Indiana Landmarks 10 Most Endangered: House of Tomorrow

Cellophane curtains, rubber floors, ashtrays and lampshades like kitchen utensils, and kitchen utensils like parlor ornaments, tables that rise up in the air like a Joshua tree, enameled walls and wooden dishes, furniture made of mirrors, game boards inlaid on the floor, these are some of the brand new ideas which puzzle and fascinate the crowds shuffling through the model houses around Home-Planning hall.

World's Fair Weekly

To Hoosier architects and designers, visiting the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition held in nearby Chicago, must have been the highlight of their summer. Intended to celebrate Chicago's 100 year anniversary, the fair featured the latest innovations in architecture, design, products,transportation, science, and technology.

One of the prominent displays at the exposition was The Homes of Tomorrow exhibition that showcased thirteen houses designed for modern and, sometimes, futuristic living. Five of the houses--the Florida Tropical, Rostone, Armco Ferro, Cypress Log Cabin, and the House of Tomorrow--were purchased after the exposition and moved to Beverly Shores, Indiana, where they provide breathtaking views of Lake Michigan.

You can see the houses as they were on display in these pictures from the booklet that architect Fran E. Schroeder purchased when he attended the exposition in July 1933. He brought back other ephemera from his trip, all of which can be found in his collection at the Archives. Another architect, Leslie F. Ayres, sketched drawings while he was there. A few years later Ayres would design Muncie's Wilkinson House, a house that also makes an appearance on this year's 10 Most Endangered list.

Decades at the shore haven't been kind to the houses and Indiana Landmarks has partnered with the National Park Service to allow long-term leases to people dedicated to restoring these buildings. I recently had the privilege to tour all but the House of Tomorrow, which is the only one that hasn't found a benefactor. The luxury house once featured a garage for the family car and airplane, but today it is in poor condition and on this year's 10 Most Endangered list.

Taken during my visit, the photograph below shows the completely renovated Florida Tropical house taken from the vantage point of the balcony belonging to its neighbor across the street, the nearly complete Armco Ferro house.

Images: World's Fair Weekly, week ending July 22, 1933. Fran E. Schroeder Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries. 

Florida Tropical House, 2012. Photograph by Carol Street.



Indiana Landmarks 2012 list of 10 Most Endangered: Taggart Memorial

Indiana Landmarks is our state's non-profit organization dedicated to preserving historically significant sites and structures. Each year, the organization publishes its list of Indiana’s landmarks that are considered the 10 Most Endangered. As you can imagine, a property doesn't make it to the list until it faces imminent threat from abandonment, neglect, and/or demolition.

The Drawings + Documents Archive has often been able to assist Indiana Landmarks with research regarding historical properties and, while we don't have materials on all of this year's ten engangered properties, we do have information on quite a few of them. We'll spend the next few posts exploring the plans, photographs, and documents in our collection related to some of the most endangered properties in the state.

First up is the Taggart Memorial in Indianapolis. Thomas Taggart (1856-1929) was the 18th mayor of Indianapolis (1895-1901), a Senator (1916), and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. One of his greatest achievements in political office was founding the expansive parks system in the growing metropolis of Indianapolis. The city of Indianapolis dedicated the Taggart Memorial in Riverside Park in 1931, two years after his death.

The Archives has hundreds of drawings and ledgers from the Indianapolis Parks Department Landscape Architectural Records dating from 1898 that document the early history of the park system in Indianapolis that Taggart created. Among the numerous projects are drawings for Riverside Park and the Taggart Memorial. The drawings depict the layout of the memorial as well as the planting plan for the grounds surrounding it.

Prominent landscape architect Lawrence V. Sheridan (1887-1972), who had recently worked with George Kessler on Indianapolis' famed boulevard system, designed the landscape. Below, you'll see the progression of his design process in early 1931. The first blueprint, which is hand-colored and dated February 5, 1931, shows the preliminary plans for the overall design and the second blueprint, dated February 23, 1931, depicts the detailed planting schedule for the grounds surrounding the monument.  The final plan, dated March 17, 1931, shows the construction and grading plan for the memorial.

