In downtown Elkhart is the rounded corner of a 1940s telephone station with 1960s attachments.

Join me on my journey of ONLINE RESEARCH:

 

• The Elkhart County government says the building was erected in 1967. That seems reasonable for the end portions but not the central portion with the rounded corner. Hardly anybody was spending money on rounded corners in the late 1960s.

 

• Plus there's this postcard for sale which shows the building as the "Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation." The postcard looks like it's from before the 1960s. Moreover, a 1962 newspaper article reprinted at this blog asserts that the Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation changed its name to General Telephone Company of Indiana, Inc., in 1952.

 

• According to my online review of Polk city directories of the city of Elkhart at the library edition of Ancestry.com, a funeral home was located at this site in 1945, and the Indiana Associated Telephone Corporation was located here in 1947.

 

• Therefore I hereby assert that the central portion of this building was probably erected sometime between 1945 and 1947; and that at least one of the wings was probably added in 1967. Voilà!

 

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In downtown Elkhart, Indiana, on May 30th, 2020, at the northwest corner of South 2nd Street and West Lexington Avenue.

 

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Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names terms:

• Elkhart (2031713)

• Elkhart (county) (1002353)

 

Art & Architecture Thesaurus terms:

• additions (general components) (300055458)

• corners (attribute or configuration) (300404760)

• curved (300010305)

• dimension stone (300070045)

• intersections (300003871)

• panels (surface elements) (300069079)

• polishing (300053867)

• Streamlined Moderne (300253564)

• telephone exchanges (300005416)

• traffic signals (300003915)

• veneer (material) (300012855)

 

Wikidata items:

• 30 May 2020 (Q57396761)

• 1940s in architecture (Q60996001)

• 1960s in architecture (Q11185676)

• 1967 in architecture (Q2812453)

• Elkhart–Goshen metropolitan area (Q6173931)

• Frontier Communications (Q2974454)

• May 30 (Q2590)

• May 2020 (Q55019753)

• Michiana (Q1769502)

• Northern Indiana (Q7058433)

• signalized intersection (Q2940218)

• stone veneer (Q2470272)

• streetcorner (Q17106091)

• Treaty of Chicago (Q928799)

 

Library of Congress Subject Headings:

• Telephone stations (sh85133431)

Done