Marion County, Indiana - Chapter 11, 1884 (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 11

Court-House. - The old court-house, of wich a complete account appears in the general history, was found to be inadequate long before its removal and replacement by a better one were decided upon in 1869-70. But for the heavy expense caused by the payment of bounties to volunteers to avert a conscription, a new building would have been commenced several years sooner. The new court-house fronts southward towards Washington Street, eighty feet from the street line, with east and west entrances, little inferior to the main front, on Alabama and Delaware Streets, seventy-two feet from each. The north side is nearly half the length of the square south of the line of Market Street. This space is reserved for any future buildings that may be needed, the chief of which will probably be a city prison. The length of the structure is two hundred and seventy-six feet six inches by one hundred and six feet five inches, exolu- sive of the projections, which are eight, - one on the centre of the south front, seventy-four feet six inches long by seventeen deep ; one on the rear or north side, eighty-nine feet four inches by thirteen feet ; one twenty-four feet two inches by six feet nine inches on the centre of each end on the east and west fronts; four on the extremes, two of which are twenty-six feet by three feet eight inches on the south front, and two are twenty-one by one foot three inches on the rear. These, together with the intermediate spaces, form the several bays of the building, all of which terminate within the line of the main roof, except three projections which constitute a part of the tower and the pavilions, which are raised above the apex of the main roof, the former ninety-seven and the latter twenty-eight feet. The height to the top of the backing above the main cornice, which has a common level, belting both tower and pavilion, is sixty-two feet nine inches ; height to the top of the crest cornice, seventy-nine feet ; height to the apex of the main roof, ninety-four feet ; height to top of crestings of pavilions, one hundred and twenty-two feet ; height to top of tower, one hundred and ninety-four feet, measuring from the ground line, which is raised four feet eight inches above the street grade (in early times the court-house square was lower, so that water stood in puddles over it after a rain). The main edifice consists of three stories, except that portion occupied by court-rooms, which is two stories in height, exclusive of the basement and mansards, the former extending under and the latter over the entire building. The basement is sixteen feet high ; the first story, sixteen feet ; second story, thirteen feet six inches ; third story, thirteen feet six inches ; court-room stories, twenty-eight feet ; mansard, twenty-one feet. Some forty or more polished red granite pillars, from Peterhead, Scotland, decorate the upper projections.

The stairways descend into the basement from the south and east and west fronts. From the first floor they ascend to the second from near the centre of the hall, which opens clear to the roof and is lighted by skylights. A broad bridge joins the halls on each side of the balustrade surrounding the open space over the stairways. At each end a stairway ascends from the second story to the third, in a line with the lower stairway, but set forward some thirty feet or so. The halls are finished in " carton pierre," or paper-stone, and fresco, with a bewildering profusion of colors and figures that make a stronger impression of gaudiness and " gingerbread" work than richness or elegance. The court-rooms are of much the same character, with emblematic frescoes on the ceilings which are certainly no marvels of artistic taste or skill. A gallery entered from the third story surrounds three sides of each of the three Superior Court rooms, the Circuit Court room, and the Criminal Court room. This last, on the north side, is the largest in the building, and is used as the hall of the House when the Legislature is in session. The room next to it at the east end, one of the Superior Court rooms, is used as the Senate Chamber. The basement is wholly occupied by city offices; the first floor by county offices and the county library ; the second by court-rooms and the necessary appendages, jury-rooms and the like. The mansard is occupied by court-room galleries, by court-rooms when the Legislature is in session, and by rooms for old records and other uses. In the tower is a good clock with a bad face, hard to see two squares away in the daytime, and invisible at night under the weak illumination it gets from inside. The bell can be heard at the city limits at night, rarely at all in the daytime anywhere out of sight of the clock dial. The style of the building is the " Renaissance." The architect was Mr. Isaac Hodgson ; the stone-masons, Scott & Nicholson. The artistic finishers were Italians brought here from the East to spoil a fine work that would have been grand in its simplicity if left untortured by bad taste. The building was finished in July, 1876, and cost one million four hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars, nearly twice the original estimate. It is one of the handsomest public buildings in the United States, and well built, except in the inferior character of its finishing. The county board by which the work was mainly done was composed, at one time and another of the six years, of the late Aaron McCray, 1867-73 ; Lorenzo Vanscyoc, 1868- 71 ; John Armstrong, 1870-73 ; Samuel S. Rumford, 1871-74 ; Charles A. Howland, 1873-76 ; Alexander Jameson, 1873-76 ; Samuel Cory, 1874-77.

City Of Indianapolis

In the general history it is said that the temporary building erected for a political meeting-place on the southeast corner of the court-house square in 1864 was the only structure of that kind placed on the square. There was one on the southwest corner for a very short time in 1860, and another on the northwest corner in 1872, where Gen. Butler made a speech on the only occasion that he ever visited the city. Gen. Hawley, of Connecticut, also spoke there about the same time. These " wigwams," as they were called, were not allowed to remain long afber their special use was completed, while that of 1864 remained for a year or so. In the campaign of 1880 a " wigwam" was erected near the corner of Maryland and Mississippi Streets, and is still standing.

City Buildings. - The city has never had any public buildings but the two market-houses and the station-house, excluding engine-houses. Its ofScerooms have been rented always except during a few years when the Town Council meetings were held in the upper room of the Marion Engine House, on the Circle. Within a year an ordinance was passed by the Council and Board of Aldermen to build a city hall and market-house on the East Market space, with a large bequest made by the late Stephen Tomlinson for that purpose ; but some doubt as to the expense being brought within the limits of the bequest and of the other resources, - the city license of liquor-saloons especially, - with some informality in letting the contract, opened the way for a legal obstruction of the work, and it was abandoned. Very recently, however, the market-house project has been revived, and seems in a fair way to go through. The station-house on South Alabama Street is a product of the last decade. In 1866 the expense of boarding city prisoners in the county jail became so great that the Council determined to build a station-house. A lot was bought for four thousand dollars, on Maryland Street between Meridian and Pennsylvania, and there the eifort ended for four or five years, when a lot on Alabama Street, on the corner of the first alley south of Washington, was bought, and a house of fair size and safety put there. About the time of the purchase of the station-house lot on Maryland Street, propositions for the sale of a site for a city hall, or for renting suitable buildings, were made by different proprietors. The old Beech er church property was offered for fifteen thousand dollars in city bonds ; Andrew Wallace offered his block on Maryland and Delaware Streets, and the Journal company offered to build a hall on the then vacant west half of its lot, where the Times oflSce is now. The Council rejected them all, doing its first effective work in that direction in 1883. The county has an " Asylum," once the " Poor-House," in Wayne township, on a large farm, with a building that cost some one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and affords good ad(l^ comfortable accommodations for more than a hundred inmates constantly, but being some distance from any frequented road, - the old Lafayette pike passing nearest it, - the public generally know little of it, except as the papers note the annual visits of the county board and the festive occasions made of them. The building is a large and handsome one, becoming the wealth and standing of the county, with an average of over one hundred inmates always.

The incurable insane of the county, like those of other counties, have been kept in this county asylum when necessary. Hereafter they will go to one of the three - not five, as stated in the sketch of the history of the State Insane Asylum, page 124 - institutions for the incurable insane provided by the act of the last Legislature, though recommended by Governor Baker as early as 1869. One of these is to be at

State-House. - Of the legislation touching a new State-House prior to the act of 1877, little need be said. A committee was appointed a dozen years ago to consider the subject, procure plans, and make a report to enlighten the Legislature, but nothing came of it except the recommendation of a really fine plan of Mr. Charles Eppinghausen, of Terre Haute, to which no attention was given. In 1877 an act authorized the Governor to appoint four commissioners, two from each of " the two leading political parties," the Governor to act as one ex officio in addition, to "organize to build a State-House," limiting the cost to two millions of dollars, and levying a tax of one cent on the hundred dollars in 1877, and two cents in 1878, " for a State-House fund." On the 24th of May, 1877, the Board of State- House Commissioners was organized. The Governor, the late James D. Williams, appointed Gen. Thomas A. Morris, of this city, and Wm. R. Mc- Keen, of Terre Haute, from the Republican party, and Gen. John Love, of this city, and I. D. 6. Nelson, of Fort Wayne, from the Democratic party. Mr. McKeen resigned in a few months, and Prof John M. CoUett, now State geologist, was appointed in his place. The board, after examining the four plans specially noticed by the Legislative committee, - that of Eppinghausen being preferred, - returned them all to their authors, and invited new plans. They also visited the capitals of Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, and various public buildings throughout the country, gathered information about material, had tests made, and, finally, on the 11th of December, 1877, had received twenty-four plans. On the 28th of August previously they sold the old building to John Martin for two hundred and fifty dollars, who agreed to remove it by the 1st of April, 1878. After a good deal of discussion and examination by experts, the board chose the plan of Edwin May, of this city, who died a year or two after the work began, and proceeded to excavate for the basement and to construct a sewer for the joint use of the State and the city, as has since been done with the State's " Female Reformatory" and the city sewer connection. The city authorities vacated Market Street from Tennessee to Mississippi, thus giving the new building an unbroken area of two squares and the intervening street, about nine acres. Proposals to build the whole structure or portions of it were advertised for, and on the 13th of August, 1878, thirty-one bids were opened, some proposing to take portions, but ten proposing to take the whole work at a cost ranging from 81,611,672.25, made by Kanmacher & Denig, to 82,114,714.13, made by the " New England and Granite Stone Company." After due inquiry the contract was given to Kanmacher & Denig, with a reservation of $102,051 for " steam heating," " encaustic tiles, " " marble mantles," " washstanda," " hardware," and " vault doors," which it was thought could be more favorably contracted for at some later period. This left the price of the work, under the lowest bid, $1,509,- 621.25. The whole estimated cost of the building, including the reserved articles, sewer construction, glass, and basement excavation, was $1,638,603.76. The corner-stone was laid Sept. 28, 1880, with a poem by Mrs. Bolton and an address by ex-Governor Hendricks.