Wilkinson Lumber Company Drawings Online

The Ball State University Libraries Drawings + Documents Archive is pleased to announce the release of its latest digital collection, the Wilkinson Lumber Company Architectural Drawings. The collection contains 144 drawings made in the 1930s by the design service bureau of the Wilkinson Lumber Company. These drawings represent plans for 51 houses and one boat dock. Only one set of drawings is associated with an address; the others appear to be stock plans that customers could purchase to build their house. This practice was widespread among lumber companies; several offered similar services, and many continue the practice.

The Wilkinson Lumber Company was named for Indianapolis businessman Allen A. Wilkinson. Wilkinson attended a business college in Glens Falls, New York, as a teenager before moving to the Midwest with his parents. He started his business career in Muncie, Indiana, in 1882. Ten years later, he and his wife moved to Indianapolis, where he became secretary-treasurer of S. L. Greer Lumber Co., a business owned by his brother-in-law. Eventually, he gained an ownership interest in the business, which became Greer-Wilkinson and then, in 1906, the Allen A. Wilkinson Lumber Co.

Wilkinson eventually opened 36 branch locations and built a massive woodworking and joinery shop at 907 E. Michigan St. in Indianapolis, before his death in 1929. Anna Greer Wilkinson then assumed control of the business and ran it through the late 1930s. About 1946-47, the name of the firm was changed to Midland Building Industries. The building on Michigan St., then known as the Midland Building, remained actively used for lumber purposes into the 1970s. It was later turned into the Midland Antique Mall.

Images: Wilkinson Lumber Company plans 482, 441. Wilkinson Lumber Company Architectural Drawings, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

CAP Guest Lecture Series Recordings Online

The first 50 audio recordings in the College of Architecture and Planning Guest Lecture Series Recordings are now availble for research and discovery in the Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository. Listen to some of the very first speakers who came to our fledgling design school from 1966-73. You’ll see names you will likely recognize, such as Louis I. Kahn, Nathaniel Owings, Romaldo Giurgola, among other regional figures such as Ewing Miller and Evans Woollen. We are continuing to digitize the remainder of the collection and will send notices as those lectures are online. You can find all of the first installment at http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm4/collection.php?CISOROOT=/CAPLectures

Alphabetical list of guest lectures in the first installment of the collection:

Jeffrey Ellis Aronin

"Climate in architecture." January 8, 1968.

Edmund Bacon
"Planning, architecture, and politics." January 10, 1972.

Jacques Blumer
"Atelier 5." April 24, 1967.

Elliott Brenner
"Experimental architecture." April 24, 1967.

Samuel Brody
"Urban housing." January 15, 1973.

Grady Clay
"Staying ahead of the urban crowd." November 13, 1967.

Charles Counts
"American crafts." March 11, 1968.

George Danforth
"The work of Mies van Der Rohe." February 12, 1968.

Jeanne Davern
"The future of architecture." October 16, 1967.

Arthur Erickson
"The work of his firm." September 18, 1972.

Tom Everman
"Project and office management." SOM Lecture Series, September 17, 1973.

Albert Fein
"Frederick Law Olmstead and tradition." October 9, 1972.

Paul Friedberg
"Dynamics of open space." September 20, 1971.

William J. Geddis
"Recent work of TAC [The Architects' Collaborative, Inc.]." January 8, 1973.

Romaldo Giurgola
"Romaldo Giurgola: his private architectural practice." November 11, 1968.

Whitney Gordon
"International slums." October 3, 1966.
"Architecture in Middletown." January 15, 1968.

King Graf
"Campus planning." October 17, 1966.

A. J. H. M. Haak
"Dutch architecture." September 19, 1966.

George Hall
"Planning the Calumet River basin." October 2, 1967.

Edward T. Hall
"Proxemics--man's use of space." October 23, 1972.

John Hannaford
"A plan for Muncie and Anderson." February 13, 1967.

Harwell Harris
"Designing architecture in California and Texas." December 18, 1967.
"Greene and Greene architects." December 19, 1967.
"Louis Sullivan." December 19, 1967.

Charles Harris
"Organization and management of design firms." October 2, 1972.

Richard Howard
"Architectural graphics." September 25, 1967.

William Johnson
"Landscape architecture and the environment." January 13, 1969.

Louis I. Kahn
"Architecture." April 14, 1971.

Fazlur Khan
"Long span structures." SOM Lecture Series, September 24, 1973.
"The SOM office process: engineering and the computer." SOM Lecture Series, September 25, 1973.

