Thursday, March 28, 2024
SOMETHING SHADY
The skeleton at W. Broadway and Miller is prepared for the upcoming solar eclipse. | photo by JACK BOYCE
Shelby County History: Local Man Constructed Many Notable Buildings
The Shelby Shops predated Admiral Corp. in a large manufacturing facility that still stands on Miller Ave., built by A.B. Ballard. | photo from the collection of David Craig
Several participants in a recent city hall discussion were puzzled when Mayor Scott Furgeson mentioned “the old Admiral building.”
“Which is that?” one city official asked.
“That” building, 877 Miller Ave., actually predated Admiral, the TV cabinet manufacturer, and was built by local man Alonzo Blair “Lon” Ballard.
Ballard was born in 1875 at 225 East Mechanic St. and later moved with his parents to a log cabin across the wooden bridge at the end of Vine Street. There was no Forest Hill Cemetery then, only farm territory. Several years after the cemetery was established, Ballard and his father, Elijah, were commissioned to build the Forest Hill mausoleum and chapel.
A.B. Ballard also built a 39x8-foot steamboat for excursions on the Blue River. The boat was docked at the Conrey-Davis furniture factory, called “the Dinky,” on Elizabeth Street, and excursions ran from Little Blue River into Big Blue River, to a mill dam. The mile-and-a-half trip ended at Eddy Stone Island, then a favorite spot for Sunday school and family picnics. The boat made almost daily excursions, but Thursday was never missed because the Shelbyville Military Band held weekly concerts then in the evenings.
The boat could carry 70 people, and the round-trip fare was 10 cents. But in 1895, the mill dam was destroyed by high waters, and that ended the enterprise. The boat’s engine was sold to a man with the John Robinson Circus, which happened to be in town, and the hull was purchased by local man George Burns. Incidentally, Ballard and Burns were known to present reptile shows featuring Shelby County snakes.
Ballard helped build numerous past and present local structures, including the Gordon Children’s Home, the Vandegrift and Morris automobile plant on West Hendricks St., the old city hall and St. Joseph Catholic Church. In 1909, he built the Knights of Pythias building on Public Square, supplying the brick, mortar and labor for $3,800. That same year he built the Clark automobile manufacturing plant, which later became Chambers Corporation and then the vocational school.
Ballard passed away in 1960 at age 84. He and his wife, Ethel Marie, are buried in Forest Hill, as is their adopted daughter, Ethelmae Neeb, who passed away in 2015.
NOTEBOOK:
Early voting for the May 7 primary election begins Tuesday, April 9 and runs through Friday, May 3, weekdays at the Shelby County Courthouse, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Monday, May 6. Both the courthouse and the Intelliplex Conference Center will be open Saturdays, April 27 and May 4, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Last Saturday’s edition erroneously listed the Intelliplex as a voting center for early voting during the week, but it will only be open the two Saturdays listed above.)
NATIONAL NEWS: Thanks to a number of factors — pandemic disruptions, funding cuts and genuine movement on real-time translation tech — enrollment in foreign language courses is way down. As it stands, total enrollment in courses teaching a language other than English at American universities is down 29.3 percent from 2009 to 2021, and it’s not merely the Americans who are slipping when it comes to becoming polyglots: Only 8.6 percent of Australian high school seniors studied a foreign language in 2021, and universities in places like New Zealand and South Korea are closing some European language departments. (The Atlantic/Numlock)
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This Day in Shelby County History
2014: A porch awning collapsed at a home in the 1100 block of S. Harrison Street, causing a downed power line and closing off the street while utility workers responded to the scene.
2004: The Southwestern school board renewed Superintendent Cathy Egolf’s contract for two years.
Residents who lived near the Knauf Insulation factory asked the state to investigate the company’s air emissions. They complained of damage to paint on their cars and trucks and respiratory problems alleged to have been caused by air pollution. State officials said they would look into the matter, but noted that the factory had been in compliance with environmental standards. Knauf hired a consultant to review the matter.
