New Carlisle Historical District

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As the importance of the railroads and the interurbans began to be challenged by the rise of the • automobile,New Carlisle's location on an improved road again contributed to its continuing prosperity. The Lincoln Highway,the first of the privately administered transcontinental roads to be routed in response to a rising public demand for better roads,crossed northern Indiana via Fort Wayne, South Bend,LaPorte, Valparaiso,and Schererville. Essentially completed in 1915, the Lincoln Highway passed directly through New Carlisle on Michigan Street,the old Michigan Road. In 1919 the newly formed State Highway Commission designated the Lincoln Highway as a"main market road,"preparatory to setting up Indiana's state highway system. In the 1920s the federal government laid the foundation for its highway network, and designated the route running through the top row of counties in northern Indiana,which included parts of the old Michigan Road from South Bend to Michigan City, as US 20. Many other small towns along the new highway, such as Rolling Prairie about five miles to the west, were bypassed in the 1920s and 1930s, but New Carlisle was spared, perhaps owing to the topographical difficulties any feasible bypass route would encounter. Traveling the highway brought tourists and local fol alike right into town, where numerous thriving businesses vied for their trade. For decades New Carlisle's downtown offered a variety of commercial establishments, including several groceries, drugstores, and dry goods shops, a hardware store, and after 1921, the town library. During the early twentieth century there were even two banks downtown, until the Depression caused the closing of the Farmers State Bank. That building, constructed in 1919, still stands at 136 East Michigan,presently housing an insurance company. The former First National Bank of New Carlisle at 114 East Michigan i (built 1900)has evolved into the present Norwest Bank. The site had earlier housed a dry goods store owned by Service and Son, which had included banking services, a not uncommon practice in Midwestern towns in the nineteenth century. Almost ninety percent of the commercial buildings present in 1930 in the 100 block of East Michigan still stand today. Although almost none of them house the same sort of business as then,yet there is still as wide a variety of commercial services offered out of these buildings as in the past. The residential portion of the New Carlisle Historic District represents nearly the full range of architectural styles popular and likely to be built in a small Midwestern town thriving in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and as such is one of the best collections to be found in northern Indiana. Perhaps the most elegant residence in the district is the Ransom Hubbard house at 202 West Front Street, an outstanding example of an Italian Villa. Examples of the Italianate style in the district include 130 West Michigan,the George Service residence constructed in1875. Service was a member of the second generation of one of New Carlisle's most prominent families in the nineteenth century. Some vernacular styles were clearly influenced by the Italianate, such as 102 West Front Street and the ornately embellished 202 South Filbert. Besides Italianate,the other style influence most dominant in the district was Queen Anne. Two particularly fine examples are the frame dwelling at 122 West Michigan and the one of brick at 214 West Michigan,both constructed in the early 1890s. In addition, numerous vernacular