Balthazar Korab
"The architect photographer." January 22, 1973.

Leslie Laskey
"Design education now." October 23, 1967.

Victor A. Lundy
"On architecture." October 30, 1972.

H. Roll McLaughlin
"Future for the past." January 22, 1968.

David Meeker
"James Associates, Inc.." October 9, 1967.

Ewing Miller and L. Wheeler
"Behavioral research for architectural planning." December 11, 1967.

Samuel V. Noe
"Strategic urban design." November 14, 1966.

Franz Oswald
"Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center, Harvard University." October 30, 1967.

Nathaniel Owings
"The spaces in between." SOM Lecture Series, September 10, 1973.

J. Norman Pease
"Charlotte/Mecklenburg Governmental Center." November 6, 1967.

Robert A. Peterson
"Brazilia." March 27, 1967.

Robert Propst
"Furniture exhibition opening." April 3, 1967.

Mildred Schmertz
"Russian architecture." 1973.

Jerome Sincoff
"National Air and Space Museum." September 25, 1972.

George M. Stephens Jr.
"Urban and regional planning." February 6, 1967.

Evans Woollen III
"Radiant city revisited." May 15, 1967.

Thomas K. Zung
"Concepts of architecture in the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico." December 4, 1967.


Images: Harry Weese with students, Jeanne Davern, and Duncan Stewart. CAP Images Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Muncie Fieldhouse: "A Worthy Civic Investment"

Muncie's Fieldhouse was built in 1928, the same year as Butler University's historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Muncie-based architects Charles Henry Houck and Herbert F.Smenner, of the firm Houck & Smenner, designed the building to seat 7,500 people who came to see the Muncie Central Bearcats dominate Indiana high school basketball.

The Bearcats would go on to win many state championships, but not in 1954 when they played against the small town Milan Indians at Hinkle Fieldhouse for the final game and lost 32-30. Every seat at Hinkle was sold out for the legendary game which would become the story for the movie Hoosiers. According to Bobby Plump, the Milan player who took the fateful, winning shot, "the film captured what it was like growing up in a small town in Indiana and how important basketball was." 

Documents such as this 1933 Financial Report of the Field House also illustrate the importance communities placed on their field houses and facilities for sports and sports education. "The Field House and Ball Recreation Field is a worthy civic project in the future development of Muncie. The citizens of Muncie will find an increasing use for this building and the surrounding grounds."

One of those additional uses involved hosting Eleanor Roosevelt's first speech in Muncie on October 27, 1939. She addressed the challenges facing youth during the Depression. A few years later, in 1942, Abbott and Costello rallied the community in the Fieldhouse to support the war bond effort.

Images: Financial Report of the Field House, 1933. (DOC 04.014) Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Anderson High School's Wigwam Gymnasium

The New York Times' Sunday Sports section had an interesting article about high school basketball in Indiana. The story focused on the fate of Anderson High School Wigwam gymnasium, which is located in nearby Anderson, Indiana, and has recently been vacated due to the reduced student enrollment and dwindling population in the once-booming factory town. Many residents are fighting to save the gymnasium, but one of its greatest features--its massive size--does little to help those efforts.

The school and gymnasium were designed by Anderson-based architect Arthur B. Henning, whose collection is in the Drawings and Documents Archive. Above are images from the building's 1961 dedication booklet titled "With the Future in Mind," which promotes the 8,189-seat building as "one of the most versatile and beautiful athletic and educational plants in Indiana."

It was built when high school basketball games were a regular weekend event for many Indiana residents. The builders in 1960 had no reason to predict the factories would close and people would stop going to the games. "Basketball has been a way of life in Anderson almost from its beginning in 1904," according to the dedication booklet. Now we're left wondering what the future will hold for this iconic structure.

Images: Anderson High School gymnasium dedication booklet, 1961; Anderson High School gymnasium construction photograph, ca. 1960. Arthur B. Henning Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collection, Ball State University Libraries.

Pendleton Historical Museum Collection

The Drawings + Documents Archive is pleased to announce the release of the Pendleton Historical Museum Collection, an online collection documenting the rich architectural history of Pendleton, Indiana, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Archive recently collaborated with the Pendleton Historical Museum to digitize some of their material that relates to the built environment of the small town in Madison County located 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

The collection contains the complete text of the 1880 book History of Madison County, Indiana, as well as historical images of the downtown commercial district, residences, schools, churches, library, rail transportation, and Falls Park.

