Fountain Square, Indianapolis
Fountain Square is one of seven designated cultural districts in Indianapolis, Indiana. Located at Fountain Square are three designated national historic districts: the Laurel and Prospect District, State and Prospect District, and Virginia Avenue District. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
In 1835, Calvin Fletcher and Nicholas McCarty purchased a 264-acre (1.07 km2) farm in what would become the Fountain Square neighborhood. Although the earliest settlement was sparse and primarily residential, substantial settlement and rapid commercial growth occurred in the area beginning in the 1870s. Much of the development was fueled by a large number of German immigrants settling in the area. German and German-American merchants helped to establish much of the character in this neighborhood.
The Virginia Avenue corridor began to emerge as the South side's commercial center in the 1860s. When the Citizen's Street Railway Company laid tracks down Virginia Avenue and located a turnaround at the intersection of Virginia Avenue with Shelby and Prospect Streets in 1864, the neighborhood began to be known as "The End" by local residents.
Fountain Square enjoyed continued growth as the southside's primary commercial district. The opening of the Fountain Square State Bank (1909), the Fountain Square Post Office (1927), Havercamp and Dirk's Grocery (1905), Koehring & Son Warehouse (1900), the Fountain Square branch of the Standard Grocery Company (1927), the Frank E. Reeser Company (1904), Wiese-Wenzel Pharmacy (1905), the Sommer-Roempke Bakery (1909), the Fountain Square Hardware Company (1912), Horuff & Son Shoe Store (1911), Jessie Hartman Milliners (1908), the William H. and Fiora Young Redman Wallpaper and Interior Design business (1923), the Charles F. Iske Furniture Store (1910), The Fountain Block Commercial Building (1902), and the G. C. Murphy Company (1929), are examples of this phenomenon.
Fountain Square also played an important part in the Indianapolis theater heritage. The area had more operating theaters than could be found in any part of Indianapolis from 1910 to 1950. Fountain Square continued to fill the role of "downtown" for the south side well into the 1960s, offering multiple movie/vaudeville theaters, independent banks, a wide range of retail, and churches/social centers serving a range of ethnicities.
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