Local bakery has a long history in the city of Goshen

This week’s photo shows the original location of Dutch Maid Bakery in downtown Goshen. Focus on the building painted blue across the top. On the lower level there are two businesses now and the one on the right was the original home of Dutch Maid Bakery. Sometime in the 1940s the bakery started and it stayed there apparently for more than 50 years. I noticed a listing of downtown businesses on the Facebook page “I Remember Growing Up in Goshen, Indiana.” The bakery was one of those listed and I recall it stated they moved to West Lincoln Avenue in Linway Plaza, their current location, in 2004. It is remarkable a locally owned business has remained open for that many years. We all know the harsh reality that many local businesses simply can’t compete in today’s marketplace and have to close. But apparently Dutch Maid Bakery has done something right to keep going. I believe people still like freshly baked breakfast foods and there is still a healthy market for that. I have personally visited the bakery a few times and enjoyed it each time.

Site of original Dutch Maid Bakery in downtown Goshen

Building in Goshen served as a monument business many years

I continue with exploring the history of some of the older commercial buildings in or near downtown Goshen. This week the focus is on a building in the 200 block of East Lincoln Avenue. More specifically, the white colored building in the photo. According to information provided by the Goshen Historical Museum and taken directly from old city directories, the building was originally used by an optician named W.B. Kreider from 1894 to 1908. Then for many, many years it served as a marble works business including Goshen Marble Shop and Goshen Marble Works. But apparently many people remember it as Logan Monuments and Fuel Co. It had the Logan name in different forms from 1946 to 2000. Prior to that it was known as Yoder Fuel and Monument. I found a newspaper ad from the 1960s saying Logan Monuments and Fuel Co. was a distributor of Sinclair oil and super flame heating oils. The building was also used as a grocery store for about 14 years and a dress shop, among other uses. The upstairs portion has been used for apartments at various times. I am not sure what the building is currently used for.

Historic building on Lincoln Avenue in Goshen

Well known lumberman had this house built in Goshen

On East Lincoln Avenue on Goshen’s east side sits an old house that has its roots in the late 1870s. It was originally built for John H. Lesh, a well known lumberman of Elkhart County. Although the county GIS says the house was built in 1870, newspaper accounts show it was built in the summer of 1879 and was moved into by late January 1880. Lesh was born in Ohio and grew up on a farm. At some point he decided to invest in lumber and in a few years was very successful. He owned and operated multiple sawmills and opened an office in Chicago though he still lived in Goshen. At the time the house was built the street was known as Market Street, but was later renamed Lincoln Avenue. Many parties and weddings were held at the house including a visit from James Blaine, a presidential candidate in 1884 who came to Goshen for a political speech. That is according to the book “Historic Homes of Goshen, Indiana,” by Major Leroy Miller. Lesh was elected mayor of Goshen in 1890. He was president of the company Lesh, Sanders & Egbert Co. Lesh died Feb. 15, 1898, and his passing was noted on the front page of the newspaper of Goshen.

Historic house on Lincoln Avenue in Goshen

Corner building in downtown Goshen is full of history

I happen to think it is very interesting to discover what businesses were once located inside of the older buildings in Goshen. Here’s another example. The building to the far right is on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Lincoln Avenue in downtown Goshen. More recently, it was Tony’s Bar & Grill before it closed down. Prior to that, many will remember it was a bicycle shop for several years. I’m told Schwinn bicycles were sold there. It began as a bicycle shop in about 1947. The family who now owns Lincoln Avenue Cycling several blocks to the west on Lincoln Avenue owned the shop when it was still located at Fifth and Lincoln. Their current store was opened in 1970. I went to the Goshen Historical Museum recently and looked through old city directories. I found the building at Fifth and Lincoln was known as Freese & Sons Creamery in 1937 and in 1939 was Ken’s Produce & Creamery. Prior to that it was apparently a private residence. There are gaps in the years directories are available so it is hard to get complete information. The county GIS says the building was built in 1890 and it may have originally been a house before it was converted to a business. I’m also not sure what was located there after the bike shop moved in 1970 and before it became Tony’s. A man at the museum told me the Coffee Cup, which had been located in the back of the building, did expand into the rest of the building for a while.

Building at Fifth and Lincoln in Goshen

Barn and land have long history in Kosciusko County

There just aren’t many family farms that have remained in the family all the way back to the early 1800s. Only a few remain and apparently one of those is the Rosbrugh family in Kosciusko County. The photo shows a barn along County Road 150 West in Plain Township, west of Warsaw. According to the county GIS, the barn was built in 1894. So was the house which can’t be seen in the photo. There are also at least two other buildings, one a milk house, dating to 1894. Honestly, I wasn’t able to find out much about the history of this family. One of the old Kosciusko County history books, available online in Google Books, says Jacob Rosbrugh came to Plain Township in the spring of 1834 from Michigan and settled in the woods. Eventually the land was cleared for farming and Jacob and his wife had 11 children, one of which was Andrew Rosbrugh who later served in the Civil War. Based on what I could find out, I don’t believe this particular farm in my photo was the original Rosbrugh settlement. I believe the original settlement was further south in Plain Township. I found the family in multiple locations on the 1914 county atlas. I also don’t know if anyone lives on this particular parcel of land, but the GIS says a Rosbrugh still owns the land. I’ve also noticed there are not very many barns still standing that were built prior to 1900. Note the name of Hosea Rosbrugh on the barn. He lived from 1902 to 1973 and is buried in the Leesburg Cemetery.

