Thursday, March 20, 2025
ADDISON TIMES MAJOR SPONSOR: STEPHENSON RIFE ATTORNEYS
Shelby County History: 132 W. Washington St.
Editor’s note: The following article, from the late David Craig’s files, was printed in a Shelby County Historical Society newsletter in 1975. At the time, 132 W. Washington was being transformed back to a residence. The home has since been further restored by owners Chris and Kylie King. The photo above was taken last summer.
A growing Shelbyville family looking for more room has taken the challenge of converting one of the city’s 120-year-old landmarks into their new home. When their job in the former Hunter Hotel at 132 W. Washington St. is complete, the John Sollers will have a spacious house that should hold up at least another century.
With eight children ranging in age from two to 17, John and Dorothy “Dottie” Soller found their current nine-room room at 155 W. Washington was getting too cramped for comfort.
Soller checked around and found the nearby brick hotel, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Larry Schweier of Decatur, Ill., was for sale. The Sollers carefully inspected the building, liked what they saw, and decided last November to “take the plunge” of buying it. While the family still lives at their old address, they started working on weekends to prepare their new residence. It’s a project for the whole family, from youngest to oldest. The former home had its quarters partitioned off into 14 rental rooms during many years as a local hotel, and the first order of business was to strip out many partitions and excess plumbing fixtures.
“The kids really enjoyed tearing out those old walls,” Soller reports, “and we’ve hauled nearly four truckloads of debris out of the house to the (Morristown) landfill.” They have been able to salvage a quantity of good lumber, and sold many former hotel furnishings.
The structure’s plumbing, wiring and heating systems were in good condition, Soller found, “and we could have moved in any time.” But the family decided to do the “dirty work” of remodeling and repair before shifting residences, rather than “piecemeal” afterwards.
Soller is uniquely qualified for doing the renovation work, since he is Shelbyville’s city engineer, supervisor of the wastewater treatment plant, and co-owner of the local Hoosier Plumbing firm. He is also experienced in electrical work and carpentry. His major problem is a shortage of time for the home project. “But we’re in no hurry to move in until our other house is sold,” he notes, “and we haven’t set any deadlines.” Plumbing and electrical rewiring are now completed, and the family is busy with woodwork and plaster refinishing.
The house was originally constructed about 1855 for Samuel Laughlin and his wife, a Hamilton. Stones supporting the porch-portico bear the initials L. and H. At some later date it was operated as the Bo-Be Inn, relics indicate, and it was last operated more than 20 years as the Hunter Hotel.
Exterior and interior walls of the house are solid brick, Soller says, and much of the wood used for construction was oak and poplar that is still sound, “and now so hard that you can’t drive a nail in it.”
The building has a full basement of four large rooms, and the main floor originally had four rooms and a bath, before a two-room addition was later attached to the rear. The second floor is now divided into eight rooms, a bath, alcove and hallway, with access by front and rear stairways. On the third floor is one bedroom and a huge attic, which the Sollers are finding useful for storage.
Other equipment you wouldn’t find in a normal house is a telephone booth and a teller’s office cage, which features a system for sounding a buzzer in any room of the house. All these are a delight to the Soller youngsters. Mrs. Soller reports a ducting system in the house may have been an early attempt at air conditioning, as it has provisions for placing blocks of ice in front of a basement air vent. The house is heated by a gas-fired boiler and radiators. Some items being uncovered in the house cleaning, including a tile-decorated fireplace base, may be rare antiques, he believes.
The family is starting work to install a modern kitchen, and the youngsters are spurred on to work by the knowledge that when the move comes, each will have his or her own bedroom.
John Soller will also have a separate room for one of the “sideline” avocations he enjoys, operating a small printing press.
“We looked a long time for a larger house, which we could fix up by ourselves,” he mused, “and this one should still be here for our children and grandchildren.”
BELOW: The initials of the original owner, Samuel Laughlin, are inscribed on a fireplace mirror in the home. The article said the inscription was done with a diamond ring. We asked current owner Chris King to take a photo of initials. He obliged, even though that necessitated including himself in the photo. Thanks, Mr. King!
ADDISON TIMES MAJOR SPONSOR: FULL CANOPY REAL ESTATE
NOTEBOOK:
INDOT will be replacing culvert pipes at three intersections along N. State Road 9 the first week of April, which will each require a single day closure of the county road the pipe crosses. All closures are scheduled to start at 7 a.m. with re-opening at 5 p.m., weather permitting. County Road E 350 N west of State Road 9, in front of 181 E 350 N, will close April 1. Access to all addresses will be from CR 100 W at the airport. CR N 50 E, west of State Road 9, will close April 2. This is just south of 5561 N. State Road 9. Access to addresses starting at 5582 N 50 E will be from E 600 N. CR E 650 N, east of State Road 9, will close April 3. Access to addresses on E 650 N will be from N 150 E. The following week, beginning April 8, there will be a three-day hard closure of N. State Road 9 between E. Mill Road and E 750 N to install a pipe across State Road 9 approximately in front of 7269 N. State Road 9. The last address accessible from the south will be 7036 N. State Rd 9. The last address accessible from the north will be 7269 N. State Road 9. The official INDOT detour for this closure uses I-74, I-465 and U.S. 52.