The town, like many other small towns in Indiana, finds its historical architecture threatened. One of the schools depicted in the collection, the 1936 Pendleton High School built by the WPA and located at 301 S. East Street, was just last week slated for demolition by the school board in order to create a parking lot in its place.

For more information on Pendleton, Indiana, please see the Pendleton Historical Museum's website http://www.pendletonhistoricalmuseum.org/

Images: Downtown business, ca. 1910 and Pendleton High School, 1936. Pendleton Historical Museum Collection.

En-Ar-Co White Rose Service Station, Indianapolis

Continuing the gas station theme from yesterday's post is another Pierre & Wright design from the 1930s. Just like yestderday's post about the Gulf station, we have no working drawings for the station in the Pierre & Wright collection but were able to find photographs in the collection of Fran Schroeder, an architect who worked for the Pierre & Wright firm over many years. We have numerous design drawings for variations of En-Ar-Co White Rose gas stations and service stations, but we didn't know if any of the designs had been built until we came across these photographs.

Does anyone know its location on Meridian Street and if it still stands?

Gulf Gas Station, Indianapolis



The beautiful Art Deco-style gas stations shown in the recent Edward Pierre exhibit Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard, which is on display at Blackline Studio for Architecture in Fountain Square until the end of the month, led many of us to wonder if they had actually been built. The collection only contains the presentation drawings, which are so lovely yet give us very little information, but not the architectural plans.

Fortunately we also have the collection of architect Fran Schroeder (1908-1988), an architect who worked for the Pierre & Wright firm from 1929 to 1940 before starting his own firm. His collection documents much of the activity of the Pierre & Wright firm through photographs, newspaper clippings, and promotional brochures. This is where we began to make some really interesting discoveries, such as this Gulf gas and service station which stood in Indianapolis. Our records don't include an address, but perhaps you recognize it or its location?



Images: Gulf gas station drawing, ca. 1936  [3-050] Pierre & Wright Architectural Records; Gulf gas station photograph [34-215] Fran Schroeder Architectural Records. Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Around the College of Architecture and Planning

Anyone on campus who walks by the College of Architecture and Planning building along McKinley Avenue will likely recognize the metal CAP sign tucked in amongst the landscaping. It's located on the west side of the building, which served as the main entrance before the 1980 addition moved its main entrance to the south side.

It was built in a "Hands-on Steel" class from 1975. We recently uncovered photographs in our CAP Images Collection that were taken during its fabrication. The picture above is how it looks today, February 28, 2012, at 37 years old, and below is how it looked with its first layer of paint back in 1975--yellow!



Pullman Unit Sash Balances

The Pullman Manufacturing Company of Rochester, New York, promised drastic savings through the use of their unit sash balances in this 1920s brochure that can be found in the Drawings + Documents Archives' Trade Catalog Collection. The unit sash balances replaced the need for weights and cords in window construction, therefore eliminating the costs associated with heavy lead weights in the window frame.

It's worth mentioning that the Detroit Towers, built in 1922 and featured in this brochure, is still standing and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The brochure guarantees the product for the life of the building, so hopefully the windows at the Detroit Towers continue to enjoy "perfect window control".

A Cinderella Story for Muncie

Congratulations to all of the Ball State University Historic Preservation students who worked on the proposal to save the 20th Century Flats apartment building in Muncie. I know they really worked hard on the project because they spent a lot of time in the Archives researching the building and its surroundings before passionately delivering their proposal for renovation to the city. 

The happy ending to the story arrived last night at the opening reception for the completely renovated building. Thankfully they displayed a monitor with a slide show of photographs documenting the restoration work. It's impossible to overemphasize how bad the conditions were in the building, so this rehab is truly a Cinderella story. You can read more about this fantastic success in the Muncie Star Press.

Civic Pride at the Murphy Building

The Drawings + Documents Archive's exhibit, Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard, which opened at Blackline Studio for Architecture Friday night drew a surprising number of AIA Edward Pierre award winning architects as well as some proud homeowners, preservationists, and those just interested in architecture. Many thanks to the architects at Blackline Studios for hosting the wonderful event so well and bringing together a diverse crowd. Also, many thanks to those who support the Archive and braved the Super Bowl-sized crowds on a weekend like no other in Indianapolis.

