Mrs. O'Boyle's Terra Cotta Barber Shop

This item appeared in the "Local Drifts" of the Hobart Gazette of April 26, 1901:

Mrs. O'Boyle has had constructed a small one-story terra cotta building on her property on Main street opposite the Hobart House, which will be occupied by Mel Ostrander as barber shop. Mr. Ostrander was compelled to leave the Passow building, owing to the firm of Passow & Killigrew needing the basement room in their business.

In the same issue, Mel Ostranger ran this notice: "I desire to notify my customers that I expect to be located in my new quarters, opposite my present barber shop, about next Tuesday."

If we look at the 1902 Sanborn map, we see a "hollow tile" building roughly across from the Hobart House.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Sanborn Company, Indiana University, Historical Information Gatherers, Inc., and the IndianaView consortium.

It would have been nice if the mapmaker had written "barber shop," but unfortunately the building was vacant when the map was drawn up. All the buildings north of it have since been demolished or moved. I wonder if that terra cotta or hollow tile building could still be standing, as the north wing of the Main Street Station? The county property records give a date of 1874 for the Main Street Station building — only the "paving" dates to 1901 …


(Click on image to enlarge)

… but the north wing wasn't there in 1895.