The government consists of a mayor and a city council. The mayor is elected in citywide vote. The city council consists of five members. One is elected at-large. The Boonville Airport is located two nautical miles 2. Boonville, Indiana. This article is about the city in Indiana. For other communities of the same name, see Boonville disambiguation.
City of Boonville, IN. Retrieved February 3, Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved July 16, Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved June 30, Census website". Retrieved December 11, May 24, Retrieved May 27, FIPS55 Data.
February 23, Archived from the original on June 18, An ticket was drawn from a pot and the audience member with the matching number won a cash prize. Eventually, Donald Julian bought the theater and turned it into a drug store, soda fountain and living quarters. Today, American Advertising calls the old Ritz Theater home.
Nationwide, countless small businesses failed, the stock market crashed and unemployment soared. In , a group of local leaders garnered funds to begin a garment factory. The factory stayed there only a year before outgrowing the space and moving to its final home on Second Street.
It was around this time that the name of the factory was changed to Embassy Apparel. Much of the merchandise was so elegant that it had to be drycleaned, even the underwear. The closest stores that sold items made in the Boonville factory were in Evansville. Embassy put Boonville on the map by filling orders made by some very well-known people. President Lyndon B. Stop in today to see if Aigner Hardware has what you need.
Main Street, Meyer Center, Boonville. Johnson ordered pajamas from the factory through Nieman Marcus. The pajamas made were a little different than the original plan — the pants had been cut too short so a cuff was added to the bottom.
Johnson loved the pajamas so much that he ordered more. American actor and singer Perry Como purchased shirts from the factory. Orders were also filled for underwear for soldiers during WWII.
The matierals used were a little different. The workers only had to strike once, demanding three weeks paid vacation per 1, hours worked. The mayor of Boonville, Bob Millis, helped the picketing workers by offering the high school parking lot as a picket line. The strike lasted only 17 days. Wages earned at Embassy were average for the time. In , the starting salary was 23 cents per hour.
When the union came in, employees were paid by the piece, which improved wages for everyone. By , earnings had gone.
By , that number had been cut in half and quality was suffering. Orders were being sent back as rejects. Soon, fewer and fewer orders were coming in. Embassy closed its doors for good in September Boonville The two-story white building that stood atop the hill splitting Locust and Main streets is long gone, torn down in Breckenridge, a millionaire who was born in Warrick County, donated the land for the specific purpose of making a home for the poor orphans of Warrick County.
It was to be built on what is known as Orphans Hill, and its boundaries would stretch to where TraderBakers and Tractor Supply are now. Three bedrooms upstairs were dedicated to the superintendent and matron of the home and four bedrooms downstairs were for the children. The rooms were set up as dormitories with cots set up like barracks. The children also had a large playroom near the front of the home.
To cut costs, the orphanage grew all of its own vegetables and raised its own livestock. The children were expected to help out with various chores around the house — the boys did the washing and ironing and the girls did the gardening and farming. The cooking, however, was done by the matron of the home. In the late s, two different Powers families took over running the home.
Ma and Pa, as they were known by the children, came to the orphanage after the death of their four children. The first Powers family was kind and compassionate to the orphans and were empathetic to the loss they had gone through. Though they had not had the best circumstances in their lives, the orphans had a nice life at the orphanage.
They were allotted 15 cents each weekend to go to the picture show at the Ritz Theater on the square. They were allowed to go to the big social events that Boonville hosted each year. Christmas was an especially fun time of year. After their Christmas Eve play at church, the children went straight to bed. In the morning, a beautiful Christmas tree was glittering in the playroom.
The Elks Club, in particular, gave each orphan a bag filled with candy and fruit. Once a child was adopted, the board visited the family often to make sure living conditions were satisfactory and that the child was well taken care of. They were also granted a day trial period to decide if the child was a good fit. Parents were expected to provide the basics — food, good clothing and healthcare. When the. As the country began to come out of the Great Depression, conditions improved and orphan care was no longer a necessity in Warrick County.
The last orphan left the home on July 8, The commissioners finally decided to have a tenant live in the home for one year. That person was to keep the home ready for a child to move in.