The building is in length four hundred and ninetytwo feet on the east and west fronts ; the centre, from east to west, two hundred and eighty-two feet by one hundred and eighteen in width ; the north and south fronts, each one hundred and eighty-five feet ; height of dome, two hundred and thirty-four feet, diameter seventy-two feet ; height of east and west fronts, one hundred feet ; south and north fronts, ninety-two feet ; basement story, twelve feet high ; first story, eighteen feet six inches ; second story, nineteen feet ; Representatives' Hall, forty-eight feet ; Senate Chamber, fortyeight feet ; Supreme Court room, forty feet ; third story, sixteen feet six inches. The outer walls are faced with cut stone, backed with brick-work, and laid in cement mortar. The frame-work of the roof is of wrought iron. The exterior covering of the roof is slate and copper. The Tennessee Street, or principal front, has a flight of stone steps, sixty feet in width, leading to the grand portico and corridor of the first floor. The pediment of this portico is supported by polished fluted columns, with carved capi-

From the foundation to the springing line of roof the dome is constructed of Indiana stone, huilt in a direct plumb line, " solids over solids and voids over voids," cut and dressed to such exact dimensions that, with a small stretch of the imagination, it may be considered as one lai^e block of stone, perforated for passages and window openings. No plastering, stucco,' or iron-work is required as finish or ornamentation, outside or within, as all decoration is cut on or in the solid stone. A dome constructed in this manner will serve as a useful monument or memorial, as on the inside walls, as well as the corridor sides, there are niches for statuary, and panels for inscription and relief work. Access to the lantern and gallery is by easy stairways from the third floor. A gallery i thus constructed in the interior affords a sheltered "lookout," and at the same time relieves the dome of the common defect of insecure and leaky construction.

The exterior of the main building indicates the locality of the various departments, such as the Hall of Representatives, Senate Chamber, State Library, and Supreme Court room. The steps ascending to the first floor, from each street on the four fronts, constitute an attractive architectural feature, and for convenience will be duly appreciated. The legislative halls and principal rooms are lighted direct from the outside, roof and ceiling lights being carefully avoided. The ceilings of the Senate Chamber, Hall of Representatives, State Library, and Supreme Court room are constructed with panel work, and such ornaments are introduced as will best harmonize with the decorations of the side walls and furniture. In the interior arrangements the architect has introduced all the modern improvements in heating, plumbing, and ventilating, elevators for passengers and fuel, dust flues from each department, electric and telephone combinations, soft water for lavatories, electric clocks, and electric lighting of gas. The halls are set at regular intervals with polished marble columns on granite bases, and extend the entire length of the building, nearly five hundred fee*, forming the finest colonnades in any public building in the Union, except those of the national capitol at Washington. The niches and panels of the dome and the surrounding colonnade are intended to be occupied by busts, statues, and other memorials of the State's history, especially of its participation in the war for the Union.

Up to the close of the building season in 1882 the contractors, Howard & Denig (Mr. Howard succeeding Mr. Kanmacher), had completed the work in admirable style to the floor of the third story. Thinking their contract likely to be a losing one from the rise in the price of material and labor, they asked the Legislature for a large extra compensation, failing in which they would be compelled to abandon the contract. The Legislature concluded to abide by the bargain, and hold them to it. Work was stopped for the greater part of the year 1883, and then the sureties of the contractors concluded to take the building and complete it on the original terms. They did a considerable amount of work in the fall, and the case looks promising for as speedy a completion as was originally anticipated. The commissioners have watched the progress of the work incessantly and anxiously, and have secured, so far, as perfect a piece of builders' skill as can be found in any modern structure in Christendom. On the resignation of Professor CoUett, W. B. Seward, of Bloomington, was appointed in his place, and on tUe death of Gen. Love, Mr. Henry Mursinna, of Evansville, filled that vacancy. The board now consists of the original members (Gen. Morris and I. D. G. Nelson) and Mr. Seward and Mr. Mursinna, with the Governor ex officio a member, and Capt. John M. Godown, secretary, succeeding W. C. Tarkington, who resigned in a year after his appointment in 1877.

The State Buildings. - These are on the southwest corner of Washington and Tennessee Streets, and cover the whole lot belonging to the State, on which the first treasurer's office and residence were built. After this house was abandoned by the treasurer, in 1856 or 1857, it was rented till it was torn down, in 1865, and replaced, in 1867, by the present buildings for the State offices, which were then scattered about, some in the " McOuat Block" on Kentucky Avenue, some in the State-House, and some in the Arsenal building, north of the State-House. John L. Smithmeyer planned the new State buildings, but was not thought at the time to have made a particularly good job of it, either in convenience, beauty, or durability. It accommodated all the State offices, including the Supreme Court and the " chambers" of the judges, except the State library and the Governor's office, which remained in the old State-House till it was sold to be torn down, when they were removed, the one to the " Gallup" or " McCray Block," where it is yet, the other to one of the rooms of the State building. The office of the superintendent of public instruction was kept mainly in the Gallup Block for a half-dozen terms or more. Some half-dozen or more years ago a large addition to the State buildings was made on the south, for the State- House Board, the superintendent of public instruction, and some other public uses. The State geologist and museum are in the second story of the " Gallup Block," with the State Board of Agriculture. The State Bureau of Statistics is in the Masonic Temple. These will all go to the new State-House.

Post-Office. - The post-office building, in which the Federal courts meet and all the national offices are kept, is a large but not very impressive looking stone structure on the southeast corner of Market and Pennsylvania Streets. It was begun in 1857, on the site of the blacksmith-shop attached to the first carriage-factory, on the same square. The ground was swampy, and at the southwest corner the excavation for the cellar broke into a section of quicksand and liquid mud, which had to be drained by a steam-pump and filled in with broken stone and cement for many a day before a safe foundation was made for the massive structure that was to rest upon it. In 1860 it was completed, at a cost of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Some years ago it was enlarged by an addition to the depth eastward that nearly doubled its capacity. An elevator was put in the south lobby. The post-office was moved into it in 1860, after moving about over the village, town, and city in a vagabond way for nearly forty years. When Mr. Henderson first took the office in March, 1822, it was kept in a house near Missouri Street, the line of the future canal. That was a convenient point between the settlement on the river and that further inland. It was moved from there, in 1823 or 1824, to Henderson's tavern, where " Washington Hall" afterwards stood and where the " Glenn Block" now stands. Then, on the accession of Capt. John Cain to the office, in February, 1831, he removed it to the north side of Washington Street, half-way between Meridian and Illinois, where, a few years later, - in 1835 or thereabouts, - was erected the " Union Row," the first " block" of buildings in this place. One of these Capt. Cain owned, and in it he put the post-office as soon as it was finished. For some years before 1849 it was kept on the west side of Meridian Street, in the building next to the Relief Engine House, now replaced by " Hubbard's Block." It was removed by Col. Russell, or by Dr. Dunlap before him, to the west side of Pennsylvania Street, adjoining the Journal office, where a fire broke out that damaged both establishments considerably, though not enough to interfere with the course of business of either. This was near 1850. After the fire a removal was made to the east side of Meridian, in a three-story brick of Judge Blackford's, - used as a hospital for Confederate prisoners during the war, - now replaced by the " Blackford Block." From that building it went to its own in 1860, under John M. Talbott. Our postmasters have been :

Joseph M. Moore was appointed by President Harrison. In a few months he was dismissed by Tyler and Cain reappointed. Col. Russell died in the office in 1851 or 1852, and his son James was appointed to serve out the term.

City Op Indianapolis

Number of letters, postal-cards, and circulars distributed on letter case during the year 1883.... 1,715,500 Newspapers, periodicals, circulars, merchandise,

Number of letters mailed'without postage.... 3,580 Number of packages mailed without postage. 237 Total number of letters and packages mailed without postage during the year 1883 3,817

Money-Obdeb Department

Public Halls. - The court-house was the public hall of Indianapolis for twenty-five years. As related in the general history, it was used as a church, concert-room, lecture-hall, show-room, hall for public meetings and political conventions, almost alone, during that quarter of a century. The hall of the House of Representatives was occasionally used for meetings of the graver grade by permission of that body formally voted. John B. Dillon delivered his lectures on Indiana history there in 1844, the General Conference of the Methodist Church was held there in the spring of 1856, and Fanny Lee Townsend lectured on Women's Rights in the Senate chamber in 1850, but the court-house was the general dependence. In 1847 the Grand Lodge of the Masonic Order of the State decided to build a large and handsome edifice here for the use of the order, and make one story of it a public hall. In May they bought the vacant lot southeast corner of Tennessee and Washington Streets, and formed a company - the Grand Lodge taking a large share of the stock^to erect the building. The plan was proposed by one of the first resident architects liere, Mr. J. Willis, and the late William Sheets superintended the work, subsequently receiving a handsome and costly silver service from the order for the gratuitous work he had done for them in this respect. On the 25th of October the corner-stone was laid with impressive Masonic ceremonies, and the singing of a hymn written for the occasion by Mrs. Sarah S. Bolton.