Rosbrugh family farm in Kosciusko County

Red barn stands out on rural property in Jackson Township

When I was still working in Milford, for a while I had to take an alternate route part of the way when County Road 19 was being upgraded a few years ago. That meant driving on County Road 21. I noticed a beautiful red barn that looks like it has been taken care of. It is located north of County Road 142 on CR 21 near a meandering creek in Jackson Township of Elkhart County. This was once known as the Steffen farm and before they purchased it the property belonged to Alice and Milton Weaver for several years. In her book “Party Lines, Prayers and Privies,” Judy Steffen Lambert recalls her family moving to the farm sometime in the early 1950s. In the book it was noted the barn and the house were both at least 75 years old, meaning they were likely built sometime in the 1870s. It was also noted the road was still dirt, which was common for the county roads at that time. A few of them are actually still dirt roads. The barn had hand hewn timbers and a hay mow up top and also a grain bin. The lower level had a milking stable and loafing shed. It was quite common for barns to be multiple purpose in a time when cows were milked, chickens were raised, there were beef cows and more. Farming equipment could also be stored inside barns. I’m not sure if this property is still part of a farming operation. I just know the red barn caught my eye.

Old barn on CR 21 in Elkhart County

Building will help tell the story of the Beardsley family

One of my last interviews when I worked for The Papers in Milford was in Elkhart where a former carriage house of the Beardsley family at Main and Beardsley was being renovated by the Ruthmere Museum. It is believed it was originally built in 1874 and first used as a carriage house. It was an agricultural outbuilding with stables. In about 1912 it was separated from the farmstead and sold as a separate property. After that, it was an automotive repair shop and then likely in the 1920s or 1930s was converted into a house. When converted, the house was built inside the original shell of the building. Ironically, a fire in the building led to the Ruthmere Museum purchasing it. After receiving public input, it was decided the building would become the Beardsley Discovery Center, which will be used a visitor center for the museum. This is an interesting place to visit and a lot of the history of the city of Elkhart can be discovered at Ruthmere. There is more to see than just the mansion once owned by the Beardsley family.

Beardsley carriage house in Elkhart

Former advertisement for a chick hatchery is seen in Milford

This week’s post is somewhat unusual. A few years ago while walking in downtown Milford, where I used to work, I noticed a painting of a baby chick on the upper level and one side of an old building. After doing some checking, I was told it was once an advertisement for a baby chick hatchery in Milford. At one time there was a brick building between the Oppenheimer building and the railroad tracks on Emeline Street, just east of Main Street. The hatchery was located in that building, which is no longer there. Apparently there was an alley way underneath the building where the advertisement was about a block north of the hatchery on Main Street. The alley way is also no longer there. You can probably see both buildings are joined now. I gathered this information from posts on a Facebook page posted by those with memories of growing up in Milford. I don’t have specific dates except that the hatchery was likely in business in the 1950s. Small businesses were more likely to make it in those days before large poultry operations took over and crowded out the smaller operators. It was common back then to have much smaller operations and farmers had a little bit of everything on their farms. I am also told the baby chick will eventually be repainted in order to preserve some of Milford’s history.

Former advertisement for hatchery in Milford

Episcopal church has a very long history in Goshen

I have driven by it literally hundreds of times and I can see St. James Episcopal Church in Goshen, Elkhart County, is a very old church. It is located on East Lincoln Avenue. According to a history book about Goshen, the cornerstone for the church was laid Aug. 22, 1860. The building was consecrated two years later. From 1862 to 1887, pews in the church were rented. I also read the church has its roots in a missionary pastor from Howe, Indiana, who came to the town to preach in the late 1850s. Some men got together and formed a church in a local meeting house. It was used until the current church was built in the 1860s. The church had its ups and downs for many years until the Rev. Bruce Mosier arrived in 1948. He initiated reforms in the church and served as priest until he retired in 1968. The church is a beautiful old brick building. I also recently read a new pastor was hired in 2023. Through the years the church was renovated and repaired extensively. I am not sure how much of the church is still original, though it appears on the outside it still looks at least somewhat original.

St. James Episcopal Church in Goshen

Town of North Webster once had its own movie theater

Even in small towns, single screen movie theaters used to be much more common than they are today. Of course the large, multiple screen theaters replaced them often and then came DVDs, Netflix and more. The town of North Webster in Kosciusko County once had its own movie theater on Main Street. The building still stands and is shown in this week’s photo. It wasn’t easy finding information about the former theater. Most of what I found came from a response to a post on one of those “I Remember Growing Up In…” Facebook pages. According to the county GIS, the concrete block building was built in 1945. It showed first run movies and one of the memories shared on the Facebook page was a movie made in 1947 with local people used as actors. It appears the theater thrived in the decade of the 1950s when a lot of popular movies were shown such as “Giant” and some John Wayne, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies. It appears the theater was closed sometime in the 1960s. It was also noted for a single dollar you could buy a movie ticket, popcorn and some candy. Auctions were held in this building too. The movie projectors were likely auctioned off in 2022. I assume the building is still standing, but I know it was slated for demolition at some point.

Former movie theater in North Webster