But the need was no longer there and the entire property was sold at auction in The home was torn down in The north side of the Boonville City Square has changed quite a bit since , when the top photo was taken. The county built a new judicial center to house all three county courts on the northeast corner of the square seen at far right in the photo below.
A portion of the south side of the Boonville City Square was destroyed by fire before the photo below was taken. Boonville Warrick Publishing has a history of providing news and advertising services to Warrick County dating back to In , Charles H. Johnson was hired by the Boonville Enquirer, later to become the Warrick Enquirer. For the next years, either Charles or his son, C. Richard Johnson, had a hand in producing at least one of the Warrick County newspapers, now operated by Warrick Publishing Company.
His son, C. Richard Johnson, became editor of the Boonville Standard in June of , the same year his father completed his 50th year in printing. The elder Mr. Johnson was promoted to foremen of the Enquirer the later part of In January , he accepted the foremanship of the. Boonville Standard and in December , a partnership was formed between Johnson and Thomas Downs, resulting in the purchase of the Boonville Standard on Jan.
He died in May following an extended illness. Richard Johnson joined the paper as editor following his graduation from Indiana University. After taking over sole ownership of The Boonville Standard, with his wife, Louise, following the death of his mother, he bought his next paper, The Newburgh Register in This was followed by the purchase of the Chandler Light, which was renamed The Chandler Post in The purchase of the Boonville Enquirer was made in , when illness resulted in the sale of Boonville's oldest newspaper by the owners, Mr.
David Newby. Editor Charles H. The newspapers represent years of combined service to the communities and citizens of Warrick County, a record few newspapers can boast. The papers were bought by Brehm Communications in Sadly, Johnson died in on Aug.
The family element is clearly reflected in the fact that Bill Brehm Sr. But in , when the railroad finally did reach Boonville, the depot was a center of town and county activity. The building survives, as does the railroad itself. But, while the building is now miles from the rails it once served, locomotives still trudge through the heart of the town.
America once moved on those twin bands of iron, and the history of Warrick County would not be complete without a nod to them. Boonville twice tried and failed to get a railroad in the middle s. In , a town meeting was held to discuss the matter. But at that time, there were no steam-powered railroads anywhere in southern Indiana. Terre Haute. Evansville is still the transportation and cultural center of the tri-state today because of it. And in , Boonville again tried to get a road of its own.
This time, the city gave a deposit to a local railroad company to get the work started. But, again, the project failed, mostly because the country was in the middle of a Civil War. Fortunately for Boonville, the third time was a charm. The line was projected to reach Bellefontaine, Ohio, but it never got close. Of course, in , no one really cared. The town threw a party when the track finally reached town on a summer afternoon.
The last rail was laid at 2 p. It was a sturdy wooden structure with separate waiting rooms for men and women, as well as ticket and express offices. The railroad sank into receivership in , though that was fairly common in those days. Almost every railroad.
The name of the road was changed to the Evansville Local Trade Railroad, and it did not extend past Boonville for seven years. Boonville residents could now buy anything from a bundle of shingles to new fashionable clothes to an out-of-town newspaper. Farmers could now sell their perishable goods to other towns, and coal mines boomed in the area.
In , the line was pushed to Gentryville and connected with another railroad that reached to the Ohio River at Rockport and went as far north as Jasper. That was the third name of the 7-year-old line, and not its last. Louis Consolidated Railroad in But the changes in ownership are also pretty common in 19th century rail lines. In , the line was sold to the Southern Railway, and it stayed that way for 90 years. Southern was a major company in the area, and it was a factor in the local economy.
You could also contact the Boonville town historian. His contact information is on the blog. Sorry we cannot provide much help.
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Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address:. Sign me up! Boonville Historical Club. Skip to content. Boonville History Hello and Welcome! During the American Revolution, while settlers in the Mohawk Valley were massacred in murderous attacks by the British and their Native American allies, the wilderness area to the north that would become Boonville remained unexplored.
The Treaty of Paris granted independence to the colonists, but it would be another 13 years before the first settlers arrived in what was originally called Kortenaer. Union School. Former Lutheran Church on James St. Bandstand in the Little Village Park. Erwin Library, Schuyler Street.
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