The work hung heavily for want of ready means, and it was not till the spring of 1850 that it was so far advanced that the hall could be opened. When entirely inclosed, but before the floors were laid, a man by the name of Becker, while stepping across the upper story on the joists, fell to the ground-floor and was instantly killed but a minute or two before his two little boys passed the hall on their way home from Sunday-school. Their first look inside showed them the dead body of their father. In the summer of 1850 the hall was first occupied by Mrs. Lesdernier for a dramatic reading. In the winter the Constitutional Convention, which had met in the hall of the House, was forced out by the fleeting of the Legislature and went to Masonic Hall. It was fitted up with a platform at the south end, and with rows of red settees for the members. At night it was lighted by three great, black, ugly chandeliers, with seven or eight sprawling branches that looked like monstrous spiders. They were supplied with gas made of grease and refuse in a little building in the rear, as were a street-lamp or two in front. Here all public exhibitions and entertainments were given from 1850 to about the close of the war, when Morrison's Opera-Hall, on the northeast comer of Meridian and Maryland Streets, then recently completed, began to be used for such purposes considerably till it was burned, in the winter of 1869. The fire had caught in the heating-furnace and made dangerous headway before it was discovered. An alarm would have made a panic and catastrophe. A preacher who made the discovery gave no alarm, but went among the audience whispering the news to them, with directions to go out quietly, and all got out safely, some without knowing what the matter was till they saw the flames burst out. Occasional use was made of two other halls in that time, but being smaller and less accessible they were hardly an exception to the universal use of the larger. In 1875 Masonic Hall was rebuilt, the order using all the upper stories of the front building and making a separate but connected building of the public hall, which is a better one than the old one. The Grand Lodge long since absorbed all the stock issued in 1847.

The smaller halls were " College Hall," in the third story of the building erected by Daniel Yandes and Thomas H. Sharpe on the site of the old McCarty store, southwest corner of Washington and Pennsylvania Streets, a little before the Masonic Hall was built ; and " Washington Hall," opposite " Masonic Hall," built within a year or two of the others. A number of minor halls have been built since, but require no special mention here.

Theatres. - The first theatrical performance in Indianapolis Mr. Nowland puts in the winter of 1825, but Mr. Ignatius Brown, citing the Gazette as authority, says it was in December, 1823. A reference is made to it in the general history. The first dramatic performance, with a stage, scenery, orchestra, a full cast of parts and regular " posters," occurred in 1838 or 1839. It was not largely patronized, but its expense was small, and it did well enough to come again in two or three years. The better class of Indianapolis society, and that best able to make its patronage desirable, was not partial to the theatre. The religious element was immovably dominant and by no means tolerant. It would go to a menagerie, or " animal show," as it was usually called, but not to a circus. If the two were combined the bad ruined both. Schools were sometimes given a holiday to visit a menagerie, but scholars who visited a circus were usually rewarded by a private performance like the ring-master's whip and the clown, dissimilar only in its reality. Concerts were tolerable if not creditable, but a theatre was irredeemable depravity. The feeling has changed a great deal in the last twentyfive years. In 1858 it forbade the Widows' and

Orphans' Society from receiving a five-hundred dollar benefit at the Metropolitan Theatre. In 1868, ten years later, it moved the very same society to conduct a series of dramatic performances in Morrison's Opera- Hall, for the very same purpose as that so peremptorily repelled before. The town had grown then till it was big enough and rich enough to furnish paying patronage without dependence on the " rigidly righteous," and moral antipathies, finding themselves powerless to restrain the theatrical demoralization, abandoned the contest and grew weak from disuse. It is not certain that the hostility of the old citizens did not, in the main, benefit the reprehensible shows by the allurement of doing a forbidden thing. At all events, Indianapolis has always been held a firstrate town by showmen of all varieties, from an operatic star to a double-headed baby. Negro minstrels and circuses are especially popular, or have been. The theatre before the war was poor property ; during the war it was a bonanza. Since the war it has fluctuated, with a general tendency towards improvement.

Returning from this digression to the first regular dramatic sea.son in the city, we find that a Mr. Lindsay was the manager, and Mr. Ollaman's wagon-shop, opposite the court-house, on Washington Street, the theatre. A low stage was built at the south end, on the floor, level with the sidewalk, or lower, while the seats were given a little elevation as they approached the entrance. The orchestra was a fiddle, a clarionet, and a brass instrument, the scenery poor and primitive, but it was scenery, and the performance much like other third-rate stage work. The plays oftenest noticed on the bulletin board were " The Stranger," " Pizarro," " Swiss Cottage," " Loan of a Lover," and " Virginius." Comic songs were introduced between the tragedy and the after-piece, among which the boys picked up the " Tongo Islands," with a lively air and an inextricable tangle of unintelligible chorus ; " Jenny, Get Your Hoe-Cake Done," a " nigger" song of the " Jim Crow" or early variety, "Near Fly Market Lived a Dame," and similar rubbish no worse than most of the comic trash of the stage to-day, and less likely to be indecently suggestive. It was silly, but it was not nasty. In

1840-41, Mr. Lindsay came again and fitted up in better style the old Indiana Democrat office, on the site of the News building, and here he had two of the finest dramatic performers in the United States of that day, Augustus A. Adams and Mrs. Drake. A mistimed debauch had lost the eminent tragedian a chance of a better engagement, and he came here in default of having anything else to do. Mrs. Drake was possibly in a similar strait, or she would hardly have come here to play in a little theatre that could not seat more than two hundred. However, they did come, and Indianapolis that winter had as fine playing as any city in the Union. The leading performers were in their prime and did their best.

A funny scene occurred here that was the town talk for a month. Capt. George W. Cutter, author of the " Song of Steam" and " B Pluribus Unum," both of unusual merit, - written several years after this time, however, - was a member of the Legislature from Terre Haute, a pock-marked, brilliant-eyed, voluble declaimer of the sun-soaring, eagle-screaming order, who had made a conspicuous figure in the great Harrison " log-cabin" campaign the year before, and he boarded at the " Washington Hall," where Mrs. Drake did. She was old enough to be his aunt, if not his mother, but he fell desperately in love with her, and she apparently with him. The billing and cooing of these oddly-raated turtles was aw^less fun for the other inmates of the hotel. He always attended her to the theatre, and remained at the " wings" when she was on the stage. One night her part required a fall, and her adorer fancying it a real one rushed upon the stage, to the utter confusion of the scene and the uproarious delight of the audience, and tenderly raising her ponderous loveliness, - for she was " fat, fair, and forty," - carried her oflF with many sweetly murmured condolings. They were married soon after this pathetic incident. Mrs. Drake returned here and played with her daughter, Mrs. Harry Chapman, and Mr. Chapman, at the Metropolitan during the war. Capt. Cutter served out his legislative session and never returned.

In 1843 the " New York Company of Comedians" leased the upper story of Gaston's carriage-factory, where the Bates House is now, fitted it up as a theatre, and gave concerts to cover some evasion of the license law, and followed them with dramatic performances, usually farces or comedies. The company was said at the time to be an unusually good one. One of the earliest of the pioneers of the city, Mr. R. Corbaley, was killed at this theatre one night by walking ofif the platform in front of the upper story where the performances were given, where there was no guard-rail. He fell to the pavement, some twelve or fourteen feet, and died in a short time.

More conspicuous every way, both as a social and dramatic event, than any incident so far related, was the formation of the " Indianapolis Thespian Corps" in 184U. It ia hard to determine, at this distance of time, whether the " corps" was an offshoot of the first brass band, or the band was a suggestion of the " corps." In any case they came very closely together, and some of the leading men in one were equally prominent in the other, as Edward S. Tyler, then a bookbinder, now a farmer in Perry township ; James McCready, then a tailor, afterwards mayor, and now an officer of the Indiana National Bank ; James G. Jordan, then a law student, afterwards city clerk and secretary of the Bellefontaine Railroad Company, with O. H. Smith as president - died in 1850. Among the performers were other young men of the city, unknown now, however, except as shadowy memories, save William Wallace. The theatre was a frame building on the northwest corner of Market and Mississippi Streets, which had been erected for a foundry the summer before and never used. There was no floor, the sills were raised a foot from the ground on blocks, - a sort of special providence for the boys who wanted to " slip in," - and the seats were raised one above the other from the north end at the stage to the south end on Market Street. Dr. Mears had a " hay press" west of it on the same lot to make baled hay for flat-boat transportation down the river. The stage was about fifteen feet wide by twenty feet long, and was provided with better scenery, by the generosity of Jacob Cox, than many a better theatre could boast. Price of admission, a quarter, with frequent compromises upon merchantable articles of equivalent or approximate value, as silk handkerchiefs, cheap breastpins, especially " log-cabin" pins manufactured

The first performance was of Robert Dale Owen's historical drama called " Pocahontas," accurate historically, dreary histrionically. It was written in Mr. Owen's youth, and forgotten by himself and everybody else in his riper years and wider fame. But the novelty of a play performed by our own boys in their own theatre, with their own scenery and music, made it " keep the stage," as the phrase goes, at irregular intervals for a year, sometimes for the benefit of charity, sometimes for diversion. James G. Jordan played Capt. John Smith; James Mc- Cready, Powhattan ; William Wallace, Pocahontas ; Davis Miller, John T. Morrison, and James McVey the minor parts. A year or two after the first season of the -' corps," Mr. E. S. Tyler became a member and " first comedy man." Then the performances took on a little variety. The " Golden Farmer" was produced, with Jordan as the Farmer, McCready as Old Mob, and Tyler as Jimmy Twitcher. Mr. Tyler made a " hit" that in these days would have made his fortune. The " Brigands" was also produced occasionally, Jordan as Massaroni, with the song of " Love's Ritornella." Towards the end of this season Mr. Nat. C. Cook, son of John Cook, the first State librarian, who had been playing subordinate parts at " Shire's Garden" Theatre, Cincinnati, came here on a visit to his parents, and, of course, was invited to appear with the " corps." The piece was Home's " Douglas." He played Young Norval ; Jordan, Glenalvon; Miller, Lady Douglas ; John Morrison, Lord Douglas. Cook did fairly, but Jordan was far better, and was a " born actor, if there ever was one." The farce of the " Two Gregories" ended the performance and the " corps." It went out in a blaze. Both of Mr. Cook's younger brothers appeared in it a few times. Aquilla, the elder of the two, went to Cincinnati in 1844 or 1845, married a dancer in " Shire's Garden," killed the treasurer, Mr. Reeves, on her complaint that he had insulted her, and was never heard of afterwards, except in a letter to a Cincinnati paper boasting of the way he fooled the police and escaped arrest for his crime.

