These 1925 photographs show one of Vonnegut, Mueller, & Bohn’s less-remembered architectural designs: the Plaza Service Station at 121 E. Maryland Street. During the 1920s people grew leery of shoddy gasoline shacks and movers of the City Beautiful Movement promoted monumental-looking filling station designs. (Indiana Historical Society, Bass Photo Company #92298)
The first St. Mary Catholic Church, parsonage, and academy stood on this site from the 1850s until at least the 1910s. After the new St. Mary Church (1910) and Academy was constructed on the southeast corner of New Jersey and Vermont Streets, the old church structures were used as boarding houses and storage. (the old church can be seen next to the KO-WE-BA building in this 1912 Indiana Historical Society photograph: http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0130&CISOPTR=428&CISOBOX=1&REC=7).
The grand filling station no longer exists and is now the site of the multi-story Sideline Parking Garage. (Google Street View 2009)
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Just again want to think you for what you do.I love these photos and all the history behind them.Please don’t ever stop.
Pat
An interesting point of history. i look at the gas station and mourn the loss of something so grand and wonderful. Such a fascinating complex to be replaced by a parking garage. So 100 years ago, did people mourn the loss of the grand church that was the original St. Marys for something like a gas station?