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Downtown Columbus Indiana: Redevelopment Area (Homes)
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About The Historic Columbus Indiana Website Bartholomew County Directory 1903 -- 1904 Columbus Indiana: A Day In The Life... Columbus Indiana: Downtown Pictures 1966 Columbus Indiana Fire Department Columbus Indiana Picture Collections Columbus Indiana Historic Postcards Columbus High School Yearbooks and Logs 1916 --1970 Historic Columbus Indiana Site Map I Discover Columbus, by Will Marsh Illustrated Columbus Indiana 1914 -- 1915 John Crump: Columbus Indiana Pioneer Links to other Columbus Indiana-related sites Old Historic Columbus Indiana Website |
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The above map depicts the street layout of downtown Columbus in the mid-1960's. You will notice that Jackson Street is not blocked off by the Commons Mall. It once was used as a major artery feeding through the city, but it looked much different than it does now. Railroad tracks ran along Jackson, somewhere between 5th Street and 13th Street, and somewhere just past 11th Street, toward the west of Jackson Street, was the switching yard.
For those of you who did not grow up in Columbus, but moved here after the mid-1970's, it would be hard for you to imagine what the downtown area used to look like. Beginning in the early 1960's, an effort was made to "clean up" the downtown area. The first beginnings of this was Death Valley. Many are curious about this part of Columbus, for good reason. The living conditions in Death Valley were a small step away from what we now call homeless. People did have shelter, if you want to call it that. Infestations of rats and floods only added to the existing problems the people of Death Valley had to endure, not to mention how they were viewed and treated by the people of Columbus. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see men with burlap sacks, walking along the tracks which straddled Jackson Street, searching for coal that might have fallen off train cars, to heat their dwellings. I have a feeling that Death Valley existed for quite some time, dating as far back as the late 1800's. In one of the news shorts on the Columbus Indiana: A Day In The Life web page, mention is made of a family camping along the banks of the White River, just off 4th Street. It is very possible that this type of lifestyle was the beginnings of Death Valley.
Death Valley wasn't the only area targeted for redevelopment by the city. Many houses and businesses once lined the areas where the post office is, as well as the entire area due south. First, Second, Third, Fourth, Lindsay, Jackson, and Brown Streets held homes and neighborhoods where people lived and worked.
If you've visited the Columbus Indiana: Downtown Pictures 1966 web page, you've certainly got a taste of what Columbus looked like back in the 1960's. But, that's only a small picture of the whole.
Offered here are some other pictures of the homes from the area at that point in time. You can reference, in general, where the homes were located by referring to the above map. The "100 block addresses" would have begun at Lindsay Street, running east (or, from left to right in the above picture). Even addresses were on the left hand side of the street if traveling east (north side), and odd numbered addresses on the right side (south side).
Maybe More Pictures Will Follow |
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