Published: May 22, 2009 11:01 pm         

Young block not first historic building in TH to burn down

Fire engulfed building between Third and Fourth Streets on Tuesday

TERRE HAUTE — May is National Historic Preservation Month, so it’s ironic that, earlier this week, fire destroyed one of Terre Haute’s remaining historic downtown office buildings.

“We’re always extremely disappointed when a historic building goes up in flames,” said Tom Balduf, a community preservation specialist with the Historic Landmarks Foundation based in Terre Haute.

On Tuesday, fire engulfed the Young block, a two-story historic office building on the south side of Ohio Street between Third and Fourth streets.

“What a loss,” said Andrew Conner, executive director of Downtown Terre Haute Inc., one of several local organizations involved in trying to preserve Terre Haute’s historic structures.

What came to be known as the Young block was the city’s first open-air vaudeville theater when it was first constructed around 1907. Over the next several decades, the Young Building and the rest of the block would feature a variety of businesses, including J. E. Sayre & Co. sporting goods, Vigo Tire Co., Ed Tetzel gunsmith, Roberts and Hookey autos, Fischer Auto Sales, Dahl Motors and American Sports Inc., to name just a few.

Before Tuesday’s fire, the Young block housed building-owner Terry Modesitt’s law practice as well as FTC Technologies, Sycamore Lending Group, Allied Abstract, Conley Real Estate and the Frey Law Firm.

The loss of a historic building is especially hard to take when the buildings are still in use, Balduf said. Vacant historic buildings tend to be more at risk of loss from fire, he noted.

While Tuesday’s fire destroyed virtually everything that had been inside the old building, much of its two-story brick face remains. It was not clear, however, whether the remaining portion of the building would be saved.

“You tend to have good, solid brick and masonry construction” in historic buildings that have lasted until today, Balduf said. “The challenge is to preserve what’s left” after a fire, he said.

The Young block is not the first historic structure in Terre Haute to burn down. According to Mike McCormick, a local historian and attorney, in the 1890s, Terre Haute’s first opera house burned in a fire at the corner of Fourth Street and Wabash Avenue. Two years later, the Havens and Geddes Department Store on the corner of Fifth and Wabash also fell victim to flames. In 1963, the historic Deming block building on the northeast corner of Sixth and Wabash burned, as well, McCormick said.

Other historic structures lost to fires include Terre Haute’s first town hall, which burned in 1864; Bronson’s Exchange Artesian Bathhouse, built in 1890, which burned in 2006; and the Louden Packing Co., constructed in the 1880s, which burned in 1953, McCormick said.

For more on the history of the Young block, see McCormick’s column in Sunday’s Perspectives section of the Tribune-Star.



Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.