1925 Melbourne Avenue, Logansport, Indiana
The camera was on the south side of the tracks looking to
the north, between 4th and 5th streets, on Melbourne
Avenue. Circa 1925.
This scene was common about midday, any day, and midnight
when through trains reached Logansport. While the baggage trucks had lined up
for this photo, there was nothing unusual about their number or the amount of
express items ready for shipping. In fact, there were days when a larger amount
could be found, being transferred from one train to another at the 4th
street (Pennsylvania) depot, just out of camera range to the left.
The three buildings facing the camera were all undoubtedly
there before the railroad tracks were which was prior to 1860. Canal Street, as
Melbourne was called then, was covered with nice homes – on both sides of the
street – all the way from the confluence of the rivers to 14th or 15th Street. The coming of the
railroad spoiled it as a residential street.
In this photo: the two houses at the left no doubt were
built as residences.
The weather boarded frame at the extreme
left had been the home of Earl Stewart, who owned a livery stable just
around the corner on 4th…out of the picture. (There were several
stables around town at that time and Stewarts was considered one of high class.
Nicest cabs for rent, fastest horses and most stylist drivers to take the
customer wherever they wanted to go.) In later years the railroad used rooms in
the house for ticketing, and the U.S. Railway Mail used some space for sorting
mail. The railroad company equipped the place with showers and reading rooms
and put a secretary in charge and made it available to its trainmen. Three of
those secretaries were: a man named Davidson, a man named Nelson W. Benning,
and a man named Pendleton.
The building at the right in 1888 was
used by a man named Otto Meinshausen whose business was metal roofing. His main
store was around 4th and Market; this was more of a shop and
storehouse. The porch wasn’t on it at that time but was added later. After that
this property had several uses – interestingly it had at one time been the site
of Logansport’s Colored School of which Thomas J. Legg was the principal. (It
seems that a colored school had been in operation as early as 1871 on the SE
corner of Heath and W. Market. The date of this one would’ve been about 1881.)
The building in the middle after 1888
was by the railroad company for the use of its passenger trainmen who might
have difficulty finding rooms with bathing facilities. (Considered to be the
first form of a YMCA.)
