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.

Drawings + Documents Archive plants landscape architecture collection online

Schuyler N. Nolan (1894-1981) grew to love working with plants and designing gardens at a very young age by helping his father work on residential landscaping projects in Vincennes, Indiana, where he grew up, and later Plymouth, Indiana, after his family moved there. His only formal design training came from a three-month mechanical drafting course he took at the Chicago Technical School. He supplemented his brief formal education with, as he wrote, “a great amount of time spent in libraries” studying any materials related to landscaping.

His extensive use of the local library paid off when he began his own landscaping company while still in Illinois. He steadily built his reputation in residential landscape design and did very well until the Depression affected his clientele. He then went to work at the Indianapolis Parks Department, where he designed gardens for the 1934, 1937, and 1937 Home Shows, and then later at the Indiana State Highway Commission, where he designed roadside plantings throughout the state until 1937.

After 1937, he practiced as a landscape architect and experienced much success designing a wide range of commissions. From his work during World War II designing aircraft building plants and Naval officers’ quarters, to tony residential work for many of Indianapolis’ elite, such as J. K. Lilly and Harrison Eiteljorg, Nolan built functional yet artistic spaces for his clients.

After his retirement, an unfortunate basement flood destroyed most of his drawings and business records. He donated the drawings that managed to survive the flood to the Drawings and Documents Archive in 1979. These represent fifty-six commissions, and you can explore examples of his creative and technical design skills through his drawings for fountains, terrace gardens, and baseball fields, now available online through the Ball State University’s Digital Media Repository (http://libx.bsu.edu/collection.php?CISOROOT=/NlnArchRcrd).

Preserving Modernism

The New York Times reported on building and landscape preservation efforts to save Modernist environments on Cape Cod.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/garden/27cape.html