Shown is the west side of First Street in Pierceton, circa 1905. This view looks north from the alley toward Market Street. The brick buildings, constructed shortly after a fire in 1895 destroyed all the frame buildings on the west side of the street, still stand today, other than the Hayes Block and the Record Building on the far right. Photo from Whitko Community Digital Image Project, Pierceton Public Library, Fred and Nedra Beebe collection.

News Release

PIERCETON — Do you enjoy learning about Pierceton history and reminiscing about past times? Come to the Pierceton Community Building, 105 W. Walnut St., at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 23, for a free presentation of “Picturing Pierceton: Images of Our Town, Then and Now.”

Pierceton native Joan Hostetler, a historian and archivist in Indianapolis, will showcase dozens of photos, particularly of the downtown commercial blocks, submitted by residents for the Whitko Community Digital Image Project. Hostetler has been gathering the history of the community since 2010 and is compiling the “Encyclopedia of Pierceton,” an updated town history.

The digitization project, sponsored by the Pierceton Library, will host two scan-a-thons this weekend to copy local history photographs and memorabilia. Bring items of the Whitko community either to the Pierceton School Alumni Banquet at the Pierceton Elementary School from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, June 22, or to the Pierceton Community Building between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Scan-a-thon reservations are recommended; contact [email protected] or (317) 771-4129 to reserve a time for your items to be scanned.

The community archive seeks photographs and documents from any era of houses, businesses, barns, rural or everyday life, interesting people, snapshots and portraits, town pioneers, churches, schools, school activities, class photos, clubs and organizations, soldiers, street scenes, etc. Project staff find that people are too selective. So, when in doubt, bring along your album or box and they will help you select the items. Only copies are needed, so originals will be scanned and returned to the owner at the event. Write pencil captions on the back and place them in a folder with your name on it.

To view a sampling of items copied so far, visit the “Memories of Pierceton” Facebook page or Indiana Memory, a database of the Indiana State Library: http://cdm16066.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15078coll28.

Pierceton School yearbooks from 1948 to 2007 are digitized and keyword searchable at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/whitkocommunitydigitalimageproject.

Shown is the Hayes Block in Pierceton, northeast corner of First and Market streets, in the early 1920s. The view looks from the roof of what is now The Post at the partial demolition of the 1880s Hayes Block. The corner of the old brick block was removed to install a corner gas station, known through the years as King’s, Conley’s and Stickler’s station. The rest of the building was razed in the 1990s and today the Pierceton Senior Center is on the site. Photo from the Whitko Community Digital Project, Jack Phillps collection, Walter Long negatives.