Local attorney Jeff Bate has been named a 2025 Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana Hall of Fame inductee. Bate has dedicated 25-plus years of service to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Shelby County. He joins an esteemed group of Hall of Fame inductees from Shelby County, including Phil Batton, Jerry Lux, and Joe Harlan, who was the first-ever inductee. The official induction ceremony will take place April 10, 2025, in Indianapolis, where Bate will be recognized for his contributions.
Shelby County Emergency Management relayed that the National Weather Service in Indianapolis determined last weekend’s storm in Shelby County to be straight line winds with peak gusts between 70 and 80 miles per hour.
An 85-year-old driver reported she had been struck by an unknown vehicle on Hamilton Street near the E. Jackson St. intersection. The woman could not describe the vehicle that hit her, and an officer located a parked, unattended vehicle that had heavy driver’s side damage consistent with the first vehicle. The owner of the parked vehicle was “very surprised” to see his car had been hit. The woman said she was flustered after the impact and went blind, and was unsure what happened.
HOOSIER NEWS: Two Indianapolis developers will spend $25 million to turn a portion of a massive downtown office complex into the state’s first Moxy hotel by Marriott as high levels of vacancy in a struggling commercial real estate market continue to plague downtown offices. KennMar LLC and The Ghoman Group are partnering to convert the top seven floors of the south tower at the corner of Illinois and Ohio Streets. The developers bought the office complex with towers at 201 and 251 N. Illinois St. for $35 million in October through Capital Center Properties LLC, a joint holding company, according to property records. The Moxy hotel will include roughly 150 rooms in addition to meeting rooms and a hotel bar with a patio, said CEO Alex Ghoman. The overhaul will also add a Bar Louie restaurant and a coffee shop serving Starbucks to the ground level. (IndyStar)
NATIONAL NEWS: If your kid’s GPA needs a boost, the ad for a house for sale in Palo Alto, Calif., boasted that the kids of every previous owner since a 2017 rebuild went to Harvard or Stanford. (Morning Brew)
Thank you to every donor for your continued support of The Addison Times. Donors of $100 or more receive a quarterly print publication in the mail. Please consider a one-time or monthly donation to The Addison Times, either online or via a check to The Addison Times, 54 W. Broadway, #13, Shelbyville, Ind., 46176. Thank you for your continued support of daily local news and history. I appreciate each of you. - Kristiaan Rawlings, Editor
The Addison Times is pleased to offer free milestone announcements. Forms are available here: Engagement Announcement, Wedding Announcement and Anniversary Announcement.
Want the daily edition read to you? Struggling with your email provider filtering out your local news? The Addison Times Substack app will solve those challenges!
SHS Courier Archive Highlights
September 1972, Part I
Despite rumors that the school board had named a new principal, The Courier reported that school board member Betsy Stephen said no such hire had been made. Three men had been selected for interviews, “but fate had a field day with them, sending one man to the hospital with a severe illness, and another to another school for higher pay. The last man’s children refused to move to Shelbyville….” Another man was later offered the job, but he deadlocked with the committee over money and refused the offer. “To clear up one rumor, former band director G.L. Myers did not present an application for the principalship,” The Courier said.
The Courier also cleared up another rumor. The anti-drug speaker who had presented in 1971 to SHS had not relapsed, despite the word on the street. The man had not been arrested and put in jail. Rather, he had moved to Arizona, the paper said.
Numerous events had occurred as part of the sesquicentennial celebration, including a picnic at Kennedy Park, the Keystone Kops performing at the county fair, and a raffle for a 1929 Model A. A group of people had gone to the Heritage House to share songs and skits. “Mrs. Claudia Norton stole the show when she sang a solo that she learned nearly 80 years ago.” Other festivities included a senior being arrested for having no beard or mustache, then the Keystone Kops proceeded to throw him off the Methodist Building (“it was a dummy, of course, but at least the little kids were wondering about it”).
Rock fans had flocked to Bush Stadium for 11 hours of rock. The festival was put on by Jan Hilt, a former SHS student, who had originally planned to have the festival at Raceway Park. Jan was served a court injunction stating that Raceway was not zoned for a musical concert, and the festival moved to Bush Stadium. “The rock fans, reaching 12,000 in number, enjoyed rock groups and smoked marijuana openly with no interference from the authorities,” The Courier said.