1994: The county made nearly $10,000 from auctioning 204 items from the old jail. “I didn’t think this stuff would bring that kind of money,” Auditor Janet Miller told The Shelbyville News.
1984: A local driver for a construction firm and the firm’s owner were arrested after a trailer separated from a construction truck and crashed into Plymate Laundromat on E. Broadway. The trailer went through the front wall and window on the building, knocking a soft-drink machine away from a wall. The driver was charged with operating a vehicle without proper registration. The firm’s owner was charged with permitting a traffic violation. Safety chains to prevent the trailer and truck from separating were not connected at the time of the accident.
1974: President Nixon signed legislation to boost the minimum wage to $2. Nixon had vetoed a similar bill a year before due to inflationary concerns. The minimum wage, then $1.60, would rise to $2.30 by 1976. The law would apply to all workers regardless of age. Nixon had previously insisted the minimum wage for those under 18 be 15 percent less than for older workers.
1964: Members of the Shelbyville Junior High School Radio Club built circuit boards for use in the school’s science classes. Members of the group were Don Becom, Randy Meyerholtz, Bill Tragesser, Mark Bottorff, Ray Scheffler, Barry Graves, Chris Hilt, Bill Haehl, Bill Newton, Clark O’Byrne and Judy Losey. Wray Orem was the club’s sponsor.
A Shelbyville News article assured parents that “The Beatles induce fever among the youthful female of the species, but the patients always recover without any significant residual trama.” The article walked through various forms of Beatlemania in the past, namely Rudy Valle and Elvis Presley. The author confessed the Beatles reminded him “of the wailing of cats on the rooftops of their native Liverpool, but their boycott against barber shops seems to make them something special.”
Local fire officials warned Coffey Excavating Co. about fires they were setting to demolish the former Albert Furniture Co. building.
1954: Two buildings were under construction in Marietta: a building for the volunteer fire department and a Red Men’s lodge hall and grocery, the latter built on the site of a previous lodge hall and grocery destroyed in a fire.
Jack Ray Hardin, 21, Navy machinist mate from Shelbyville, died during a training accident in Virginia. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Hardin of 733 Fair Ave., received word of the incident in a telegram. Jack had four brothers, William John, George Edward, James Walter and David Lee, and a sister, Bettie Solomon.
1944: Former Shelbyville Mayor J. Edward Shook, 41, died at his home, 248 W. Broadway. He had been ill six months, spending most of that time at Methodist Hospital. Shook had enjoyed a successful career since coming to Shelbyville in 1929 to assume management of the Jessup & Antrim Ice Cream Co. Under his direction, the business grew from a start-up to earning $100,000 annually before war-time restrictions. He had graduated from Manilla High School, where he was a member of the 1918 basketball team that beat some of the state’s best teams. He married Margaret Coers in 1920, and they had two children, Mrs. John Anderson and Robert, who was in the Army. Shook, a Republican, had been elected mayor in 1938 but lost re-election in 1942.
1934: Bradley Hall, former local furniture manufacturer, bought a furniture store in the southeast corner of Public Square owned by A. Goodman.
1924: Moris Drake obtained the latest technology had to offer: “A radio without aerial and without ground wires, in fact just a box which may be carried about at the owner’s pleasure, is the latest thing in this great achievement of science,” The Republican said. The sets were not yet available to the public.
A motion picture was made of the Shelbyville High School basketball team. The film was taken by a photographer commissioned by F.J. Rembusch. “All of the men who had any part in the game at the local celebration were snapped in action,” the paper said. “Curtis Fix went through his injury stunt, the stretcher bearers were right there, and Doc Blackburn pulled his stepladder feature.”
1914: Dr. W.T. Shroup of Waldron died unexpectedly. His death was attributed to apoplexy (a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke). He saw his last patient at 6 p.m. At 6:15 p.m., he came out of his office door and walked next door to a tin shop, and while doing so, put his hands on the back of his head and said, “Oh, that pain.” He then started to fall, but was caught by Edward Howard and Charles Haymond. He was presumed to have died immediately.
OBITUARIES
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