Following the final disappearance of the "Thespian Corps," about the year 1844, there is nothing to notice in dramatic affairs till after the completion of Masonic Hall. Then an occasional dramatic performance was given there and in other minor halls, but they formed no feature of the city's life or amusements. During the first State Fair, in the fall of 1852, F. W. Robinson, better known as " Yankee Robinson," set up a theatrical tent on the corner where the " Park" (old " Metropolitan") Theatre is now, and did so well with a very fair traveling company that he came back the next fall and opened in " Washington Hall," with Henry W. Waugh, a young artist of rare promise as well as a good aetor, - he was clown in Robinson's circus as " Dilly Fay," and, as a painter, assisted Mr. Cox with his " Temperance Panorama" in 1855, - for leading man, Sidney Wilkins and wife for the " heavy business," and Charles Wilson and James F. Lytton for Irish characters and songs. Mr. Lytton made very popular here such songs as " Billy O'Rourke," "Low-Backed Car," "Flaming 0'- Flannigans," " Finnegan's Wake," and others. Robinson was followed, in the spring of 1854, by Wilkins and H. W. Brown and Mrs. Mehen, who produced " Uncle Tom's Cabin" the first time in the city. Mr. Calvin Elliott, in the summer and fall of 1854, finished his building on the northwest corner of Maryland and Meridian Streets, and made a fine large room of the third story, which Robinson fitted up as a theatre and called the " Athenaeum," where, as Saxe says, those who dreaded the name of " theatre" but still

The first season of the " Athenaeum" was very successful. The stock company was good, consisting of R. J. Miller (afterwards known as " Yankee Miller") and his wife, Mr. Bierce (known as " Yankee Bierce"), F. A. Tannehill, George McWilliams (Democratic candidate for Congress in the Covington district in 1876, recently deceased), his sister Mary, James F. Lytton, and H. W. Waugh. Somewhere along in October Miss Susan Denin, a " star" of better ability than social repute, appeared at the " Athenaeum" and made as much of a sensation as Sara Bernhardt did twenty-six years later. She played in Rev. Mr. Milman's " Fazio," Richard Lalor Shiel's " Evadne," Knowles' " Hunchback," and several farces. The following year she and her sister Kate came, and she played Romeo to Kate's Juliet. In that same fall Maggie Mitchell appeared here first, and it was her second engagement as a " star," or her agent said so. She was not more than seventeen, thirty years ago. Robinson's season closed April 14, 1855, 'and then Mr. Austin H. Brown and John M. Commons took the " Athenaeum" and brought here Harry Chapman and Mrs. Drake, - they appeared later at the " Metropolitan," - and in the very furnace-heat of July brought out James E. Murdoch. He played the Stranger to about twenty persons, who bore the heat to see one of the first actors of the country. The next night was worse, and he threw up the engagement and never came back, except as a reader and elocutionary performer during the war. Mr. Commons, after Mr. Brown had retired in disgust, kept up the place from the middle of September to December, showing here for the first time Miss Eliza Logan, Mr. Joseph Proctor and wife, I'eter and Caroline Richings (the latter sang the " Star-Spangled Banner" in 1861, when the flag was hoisted on the State-House by order of the Legislating), W. J. Florence and wife. In 1856, William L. Woods opened the place again, and produced the celebrated low comedian, W. Davidge ; and later Mr. Lytton, as manager, brought out Miss Logan and Mrs. Coleman Pope (who afterwards made her home here and died here). During the winter of 1856-57 the same management produced John Drew, Charlotte Crampton, Dora Shaw, and others. In the summer of 1858 a German company played at the " Athenaeum," and during the winter the Germans kept up two theatres, one at Washington Hall and one at Union Hall. In April, 1858, Kate Denin and Sam Ryan, her husband, opened Washington Hall, to no purpose, and during the State Fair Harry Chapman and his wife and mother-in-law, Mrs. Drake, with John K. Mortimer, opened the " Athenaeum" for the last time. A gymnastic association, formed in 1854 and exer- cised in " Blake's Block,' was removed in 1859; with SimQn Yandes as president and the late Thomas H. Bowles as secretary, and the Athenaeum was occupied by it for " calisthenic" operations as long as it was used for any public purpose. It was at last turned into an eating-house. This is the whole history worth noting of the early period of the drama in the city when there were only temporary theatres, casual seasons scattered all about the year, and companies collected by luck, as often ill as good. It may be added, to complete the sketch, that C. J. Smith failed in a week in the " Athenaeum" in March,' 1857, and Maddocks and Wilson did the same in the summer of 1856, but took longer, and Wilson and Pratt and Yankee Bierce followed in the same way in the fall and winter of the same year.

The theatre was now to change its character from the casual resource of a broken actor to a permanent feature of city life and entertainment. In 1857, Mr. Valentine Butsch, the owner of the lot on the northeast corner of Washington and Tennessee Streets, determined to build a theatre there. It had in early years been a frequent location of circuses and menageries, and was entitled by its history to this selection. In August, 1857, the corner-stone was laid, and in the following year, in September, the building was completed. It cost, with the lot, sixty thousand dollars. The lower story, except a stairway of twenty feet width, is occupied by business houses. The two upper ones - built purposely - are high, commodious, and well ventilated, and make, with the gallery, an auditorium seating about fifleen hundred persons. It was opened under the management of E. T. Sherlock, Sept. 27, 1858, with "tableaux vivants" by the " Keller" troop. During the season closing the last of February there appeared in the new theatre, called the " Metropolitan," Mr. Hackett, the eminent Shakespearian actor and personator of Fahtaff, the Florences, J. B. Roberts, Mrs. J. W. Wallack, Mrs. Sinclair (the divorced wife of Forrest, - an indifferent actress), Adah Isaacs Menken, Eliza Logan, Mr. and Mrs. Waller, Matilda Heron, - fresh in her celebrity as a " realistic" actress, - and the Cooper English Opera Troupe, and other " stars" of less magnitude. It was not a paying season, and to improve it the manager proposed to give a benefit to the " Widows' and Orphans' Society," as elsewhere related. The proffer was rejected solely on account of the immoral character of the theatre, which made it improper for a moral association to take its money even for righteous uses. Opinion changed in ten years, and cordially sustained the same society in giving a series of dramatic performances in the occasional theatre of Morrison's Opera Hall. The performers were amateurs, but the performances were no better morally, and very little worse histrionically, than the plays usually seen in the theatre.

Following Mr. Sherlock came Mr. George Wood for a few nights, and Mr. John A. Ellsler for two months, reopening in the fall and winter. On the 25th of April, 1861, when volunteers were gathering here in thousands for the war, Mr. Butsch took the management himself, with Felix A. Vincent as stage manager, and Miss Marion McCarthy - who subsequently became insane and died here - as " leading lady." Mr. Vincent was succeeded in 1863 by William H. Riley, who remained till 1867, when he went to New Orleans as manager of the " Saint Charles," and died there within a month after his arrival. The season of 1867-68 was managed by Matt. V. Lingham, and that of 1868 by Charles R. Pope. Joseph Jefferson, John E. Owens, and Edwin Forrest appeared at the " Metropolitan" at one time or another in this long interval, with nearly all the distinguished actors of the country. On the 25th of March, 1867, Madame Ristori appeared there under the management of Mr. Grau. Mr. Forrest played Virginius, Spartacm, Othello (Mr. Pope as lago), Metamora. Subsequently he played Lear and Jack Cade at the " Academy of Music." The " Metropolitan" was a profitable enterprise, and impelled Mr. Butsch, in 1868, to buy the unfinished " Miller Block," southeast corner of Illinois and Ohio Streets, for fifty thousand dollars, and to finish it as one of the largest and finest theatres in the West. Like the " Metropolitan," the lower story was occupied by business houses. The two upper stories made a large and convenient stage and an auditorium for twenty-five hundred spectators.

Mr. William H. Leake was manager. Here appeared during this management Mr. Owens, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Leffingwell, Mrs. Lander, Mrs. Janauschek, Mr. Toole, the celebrated English comedian, and others less noted. In the fall of 1870, Mr. Leake was joined by Mr. James Dickson, - now of the extensive theatrical management combination of " Brooks & Dickson," - and they leased the Academy for some years.