ADDISON TIMES MAJOR SPONSOR: MAJOR HEALTH PARTNERS
This Day in Shelby County History
News around Shelbyville and the surrounding area as reported on or about this date in history. Selections are curated by The Addison Times from Shelby County Public Library Genealogy Department materials.
2005: Due to the unknown status of state and federal funding for vocational education and a lack of student interest in specific programs, the Blue River Career Center filed paperwork to begin a Reduction in Force (RIF). Only six students had applied to be in the manufacturing program. The center did not offer a welding program, which seemed to be in demand from students.
1995: A car swerved into a home at 122 Colescott St., knocking a hole in the house’s foundation. The driver had swerved to avoid a car stopped in the street.
Thirteen people were arrested following a sweep by the Shelby County Drug Task Force. The arrests weren’t made immediately following the sweep because police wanted to protect informants.
1985: Officials from Bedford came to meet with Mayor Dan Theobald to discuss how they had made the Bears of Blue River Festival a success.
1975: State Police tied into the citizen band frequencies on C.B. radio. Local law enforcement said troopers could get on channel 9 to report a hazardous or emergency situation.
Extensive repairs were underway at Porter Pool, which had received little major work since it opened in 1930. The pool’s concrete edging was broken off and a new wire-reinforced layer of special “Gunite” cement was applied to the walls and floor prior to repainting.
Carl and Mary May purchased Sider’s Steak House on East Michigan Road from Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Sider. The business name would change to May’s Steak House and Lounge.
1965: Local doctors reported that a statewide survey said 7 percent of sixth graders and 16 percent of ninth graders smoked. Nevertheless, overall smoking rates were down.
The new Marlin by Rambler vehicle was available at Shelby Rambler Fair, at S. Harrison and Noble.
1955: Local police said they had a suspect for the person who broke into the 900 Club on Miller Ave. and stole $100 in bills pasted to the ceiling. The suspect was in the Army and had relocated to Texas. Local police said the man would be arrested.
In other police news, Glen Niebel, 16, was fined $1 for driving with improper mufflers.
The owners of the Chambers Corp. in Shelbyville announced plans to open a plant in Mississippi. They said production at the Shelbyville plant would continue “so long as it is economically justified.” Chambers produced component parts for jet engines for the U.S. Air Force.
1945: H.W.D. Brinson, Shelby County agricultural agent, asked the county’s 2,600 farmers to grow as much canning food as possible during the 1945 season. He asked farmers to grow at least an extra acre or two of peas, tomatoes and sweet corn.
1935: Despite firemen laying 1,300 feet of hose from a hydrant to a farm outside city limits, Sam Rees’ barn near Habig Street burned down, killing a calf and burning saddles and feed. While firemen were on the job, they received a call to 809 Indiana Ave. to extinguish a roof fire.
1925: Tornadoes occurred throughout the state, but Shelby County received mostly only wind damage. James Innis’ home on West Mechanic St. was struck by lightning, tearing bricks and ripping shingles from the roof. A style show scheduled to be held in the Goodman Department store display windows was postponed due to the weather. Eleven local women and girls were to serve as models of 100 hats and 150 spring garments, with music provided by John Friday’s orchestra.
1915: The 46 members of the Shelbyville High School senior class attended the annual Alumni Association banquet. Carl Girton, Association President, served as emcee. He called on “one of the more bashful seniors” to give a talk during the banquet.
ADDISON TIMES MAJOR SPONSOR: Freeman Family Funeral Homes & Crematory
OBITUARIES
Mark Wilson, 71, of Waldron, passed away Monday March 17, 2025 at AMG Speciality Hospital in Greenfield. He was born March 21, 1953 in Shelbyville, Ind., to William Dale Wilson and Faye E. (Stader) Wilson.
Mr. Wilson graduated from Shelbyville High School. He served in the Indiana National Guard 38th Infantry Division. Mark was extremely handy and he held many jobs through the years. He was a machine operator, professional house painter, payroll clerk and bookkeeper. He enjoyed tinkering with various projects, especially woodworking. His creativity helped him excel with his painting and drawing. Mark was an avid gun enthusiast and also had a love for comic books.
He is survived by his brother, Dave Wilson. He was preceded in death by his parents.
A graveside service will be held in Bennett Cemetery on Thursday, March 27, 2025 at 2 p.m. Funeral Directors Greg Parks, Sheila Parks and Stuart Parks are honored to serve Mark’s family. Online condolences may be shared at www.murphyparks.com.