For those who haven't seen it yet, the exhibit is still on display at Blackline Studios in the Murphy Building until March 2nd. And you can read NUVO's review of the exhibit online.

  

Images from the exhibit opening of Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard, Blackline Studio for Architecture, Fountain Square, Indianapolis, Ind., February 3, 2012.

University Libraries’ Drawings and Documents Archive Exhibit Opens in Indianapolis for Super Bowl Weekend

Edward Pierre: Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard

Exhibit opening at Blackline Studio for Architecture, February 3, 2012, 6-9pm.

1043 Virginia Avenue, Studio 211, Indianapolis, Indiana

To celebrate the hard work and civic pride that has been taking place around Indianapolis in preparation for this weekend's Super Bowl, Ball State University Libraries’ Drawings and Documents Archive and Blackline Architecture Studios have partnered to present the exhibit Edward Pierre: Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard, opening at the Blackline Studio in Fountain Square’s Murphy Building, on Friday, February 3, 2012, from 6-9 p.m.

Curated by Carol Street, archivist for architectural records, and Vessel von Ruhtenberg, architectural historian, the exhibit highlights Pierre’s Modernist work throughout Indianapolis with large photographs and renderings from the Drawings and Documents Archive’s collection. Blackline Studios, where the exhibit will be held, is comprised of architects Craig Von Deylen, Scott Perkins, and Craig McCormick, all graduates from Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning.

Architect Edward Dienhart Pierre, FAIA, could be called the man who built Indianapolis due to his lifelong career shaping Indiana’s built environment and overwhelming dedication to make the city shine as brightly as possible. It is fitting to honor this extraordinary architect at a time when the city is shining brighter than it has in years, thanks to the Super Bowl coming to town. Much in the vein of today’s extraordinary Cultural Trail and the projects to beautify the city’s near east side, Pierre felt good design should engage the public and he pursued this through a wide array of buildings and civic events that we continue to enjoy today.

If you’ve ever seen Monument Circle lit up at Christmas, shopped in the Sears and Roebuck building on Mass. Avenue, eaten at Yats on College, visited the State Library, experienced a game at Bush Stadium, or driven around Meridian Kessler, Meridian Hills, or Butler Tarkington, you’ve experienced the benefits of having an architect like Edward Pierre in Indianapolis. He also designed, along with architect George Caleb Wright from 1925-1944, and in his own practice from 1945-1960s, the Old Trails Building, Oxford Gables Apartments, numerous schools (including IPS School 78, which is currently being repurposed into a IPD building), fire stations, and many jewel-like modest houses as well as expansive mansions throughout the city.

Of course, not all Pierre buildings are still standing or in use as originally intended. Bush Stadium is undergoing renovation and will be turned into condominiums, the Art Moderne-style Fire Station No. 18 on Washington Street stands vacant, and we just lost the small, but well-designed Tarkington Park Tennis Shelter to the wrecking ball in October. The exhibit will highlight numerous Pierre designs, buildings both lost and loved, and invites visitors to consider a little civic pride for Indiana’s architecture, as well as a thank you for all the hard work everyone has accomplished lately to make the city shine. The exhibit will run through March 1, 2012.

Blackline Studio is a full service architecture and interior design studio for commercial and residential architecture. Recent projects include the Speak Easy incubator space, City Gallery at the Harrison Center for the Arts, and The Hinge in Fountain Square which opens in late 2012.

Ball State University Libraries’ Drawings and Documents Archive preserves the history of Indiana’s built environment and contains over 100,000 original architectural drawings, landscape plans, blueprints, photographs, models, and building remnants. Located in Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning, the archive is open to all researchers. You can find thousands of drawings from the Pierre & Wright Architectural Records online in Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository.

Images: Civic Pride Begins in Your Backyard original drawing, 1950s [3-233]
"Planning the Metropolis of Tomorrow", Indianapolis Star Magazine, February 17, 1957 [3-176.2]
Tarkington Park Tennis Shelter architectural rendering, photostat, 1957, [3-128] 
Pierre & Wright Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Wilkinson House interiors

Muncie's Wilkinson House, featured in Indiana Landmarks' book 99 Historic Homes of Indiana, is currently experiencing foreclosure and an upcoming sheriff's sale, but we're looking back at grander times in the house's history. These photographs were taken in 1936 for the architect Leslie Ayres shortly after the house was built and decorated. As you can see, little expense was spared in creating a fashionable home for its inhabitants, Theodore and Edna Wilkinson and their daughter, Helen.