The " Metropolitan," at this time, was " running" as a sort of " variety" theatre, with Mr. Sargent, later with Fred Thompson, and later and much longer with Simon MeCarty, till the late Mr. Dillard Kicketts bought and repaired and improved it a few years ago, when the Dickson Brothers leased it and hold it yet under the name of the " Park Theatre." The only conspicuous appearance at it in late years was that of Mrs. Langtry's two nights early in 1883, first as Rosalind, in " As You Like It," and as Juliana, in Tobin's " Honeymoon," with no considerable success, though not worse than older actresses have done on the same stage. The " Academy of Music" changed hands about 1875 or 1876, and Gen. Daniel Macauley became manager. Messrs. Leake and Dickson then began building the present " Grand Opera- House." in the rear of the " Martindale Block," on the east side of North Pennsylvania Street, with a wide passage through the " Block" to the auditorium. There are two galleries here. Shortly after the opening of the " Grand" the " Academy" was wholly destroyed by fire, and when rebuilt was converted into business rooms. Along about this time there were several " variety" theatres maintained in halls and beer gardens which do not need mention here. The " Zoo" - contraction of " Zoological" - began as a sort of stationary menagerie a half-dozen years ago with a " variety" addition, but gradually dropped all of the " zoological" features except the first two syllables of the name combined into one, and became a very fair show-place of that kind. Within two or three years it has been greatly enlarged and improved both in building and performances.

Some three years ago William H. English built the " English Opera-House," in the rear of the fine " quadrant" of buildings he is putting up in uniform style on the northwest quarter of Circle Street, and has made it equal to any in the West in extent, excellence* of accommodations, safety in case of fire, and amplitude of stage room. The management is in the hands of William E. English, son of the proprietor. He has shown a striking aptitude for the business, and has brought here Sarah Bernhardt in 1881, Madame Gerster and Campanini in 1882, Adelina Patti in 1882-83, with most of the leading actors of the day, female and male, at one time or another. Oscar Wilde lectured here. The management has been very liberal in allowing its use for public purposes. State conventions have been held in it, the High School graduating exercises have been conducted in it, and the "Art Loan Exhibition" very recently was given the use of it.

There have been two or three little museums here, one on east Washington Street by a Mrs. English, and one on the corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets, in a shed. Neither amounted to anything. Before " gardens" as places of public resort had degenerated into beer-swilling conveniences, there were two in the city that deserve mention as places of public and decent diversion. John Hodgkins opened the first in 1841, in the orchard of George Smith's (first newspaper man) place, northeast corner of Georgia and Tennessee Streets. He made arbors under and around the fruit-trees, with graveled walks and flower-beds, and the first ice-house ever built for public tTsc in the town. In 1856-57 the " Apollo Garden" was opened on Kentucky Avenue, on the point now occupied by the " Cleaveland Block," once the garden of Mr. and Mrs. Bolton's residence. This soon degenerated into a low resort, and public " gardens" have ever since been places of rather equivocal character when they were not openly vicious.

Lectures. - Until the fall and winter of 1855-56 there were no regular courses of lectures in the city. In 1846-47 the " Union Literary Society," as related in the general history, had a few lectures delivered in churches by Rev. S. T. Gillett, Rev. Dr. Johnson, of Christ Church, Godlove S. Orth, Henry Ward Beecher, and one or two others, to considerable free audiences, the expense being paid by contributions from old citizens like Mr. McCarty, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Blake, Mr. Ray, Mr. Austin W. Morris, Mr.

James Sulgrove, and others ; and in 1850-51, during the Constitutional Convention, they obtained lectures from a few of the members, Robert Dale Owen, John B. Niles, of Laporte, Professor Daniel Read, of the State University, among them. The last effort of the old society was in the fall of 1853, when they obtained a lecture from Horace Greeley on " Henry Clay," in Masonic Hall, on his return from the second annual State Fair at Lafayette, where he had delivered the address. In May, 1851, John B. Gough had been I here and delivered a series of three or four lectures on j temperance in Masonic Hall. On the 28th and 29th of October, 1853, the ex-priest Gavazzi lectured on the " Inquisition and Catholicism." In November following Lucy Stone lectured three times in Masonic Hall on Women's Rights, the right of suffrage being le.ss prominent in her consideration than the right of employment and self-support. She wore the Bloomer costume, plain and simple to the verge of ugliness, while she was rather an attractive looking young lady. The audience became a little impatient and began " stamping" for her appearance before the advertised time. She came out, looked at her watch, and rebuked the audience for calling her out before the time. " They had no right to do it," she said. Page Chapman, in the next Saturday's Chanticleer, called her an " impertinent minx" for it. In October of 1855 a Women's Rights Convention was held in the Masonic Hall, and addresses were made by Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, Adaline Swift, Harriet Cutler, and other distinguished advocates of women's rights. At a later convention of the same kind Miss Susan B. Anthony was present. Abby Kelly and Joseph Barker, of Pittsburgh, were present at the first one. Mrs. Livermore has lectured here several times, as has Anna Dickinson. As early as any of these lectures was one in Masonic Hall by Mr. Whitney, on his hobby of building a railroad to the Pacific by donations or sales of public lands. Though little practical good followed his efforts directly, it is probable that his well-informed demonstrations contributed to the impulse that pushed the great transcontinental enterprises more rapidly than they would otherwise have been. These were all casual and scattered efforts. In 1855-56 there came in a system, a

The Young Men's Christian Association organized on the 21st of March, 1854, and speedily made arrangements to procure lecturers for regular courses which they proposed to maintain. The first one in the winter of 1855-56 brought here Park Benjamin, Rev. Mr. Butler, of Wabash College, David Paul Brown, the eminent Philadelphia lawyer, Edwin P. Whipple, Henry B. Stanton, Bishop Simpson, Edward P. Thompson, Henry W. Ellsworth, son of the old commissioner of patents, Henry L. Ellsworth, minister to Sweden and Norway in Polk's term, then from 1852 and till his death, or near it, a resident of this city. The next year, 1856-5Y, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Men's Literary Association both held lecture-courses. The chief lecturers were Rev. Theodore Parker, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, John B. Gough, Elihu Burritt (the " Learned Blacksmith"), Samuel S. Cox, Thornton A. Mills, of the Second Presbyterian Church here, and George Sumner, brother of Charles. He lectured once in Washington Hall, and so did Bayard Taylor. In May, 1857, Edward Everett delivered his " Mount Vernon" lecture in Masonic Hall, and the season following Dudley A. Tyng, Horace Greeley, Governor Boutwell, Rev. Henry Giles (a cripple and noted lecturer) lectured in the regular course. In the season of 1858 the chief lecturers were Dr. J. G. Holland (the "Timothy Titcomb" of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican ; later, the author of " Miss Gilbert's Career," " Bitter Sweet," and other works, and dying recently as editor of the Century), Professor Youmans, Professor Maury, Benjamin F. Taylor, Bayard Taylor, Thomas Francis Meagher. On the 18th of May, 1859, the General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterians met in the Third Church, Illinois Street, and held daily sessions till the 2d of June. Sermons and addresses were delivered by several of the distinguished clergymen present in different churches of the city, while a debate between Dr. McMaster, of New Albany, and Dr. N. L. Rice (the antagonist in 1845 of the celebrated Alexander Campbell in a debate at Lexington, Ky., where Henry Clay was moderator) attracted a great deal of attention among the citizens. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, Dr. Thornwell, of Charleston, S. C, and Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, Were conspicuous members, and drew large miscellaneous audiences to their sermons. In February, 1860, Lola Montez lectured in Masonic Hall two or three times to not very large or enthusiastic audiences. Bayard Taylor and Henry J. Raymond, of the New York Times, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (on " Clubs or Conversation") also lectured in the hall the same winter, and with them were Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, George W. Winship, the " strong man," and some others. During the preceding February, George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, lectured in the hall, and Henry S. Foote, ex-Governor and ex-United States Senator of Mississippi, lectured in the basement of Roberts' Chapel, but both spoke on their own account and in no connection with a lecture association. Mr. Lincoln spoke in Masonic Hall on the 19th of September, 1859. Dr. Boynton delivered a series of lectures on geology in December, 1859, and January, 1860. In the fall of 1855 or 1856, Professor 0. M. Mitchell, the eminent astronomer of the Cincinnati Observatory, delivered a series of ten or twelve lectures in Masonic Hall under the auspices of some " literary association." They were more closely attended than any ever delivered here, and were worth more for instruction to those who heard them. They were reported pretty fully in the Journal. This series is set by itself in the sketch because it is quite apart from the regular lecture-courses. During the war the lecture system languished, and it has never been revived in its original vigor, though a course which proved quite successful was delivered during the past season.

