Indianapolis,” which included in its study Fountain Square, Fletcher Place, Stringtown, and Haughville.  The report indicates that Fountain Square's Appalachian population is a mixture of first-generation with third- and fourth-generation migrants. It concludes, however, that none of the neighborhoods has a large concentration of Appalachian residents—and that the Appalachians who reside in the neighborhoods fail to demonstrate the "unique" characteristics attributed to this population group.
	USCO, in cooperation with Atterbury Job Corps, provides a ten-week course for high school dropouts to receive diplomas.
1971	Construction begins on portions of the I-65 and I-70 inner loop on the southside. The Community Service Council reports that the area not only has lost population, but also that remaining residents have little access to social services.
1972	Pentecostal Church of Promises is founded at 1468 English Avenue.
	With federal grant money, and in cooperation with local citizen groups, the City of Indianapolis creates the Southeast Multi-Sevice Center, one of several in the city. The new center has a staff of three.  The Southeast Neighborhood Health Center moves to co-locate with the Multi-Service Center at 901 Shelby Street (location of the former Fountain Square Christain Church).
1973	The Salvation Army moves its Fountain Square Corps to 1337 S. Shelby Street.
	Central Wesleyan Church relocates to 1225 S. Laurel Street.
1976	The stretch of I-65 and I-70 that traverses the neighborhood opens. An estimated 17,000 of the city's residents have been dislocated from homes, including many Southsiders. Interstate construction demolished much of the housing stock built between 1870 and 1910 on the neighborhood's west side and northwest corner.
1978	A number of Southside community groups—including USCO, the Southeast Multi-Service Center, the Fountain Square Merchants Association, Fletcher Place Historic Preservation Association, and the Fletcher Place Community Center—pooled resources to form the Fountain Square Consortium of Agencies.
	Fountain Square becomes a "treatment area" for Community Development Block Grant funds.
1979	Fletcher Place Design Center, administered by the Southeast Multi-Service Center, is founded with Community Development Block Grant Program funds.  Its purpose is to renovate homes for low-income families and the elderly.
	A $115,901 federal grant earmarked for revitalizing the area is appropriated for the restoration and repair of Fountain Square's fountain.  Some residents called it "an outrageous waste of tax money."
1980	Fountain Square area population declines by almost 20 percent from 1970, becoming an estimated 15,941.
	Calvin Fletcher School, located at 520 Virginia Avenue, closes.  The oldest IPS school at the time, it was sold that year to Triad Associates Inc. for $23,500.
1982	The Fletcher Place Design Center becomes the Fountain Square-Fletcher Place Investment Corporation (FSFPIC).
	The Fountain Square Merchants Association reports that $3 million has been invested in Fountain Square between 1980 and 1982 in paint-up/fix-up and commercial facade restoration programs.
1983	The Fountain Square business district is placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
	The Metropolitan Development Commission declares the near southeast side to be an Urban Renewal Area.
	An Appalachian Heritage Program is offered by the Fountain Square Girls Club. It was funded by money from the Indiana Arts Commission and the NEA to "bring about awareness of Appalachian Arts and Crafts."
1984	Fountain Square is placed on the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission's list of adopted districts so that special attention is focused on rehabilitating the area. Using funds from the Community Development Block Grant Program, the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission also issues its Historic Area Preservation Plan for Fountain Square.
	Several streets are blocked off for food and music at the first annual "Symphony in the Square," which was sponsored by the Fountain Square Merchant's Association.
1986	Life Unlimited Christian Church is founded at 720 S. Randolph Street, in a building originally constructed for a German Lutheran congregation.
1987	School No. 39 participates in IPS's Effective Schools Program.  In addition, the school is actively involved in the Partner-in-Education Program, the Big Brother-Big Sister Program, and Butler University's Project Leadership Service Program.
1988	Renovation begins on the Fountain Square Block building.  The cost is $1.3 million.
	The Indianapolis Downtown Antique Mall opens on Virginia Avenue, signaling the trend of antique shops moving into the area's vacant storefronts where German-owned businesses were once located.
	Retired Methodist missionary Helen Fehr helps found the Fountain Square church and Community Project.  It is dedicated to “reviving community fellowship and reclaiming the neighborhood for resident home owners” by arranging interest-free loans from Railroadman’s Savings and Loan Association for as “many houses as it can work on at a time.”
1989	Public School No.39 is rebuilt on the site of Finch Park at 1733 Spann Avenue.  The community is assured a new park will be built on the former site of School No. 39 at State and Lexington Streets.   The park was is completed in 1991.
	Emmaus Lutheran Church’s food pantry expands operations to cover the entire 46203 ZIP-code.  The pantry works with the Southeast Multi-Service Center and reports serving up to 2,000 people by the end of the year; by 1992, it serves 5,000.
1990	Fountain Square’s population is estimated at 13,903—almost a thirteen percent drop from the previous decade.  The percentage of African-Americans has reached five percent.  Hispanics and other minorities represent one percent.
	School No. 39 takes part in a pilot program for IPS involving the use of a school-wide computer system and two special exploratory centers.
1993	The Fountain Square Neighborhood Association hosts its first Home Tour in June. The Home Tour included the Sanders-Childers home, 1016 Palmer Street, believed to be the oldest existing house in Indianapolis.  Money raised from the Home Tour is put into a vocational scholarship fund for high school students; the first scholarships are awarded the following Spring.
	Faced with dwindling membership and spiraling maintenance costs, Edwin Ray United Methodist Church closes.
	Southeast Community Organization (SECO) forms and implements neighborhood clean-up, anti-drug marches, and crime-watch program. It also constructs Bennet Field, a small baseball park, with the assistance of Citizens Gas Company.
	The Fountain Square-Fletcher Place Investment Corporation and the Fountain Square Church and Community Project combine to form South East Neighborhood Development, Inc. (SEND).
1994	St. Paul's (Evangelical) Lutheran Church closes its downtown location, and the congregation begins meeting in Perry Township.
	Southeast Umbrella Organization (SUMO) is organized under the auspices of the Goldsmith Administration to streamline community to city communication and relations.
	The Prospect Branch Library relocates to 1066 Virginia Avenue and changes its name to the Fountain Square Branch Library.
1995	Indianapolis Police Department's new South District Headquarters opens at 1150 S. Sanders Street.
	Fountain Square becomes a focus of the Faith and Community project by The Polis Center at IUPUI.
	First SECO Drug March held on March 24.  Marion County Prosecutor's Office assigns a full-time deputy prosecutor to the South District in April.
	Old St. Paul’s Lutheran Church building is demolished.
1996	SEND opens two renovated structures—Briggs Flats and B&B Apartments—as part of the Sencord limited partnership.