From the custom three-panel circular mirror built-in vanity to the Art Deco piano, this house is a marvelous example of blending high style design and modern materials in the 1930s. The house boasts a meandering key pattern on the switchback staircase and throughout, telephone nook, geometric chrome chandelier, custom bas-relief plasterwork, and custom woodwork in the study, among other interesting features.



Images: Wilkinson house photographs, 1936. (G-93.004) General Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Wilkinson House, Muncie, Indiana

Every town has a house that really captivates the imagination. Muncie has numerous houses that fit this category--the Ball family mansions at Minnetrista and the gas-boom Queen Anne-style Victorians downtown. Closer to campus, we have the beautiful houses in the Westwood district. For me, the house that stands apart from them all is the Wilkinson House at 3100 W. University Avenue.

Designed in 1933-34 by Leslie F. Ayres, who regular readers will recognize as a very skilled and prominent architect from Indianapolis, the house is a remarkable example of exciting, art moderne-style architecture in a city known for traditional building styles. It was built for Theodore and Edna Wilkinson, who moved from Chicago to Muncie due to Theodore's job as an investment advisor to the Ball family.

While it has housed decades of family life, bridge games, parties, and weddings on the lawn, the property is currently in foreclosure and is expected to go to Sheriff's sale February 8th. Its unfortunate circumstances are indicative of the greater housing problems facing Muncie since the city lost its manufacturing base. According to the 2010 Census, there are 4600 other vacant housing units available in the city.

The Archive is fortunate to have a set of architectural plans as well as these extraordinary black and white photographs of the house in happier times, soon after the house and interior decorations were completed in 1936. The photographs illustrate the grandeur of the home and the extraordinary attention to detail for every feature of the house, from the front porch railing to the powder room vanity. Tomorrow we'll post the interior photographs. Stay tuned for the unbelievable piano!

Images: Wilkinson house photographs, 1936. (G-93.004) General Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

A Few Recent Buildings by Johnson & Miller Architects

This is a question for our preservation friends in the Terre Haute, Indiana, area: which of these Johnson & Miller designed schools are still standing?

The advertisement likely dates from 1915-1918 when MacMillan "Mac" Houston Johnson, Jr. and Warren D. Miller were well-established with their firm in Terre Haute. Johnson, who had studied at DePauw University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, originally opened his practice in Brazil, Indiana, in 1910. Miller, after his graduation from the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania, joined him the following year and the firm changed its name to Johnson & Miller. The partners established a second office in Terre Haute's Ball Building on Ohio Street a year later and maintained both offices until 1915. At that time they closed the Brazil branch and moved the Terre Haute branch to 105 S. Seventh Street.

Warren's brother, Ewing H. Miller, also studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the firm in 1919 after completing military service. The firm was then known as Johnson, Miller and Miller.

Numerous iterations of the firm's principals were to follow in quick succession due to the untimely deaths of Johnson and Ewing Miller a few months apart in 1923 and the additions of other architects. It became Johnson, Miller, Miller & Yeager (1924-29), Miller & Yeager (1930-45), Miller, Yeager & Vrydaugh (1946), Miller & Vrydaugh (1947-54), and then Miller, Vrydaugh & Miller when Ewing H. Miller's son, Ewing H. Miller II joined the firm. When Vrydaugh left the firm, it became Miller, Miller & Associates (1962-65) until Warren Miller's retirement which resulted in the name Ewing Miller Associates (1966-70). Ewing Miller later started Archonics Corporation, which had offices in Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis.

Over the years, Johnson & Miller and its successor firms were responsible for designing numerous schools, university buildings, government offices, and businesses in Terre Haute and the surrounding area. Many of the drawings for these projects can be found in the Drawings + Documents Archive's Johnson & Miller Architectural Records Collection.

*An addendum to the post: We've heard that only one of the eight schools featured in this advertisement still stands today, the Eliza B. Warren School.

Image: Johnson & Miller advertisement, ca. 1918 (24-113). Johnson & Miller Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.