Concerts. - Except a rare concert by the pupils of some music teacher, or a " nigger" minstrel troupe, the public patronage and recognition of music never shone conspicuously among the evidences of culture in Indianapolis during the first thirty years of its existence. How far such patronage as was extended to the art proved it need not be discussed here. We had brass bands pretty nearly continuously from 1840, when the first one was formed, till the establishment of the theatre here compelled the retention of skilled musicians for orchestral service, and thus made handy material for bands and for a better grade of musical instruction than had been usual, but there had been no public performance of the best music, the " classic" order, till the fall of 1851. Then Madame Anna Bishop and M. Bochsa gave a concert in Masonic Hall that furnished the curious some idea of what music was that was neither hymn nor ballad, jig nor hornpipe. To some it was a revelation of pleasure of a higher kind than had been customary, to others it was unmeaning and even ludicrous. They saw no music in it because there was no " tune" in it ; they knew of no musical expression of sentiment but a " tune," and what was not that was nothing. The German immigration since that time has done more than any other agency to familiarize intelligent people with better music than " Leather Breeches" or " Hell on the Wabash." Mrs. Bishop gave her audience a notion of what opera was, and a good many had not a clearer idea of it than they have of the cause of the recent red sunsets. She sang the " Chi me Frena," from " Lucretia," in character. It served as an indication to the shrewd auditor. Some additional musical impulse may have been derived from a State convention of brass bands held in the hall, under the management of George B. Downie, leader of the Indianapolis Band, when some thirteen were present and competed for a prize banner awarde(^o the New Albany Band. At the solicitation of the convention, Mr. B. R. Sulgrove declared the award, and made an address on the occasion. A second convention of nine bands was held in the same place in November, 1853, under the management of Charles W. Cottom, afterwards city editor of the Sentinel. The great musical event of the period, however, was the appearance in Masonic Hall of Ole Bull, Dec. 6, 1853. It was his first Western tour, and put the intelligent part of the town in a musical fever that has not been equaled since, even by the combination of Kellogg, Cary, and Madame Rosa, or Gerster and Campanini, or even by Patti, and she, then a little girl of ten or twelve years, was in the performance with her sister, Madame Strakosch, and sang " Comin' Thro' the Rye" (a river, not a grain-field). On the 22d of January, 1856, the Hutchinsons sang here in the hall. Ole Bull returned in February, and in November, Strakosch, Parodi, Tiberini, Morini, and Paul Julien performed in the hall. On the 20th of the same month, George F. Root had a State musical convention assemble here. Music was getting " active," as market reports say. In 1855 the " Black Swan," Miss Greenfield, or some such name, sang at the hall. May 2d, and came here again in 1868. On December 10th, Parodi and the pair of Strakosches gave a concert at the hall. On the 30th of June, 1857, Dod worth's great New York band, numbering ninety members, gave an " open-air" concert in the military grounds to an audience but little larger than the band. This was under a contract with a Cleveland manager named Stone. At night they gave a concert for their own benefit, but with no better result than in the day performance. A few weeks before this Thalberg, Parodi, and Mollenhauer gave a concert at the hall. Musical culture was looking up. June 10 to 13, 1858, the German singing societies of the State held a convention here, finishing with a procession and a concert, both enthusiastically witnessed by a large attendance of all nationalities of citizens. The first full operatic performance was that of the " Bohemian Girl," by the " Cooper English Opera Troupe," in the winter of 1858-59, at the " Metropolitan."

Musical Societies. - Before glancing at the musical associations and other indications of the musical culture of the city now, it may be as well to look back a moment at the associations which have been formed here, served their occasion, and passed away. The first was the " Handelian" Society of 1828, which furnished the music for the celebration of the Fourth of July that year. Who composed it and what became of it are undiscoverable facts now. The next of which any positive evidence exists, except the choirs of churches, - and only the Episcopal in 1838, the Catholic in 1841, and Mr. Beecher's about the same time, had choirs, - was a society mainly composed of those who had been members of Mr. Beecher's choir, Mr. A. G. Willard (the leader), John L. Ketcham, Alex. Davidson (son-in-law of Governor Noble), Mrs. Dr. Ackley (daughter of Mr. Baldwin, first president of Wabash College), Lawrence

M. Vance, and others. Professor P. R. Pearsall was the teacher and instrumental performer. No man in the city did so much as he to develop and diffuse a better musical taste in the city. He died a few years ago at the advanced age of eighty-six, as active, cheerful, and social as most men of half his years. Other societies came up and went down with no result and no record. In 1863 " The Musicale," a society formed by Mr. J. A. Butterfield, a music publisher and dealer here, wholly of skilled musicians, performed classic music only, and only in the houses of the members, for a few years, making a public appearance but once. In the summer of 1804, Professor Benjamin Owen formed a class in vocal music, as Professor Sharpe had done ten years before, and gave public concerts with them. It broke up about 1867. In September, 1867, the " Mendelssohn Society" was formed, with Wm. H. Churchman as president ; Gen. Daniel Macauley, vice-president ; Charles P. Jacobs, secretary ; Thomas N. Caulfield, director. When Mr. Caulfield removed in 1868, Professor Carl Bergstein was chosen leader. The society is not now in existence.

The " Maennerchor," formed in 1854, is the oldest and largest musical association in the city. It is German, as its name indicates, but no good music comes amiss to it. The first leaders were Mr. Longreich, Mr. Despa, Mr. Kantman, Professor Weegman, and Professor Bergstein. It directed the great Saengerfest here in 1867, and again in 1883. The net proceeds of the festival were given to the German-English School, the Benevolent Society, and the German Benevolent Society. Its hall is the former City Hall on East Washington Street. Last summer it gave a performance in the Grand Opera-House of the opera of " Stradella" in so good a style that one unacquainted with the company would have concluded that it was a professional association of a very fair grade. In 1869, in October, three German musical societies were compounded by the influence of Professor Bergstein, - the Liederkranz, Harmonic, and Frohsinn. The union was at first temporary to celebrate the Humboldt centennial. Afterwards it was made permanent under the name of the " Harmonic." Ladies were not admitted as members. Its meetings were held twice a week in Marmont's Hall, southwest corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets. The " Liederkranz" and the " Harmonie" have been reconstructed since the combination, and are now in existence separately. The " Turn-Verein" has a musical association in its membership. The " Druid Maennerchor" was formed in 1868, exclusively for members of that order, with Philip Reichwein for president, and August Mueller, director. The "Choral Union" was formed about 1869, for the general purpose of promoting musical taste and culture, and performing occasionally the higher styles of musical composition, both vocally and instrumentally. The first officers were M. R. Barnard, president ; Wm. C. Sinock, secretary ; Professor J. S. Black, director ; E. C. Mayhew and George B. Loomis, leaders. Nothing has been heard of it recently, at least since Professor Black and Mr. Barnard left the city. The " Philharmonic Orchestra" was organized about the same time as the preceding, with Dr. R. A. Barnes as leader. The " Lyra" is an old and wellestablished German musical society of large membership and means, and has a fine hall in the building which has replaced the old " Washington Hall," opposite Masonic Hall. It is rather a rival of the Maennerchor. Benham's Musical Review was published here for some halfdozen years before 1870, and for two or three years after that. In 1869, Mr. A. G. Willard began the publication of the Musical Visitor here. Both have long been suspended. Among the prominent musicians of the city, professional and amateur, have been Professor Pearsall, Mr. A. G. Willard, Professor Bergstein, Professor Lizus, Professor ErnestinofF, Professor Baker, Professor Barus, Professor Beissenherz, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Vogt (orchestra leaders the last three), Mr. Athlick Smith, Mr. M. H. Spades and Mrs. Spades, Mrs. Leon Bailey, Mr. and Mrs. Sam. Morrison, Mr. 0. W. Williams, Mrs. E. W. Halford, Miss Mackenzie, Mrs. John C. New, Mrs. Lynn, Mr. Ora Pearson, and others not recalled at this moment.

The present management of the public musical associations of the city is as follows : The " Liederkranz" meets Wednesdays and Fridays, at Union Hall. W. H. Scherer is president ; Gustav Hermann, secretary ; Frederick Mack, treasurer. Ernst EmestinofiF, musical director. The " Lyra" meets Tuesday and Saturday evenings, at Lyra Hall. Ed. Raschig is president ; F. Mumnenhoff, secretary ; John Wocher, Jr., treasurer ; Reinhold Miller, musical director. The " Maennerchor" meets Wednesday and Friday evenings, at Maennerchor Hall (formerly City Hall). C. E. Einerich is president ; Fred. Merz, secretary ; Carl Barus, musical director. The bands of music are the " Indianapolis City Band," No. 268 East Washington Street, Reinhold Miller, manager, B. Vogt, conductor ; "Union Band," No. 361 East McCarty Street, Robert Dehne, leader ; " Beissenherz's Band," No. 400 North New Jersey, H. D. Beissenherz, manager. The " Eureka," a colored musical organization, is both vocal and instrumental. Fine Arts. - Although the first State-House had to seek an architect in New York, the new one and the new court-house found home talent and taste sufficient for all needs, and it would be hard to match either with any public building of any period or cost. There were good architects here, however, before Isaac Hodgson and Edwin May. John Elder (father of John R. Elder, of the Locomotive and Sentinel, now a railroad manager in New Orleans) was one of the earliest architects in the city. Not much was needed of that order of skill, as liouses were chiefly frame, and whatever they were in materiaWiey were sure to be the same square, plain structures, with no more conception of ornament or variety, even of paint, than a saw-log. In nothing, except music, is the improvement of taste more noticeable than in the houses now built for residence. The " goods-box" order of architecture has disappeared. Houses have fronts varied by porches, porticos, pillars, projections, painting, oflBets, bay-windows, ornamental wood-work, costing but very little more than the square, staring, white family depositories of the last generation, but with a suggestion of beauty wholly invisible in the other. Door-frames are one color, the panels another, window-sash and frames are varied, the main tone of the house-color is different from either, fences and gates are tinted differently. Color is used largely to produce variety, both in outside and inside work. The man who would have put two colors in or on his house thirty years ago would have been unanimously suspected of mental aberration. The consequence of this taste, or want of it (partly the eflFect of enforced economy, no doubt), was that one man was about as competent an architect as another. There was no more room for taste than in building a pig-pen or an ashhopper. Following Mr. Elder in this primitive era was Mr. Colestock, and later Mr. Willis, who planned the first Masonic Hall. Then came Mr. Tinsley, who was concerned with the asylums and some of the better business blocks. The architects now here can hold their own with any in the country, as witness the scores of fine residences in the North End, the painting, except that which devised the " rosebush" for Carter's tavern or the " eagle" for Hawkins'. In 1831, however, a portrait-painter by the name of M. Gr. Rogers came and took a room in Henderson's tavern, and advertised his presence and pursuit. He stayed but a few weeks, in the latter part of the winter, with what advantage to himself or what benefit to the artistic taste of the community nobody will ever know. Very soon after him, in 1833, Mr. Jacob Cox came here, with his brothers, and began the tin- and copper-smith business, keeping it up manfully for a score of years, but all the time feeling an irrepressible longing for the pursuit of art. He

"superb business blocks, the churches, and city schoolhouses. This is not the place to specify them or their peculiar merits, and this reference is all that can be made without invidious suggestion. The business houses of the times before the impulse of improvement brought by the railroads had changed them may be judged by the illustrations in this chapter.

Painting in the early days of the city was confined to portraits wholly, at least so far as remunerative work was concerned. If landscape or " figure" work was attempted it was to indulge the artist's taste or ambition, not to fill an order from an esthetic patron. For the first ten years we have no account of any manifested it when a lad of a dozen years of age, and it grew with his growth, in spite of prudent parental repression, which sought a remedy in a different occupation. Excepting in a casual way, he did not paint much till the campaign of 1840 made a large demand for banners with appropriate party symbols, - -Whig symbols in his case, " the same old coon" especially, - and these he painted with a decided advantage of reputation and some money, which led him to pay more attention to his art and less to his trade. He painted a good deal in the next two years, and made portraits of Senator Oliver H. Smith, Governor Bigger, Governor Wallace, and others, of such striking accuracy of likeness and artistic effect that they were quite the talk of the town at their appearance. In 1842 he went to Cincinnati and opened a studio with John Dunn, son of a former State treasurer of Indiana, and remained five months, in that time securing the patronage and high regard of Miles Greenwood and other Cincinnatians, whose approval and patronage were a good thing for anybody to have. He returned here, kept his business (with occasional intervals of painting) till about 1858, when he left the shop for the studio altogether. While the " Cincinnati Art Union" was in exman Lieber had then recently opened his art establishment, and contributed largely to the success of the society, which was mainly of his origination. The pictures sent in by Mr. Cox, Peter Fishe Read, James F. Gookios, and others were exhibited in his picture-room, and the association given quarters there. A number of citizens acquired excellent specimens of home art during the exiistence of this society. Since its extinction Mr. Cox has painted steadily and with great variety of subjects and treatment, and those who can judge say with steady improvement, though now over the Scriptural limit of three- istence Mr. Cox painted one or two pictures for each annual exhibition, and they were all bought at good prices. The " Union," however, was ahead of the times, and went down after a struggle of four or five years, from 1848 to 1854, or thereabouts. During this period he improved greatly in his landscape work, and occasionally attempted " historical" or " figure" pieces less successfully. He has done far better in this way in his later years. In 1856 the " Indianapolis Art Society" was formed for the purpose of encouraging art by securing the sales of the work of home artists, and accomplished a good deal of its purpose in the few years that it lived. Herscore and ten. He is the pioneer artist of Indianapolis and of the State, and easily the most eminent. In his life and labors the art history of Indianapolis is almost embodied. There was little outside of him for twenty-five years after 1840. There were other artists of talent and skill and good repute here at times, but none have remained long enough to be identified with the place. Mr. Whitridge, Mr. Eaton, Mr. Gookins, Mr. Read, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Steele, Mr. Rowley, Mrs. Guffin, and others went away after a residence of a few months or a few years. Mr. Cox has never changed. Several artists of distinction here were his pupils, particularly Mrs.

About the time Mr. Cox began applying himself wholly to his art, a young man about as ill dressed as a man could be and appear on the street, came here and lived for a time with Dr. Abner Pope. H« painted a portrait of the doctor that commanded general admiration. He remained painting here for a year or so, and then went to Cincinnati, where he became one of the distinguished artists of the West. He was Joseph 0. Eaton. He removed to New York during the latter part of the war, or at its close, and with him went William Miller, a little, gifted, misshapen fellow who painted miniatures, and for several years visited the city for a few months, making his home with the late Dr. Mears and keeping a studio in the " Sanders Block," West Washington Street, near Meridian. At about the same time a portrait painter by the name of Brown had a studio in the same building for a year or two. In 1842, - not far from the time of the arrival of the other artists, - Mr. T. W. Whitridge came here and remained longer, made a better impression, and did more work than any artLst who at that time had been here, not excluding our own home artists. He opened the first daguerrean gallery here in the second story of the frame building still standing on the corner of Washington Street and the alley on the south side between Meridian and Illinois. Some of his paintings are owned here still, and some are kept by Mr. Beecher in his Brooklyn house. This distinguished preacher was a warm friend and frequent visitor of the artist. When Mr. Whitridge left for New York, or possibly before. Dr. Luke Munsell opened a gallery in the building where the " Hubbard Block" stands. In 1845 this gallery, or one in the same place, was conducted by Peter McNaught. These were the first developments of an art which now produces here works with no superior in any city in the country. For a number of years after Mr. Whitridge left, Mr. Cox had the field all to himself, but it was unhappily hardly worth having.

James B. Dunlap, son of Dr. L. Dunlap, very early manifested signs of artistic talent. He never cultivated it systematically, or he might have been one of the prominent artists of the country. He was in California for some years, and there made a bust of Capt. Sutter, the noted Calfornia pioneer and owner of the first "gold diggings," which was very widely noticed and commended as a fine work of plastic art. He returned to Indianapolis before the civil war broke out, and did something in the way of portrait-painting, but he never accomplished anything at all equal to his abilities.

Of late years, during the last decade, there has been a notable increase of students of art and artists working their way into a reputation and a comfortable living. Of these it would be invidious to speak as of older artists or those who have gone away. It remains to notice the " Art Loan Exhibition," at the English Opera-House, in December, 1883. This was in a considerable measure the work of Miss Ketcham, and it is likely to be but the beginning of a long series of such exhibitions. An art school has recently been advertised by Mrs. Sewall, secretary of the association, to be held in the Old Plymouth Church building, now a part of the " English Block," and taught partly by Mr. MacDonald, of Chicago, and partly by Miss Ketcham, who, says the notice, " will be present at the art rooms, and will see that each student desiring to practice during those days has an opportunity to do so without interruption. During these days Miss Ketcham is employed to give instruction in china painting to special pupils in that branch. Lessons in china painting will not be given on the last three days of each week."

In the way of sculpture Indianapolis has done little and promises little. One or two lady artists have done some good modeling, but it is not said that they will prosecute sculpture as a pursuit. The limestone figures on the court-house are mere " architectural, not artistic, sculptures," says the architect, and it is well. The statue of Franklin on the " Franklin Insurance Company's" building manifests a good deal of the native ability required for sculpture, and the artist, a Mr. Mahoney, may make a high reputation if he tries.

tion,in which the members debated the comparative merits of Luther and Columbus, printing and steam, or read essays, have become " clubs" in these latter days, and rate themselves in a difiFerent order of intellectual diversion and development from their predecessors. They have a full right to. Though the debating societies of the time, from 1835 to 1850, sometimes contained full-grown men and solid brains, they were generally made up of boys from fifteen to twenty. The literary clubs of to-day contain some of the best thinkers and best-informed men in the State, and they do not meet to talk nonsense or waste time ; that is, the better grade of clubs, both male and female. It is impossible to say how many there are, or what they are, there are so many hidden away in corners and sections of the community concerning themselves only with their own neighborhood. The " Indianapolis Literary Club" of gentlemen is the oldest, largest, and ablest, presumably, and the " Ladies' Literary Club" is of the same quality of the other sex. The " Meridian Club" is of the English, or stereotyped class, social, possibly convivial at times, and concerned more with the table than the library. The club-house of the " Meridian" is the residence built by the late W. H. Talbott, on the southwest corner of Meridian and Ohio Streets. It seems to be well sustained. There are, of course, several political clubs in Presidential campaigns, but they are temporary, and not of the character of the clubs referred to here. The Scotch have a " Burns" or " Caledonian Club," and a " Caledonian Quoiting Club ;" there are several dancing clubs, and musical clubs, and charitable clubs, and convivial clubs, and possibly missionary clubs. The city bristles with olubs like an army of Fijians or ancient Britons.

Hotels. - It is not certain that the first house built in Indianapolis was not a tavern. John Mc- Cormick's house was a tavern in 1820, and his has a reasonable probability to sustain its claim of being the first one. It stood on the river bank near the site of the east end of the old National Road bridge. How long he kept it as a place of entertainment for " man and beast" no record shows. He was probably soon crowded out by his later neighbors, Nowland, Carter, and Hawkins. Of these early hotels, or " taverns," as they were always called, an account has been given in the general history, but a word may be added as to their later history. On the death of Mr. Nowland in November, 1822, his widow, for many years as well known as the Governor of the State, took boarders and kept a boarding-house till within a few years of her death, a period of full thirty years. Her house for most of this period was on the south side of Washington Street, on the site of the great drug house of Browning & Sloan, and here, during sessions of the Legislature, the genial landlady, who was everybody's friend and had a friend in everybody, was sure to hold a large patronage of members and visitors. Though less pretentious than the larger liotels, it was not less widely or favorably known. Major Carter's first tavern, the " Rosebush," a two-story frame on the site of 40 West Washington Street, was moved oiF after he left it in 1823, and finally stopped on West Street near Maryland. His two-story frame opposite the court-, house was burned during the first session of the Legislature. The ground soon afterward was occupied by a row of two-story brick buildings, in one of which ex-Governor Ray kept a hotel for some years before his death. The " Eagle Tavern" of John Hawkins, on the north side of Washington Street, a half-square east of Meridian, was a double log cabin in a wood so dense that the trees of which it was built were cut upon the site it stood upon, and at the time a person in the door could not see another person on the other side of the street a halfblock away ; or, to measure by existing objects, a person in front of the " Iron Block" could not see another at the east end of Yohn's Block. In 1 826-27 it was replaced by a two-story brick, long known as the " Union Hotel," and long kept by Basil Brown, the typical landlord of the time. John Hare, and John Cain, and Mr. Jordan also kept it. In 1849 it was replaced by a four-story brick, opened by John Cain, July 14, 1850, as the " Capital House." He was succeeded by Lemuel Frazier, Daniel D. Sloan, and others till the spring of 1857, when the Sentinel, under J. J. Bingham, moved its entire establishment there and was terribly blown up the first night by a defective boiler. Thus ends the history

Pretty nearly opposite, where the Glenn Block is now, James Blake and Samuel Henderson built a two-story frame tavern in the summer and fall of 1823, and opened it with a ball Jan. 12, 1824. This was the " Washington Hall," then and for thirty years the best-known hotel in Indiana. It was the Whig headquarters, as the hotel opposite was the Democratic headquarters till the opening of the Palmer House in 1841 changed them. In 1836 the frame was moved east to the next lot, and a three-story brick with a basement and a recessed portico with pillars, and with two rear two-story buildings extending' to the alley, was erected at a cost of thirty thousand dollars by the " Washington Hall Company," composed of Messrs. Yandes, Blake, Henderson, McCarty, and others. It was opened by Edmund Browning, then recently from Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 16, 1837, and kept by him till 15th of March, 1851. He was succeeded by Henry Achey, Robert Browning, Burgess & Townley, Gen. W. J. Elliott, father of Judge Byron K. Elliott, of the Supreme Bench, and he by Louis Eppinger. The house was then bought by the Glenns and remodeled into the present block. In the winter of 1843 the most destructive fire which had then ever occurred in the town took place here. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher distinguished himself in the labor of extinguishing it.

In 1840-41, Nathan B. Palmer, then State Treasurer, built a two-story brick, with a wooden story on top of it, on the southeast corner of Illinois and Washington Streets, which was opened in the summer of 1841 by John C. Parker, of Charleston, Clarke Co., Ind., under the name of the " Palmer House." In 1856 the lessee. Dr. Barbour, made a four-story brick of it, and extended it southward to the alley. Besides Mr. Parker and Dr. Barbour, the Palmer House has been kept by J. D. Carmichael, Dennis Tuttle, Charles W. Hall, and B. Mason. Some years ago it was rearranged and improved, and the name was changed to the " Occidental," under which it has been regarded as one of the best houses in the city.

tavern, called from its sign the " Sun" tavern, on the southeast corner of Washington and New Jersey Streets, commanding a large patronage of horsebacktravelers, who constituted a large portion of all the travelers of those days. A three-story L was added in 1847 by his sons, Matthew and Ingraham, and four years later the original building was moved over to the northea.st corner of Washington and East Streets, and was replaced by a three-story brick. The old building was kept as a hotel for some years, and then it and the grounds were turned into a beer garden. The " Little House" has retained its name, though like the others it has frequently changed landlords. It has been the " Little House," or "Little's Hotel," for fifty years.

In anticipation of the completion of the Madison Railroad, Robert B. Duncan built a three-story brick on the southeast corner of South and Delaware Streets which was called the " Duncan House" at first, and did a first-rate hotel business till the rivalry of other roads damaged the Madison, and then the hotel became a boarding-house, as it is yet. The name was changed to the " Barker House" while T. D. and D. J. Barker had it, and to the "Ray House" when Martin M. Ray, brother of Governor Ray, took it. Senator Harrison made his first conspicuous step forward in his profession by prosecuting and convicting the colored cook at this house of poisoning one of the inmates with arsenic which he put in the cofiee or some other article of food. The " Carlisle House" was a large "three-story frame, built by Daniel Carlisle in 1848, on West Washington Street, south side, at the intersection of California. It wa.s more pretentious than successful, fell off to a second-rate boarding-house and then to a saloon, and was then changed to a brewery by J. P. Meikel. and is now a very dilapitated structure occupied by a variety of tenants apparently. In 1852-53, while the building of the Union tracks and depot was under discussion and in progress. Gen. T. A. Morris built a three-story brick hotel, subsequently made four stories, on the north side of Louisiana Street, opposite the Union Depot. It was called the " Morris House." Some years later it was joined to the building on the east directly and to a building west of the adjoining alley by arching over the alley, and called the " American House," kept by Gen. Elliott. It was the " Mason House" a while, and kept by Ben. Mason. When Thomas B. McCarty bought it of Gen. Morrb, some ten or a dozen years ago, the name was changed to the " Sherman House," which it still bears.

In 1852-53, Hervey Bates built the " Bates House," on the northwest corner of Washington and Illinois Streets. It was opened by D. D. Sloan in 1853. He was succeeded by Curtis Judson, lately and for many years of the " Gramercy Park House," New York, and by John Woolley and his partner, Mr. Ingoldsby. It has also been kept by William Judson, Bradford Miller, and others, but always under the same name, further than Mr. Miller made it " Hotel Bates" instead of plain " Bates House," a little bit of affectation that did no harm. It has been enlarged to double its original size and greatly. improved by the son of Mr. Bates, who succeeded to the property by inheritance and has recently sold it to Mr. E. F. Claypool for one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. In 1856-57, Francis Costigan, the architect of the post-office and Odd-Fellows' Hall, built the " Oriental House," on the east side of South Illinois Street, at the alley south of Maryland. It was opened in June, 1857. It is now the south end of the Grand Hotel. The Tremont Hou.se, now the Spencer, was built in 1857 at the corner of Illinois Street and the Union tracks. It is a four-story brick, and has been enlarged and greatly improved since its original erection. It was opened by J. W. Canan, and has been kept by M. Harth and Henry Guetig since. In 1856, Henry Buehrig (" Lieber Bruder") built the Farmers', afterwards the Commercial Hotel, northeast corner of Illinois and Georgia Streets. Mr. Reitz raised it from a three- to a four-story building when he changed the name. It is now a part of the National Surgical Institute, controlled by Dr. H. R. Allan and Dr. Wm. Johnson. The Macy House, southeast corner of Illinois and Market Streets, was built by David Macy in 1857. It was quite a popular hotel for a time, but is now a boarding-house, with the name of the St. Cloud Hotel. The St.

Charles is a hotel on the European plan on the west side of Illinois Street, next block north of the Bates House. It was built by T. F. Ryan and E. S. Alvord and others in 1870.

In or near the year 1870 the first work was done on the hotel now called the " Denison House," then a joint-stock enterprise in which a number of leading citizens were interested. Thework was not vigorously pushed and the property fell into the hands of Harry Sheets, representing the heirs of the late William Sheets, who owned the larger part of the site. When sold on foreclosure he bid it in, an incomplete fourstory brick, covering the greater part of an acre of ground. It remained in this unfinished condition till the great fire of 1874 seriously damaged it. A few years later John C. New and Mr. Denison bought the unfinished, partially burned new ruin and finished it in a better style than was contemplated by its projectors, and it was opened as the " New-Denison House," under the management of H. B. Sherman, in January, 1880. A few years later than the New- Denison in starting, but much sooner finished, was the "Grand Hotel." Mr. SchnuU built up the corner of Illinois and Maryland Streets, formerly occupied by the residence of Dr. G. W. Stipp, used as the first Deaf and Dumb Asylum, with a large and handsome five-story hotel, to which he joined the " Oriental House" and all the intermediate buildings, improving them into some uniformity of style and convenience. This was opened as the " Grand Hotel" in 1876. The " Weddell House" occupies the upper stories of the block on the east side of Illinois Street between Louisiana and Georgia. It has been opened within the last two or three years. In 1875, Mr. A. C. Remy, a member of the county board that finished building the new court-house, tore out the old Wesley Chapel parsonage, on the southwest " quadrant" of Circle Street, and erected one of the finest hotel structures in the city, though smaller than several, and opened in 1876, with Mr. Sapp, now of the " New-Denison," as landlord. In May, 1879, Mr. Remy sold the house to the present proprietor, Mr. David Nicholson, the contractor with his partner, Adam Scott, for the stone work of the new court-house. He is still the owner. In August, 1879, Mrs. Rhodius, who had for twenty years kept the " Circle Restaurant," on North Meridian Street, finished the " Circle House," on Circle Street, and opened it as a first-class hotel. She still retains its management. It is on the southeast " quadrant" of the " Circle." On the northwest " quadrant," inclosing the " English Opera House," is one of the finest buildings in the West, erected within the last five years by Mr. W. H. English. It occupies a little more than half of that " quadrant," and will ultimately cover it all. It is to be opened as a first-class hotel in February, 1884. The " California," on South Illinois Street, was opened some ten years ago. There are a number of other hotels in the city, but these are the oldest or largest, and best known. The Directory reports forty-nine.