National Register of Historic Places

Historic Bishop’s Palace in Galveston

/ Roadtirementvintage / 5 Comments

Known as Bishop’s Palace, this Victorian style mansion was originally the home of Josephine and Walter Gresham. Gresham was a railroad magnate and hired famed architect Nicholas Clayton to design the home. The structure was completed in 1892, and miraculously it survived the disastrous hurricane of 1900.


From 1923 until the 1960’s the house was used as the residence of the Bishop of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese. It is now owned by the Galveston Historical Foundation. Guided and self guided tours are available for an admission fee.


This stunning mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Locally in Galveston it is a contributing building in the East End Historic District, in its entirety a National Historic Landmark.

Polygonal barn built in 1910 in central Indiana

/ Roadtirementvintage / 8 Comments

In 1910 a Mr. George Rudicel constructed a rather unusual barn. It has twelve sides, thus the name polygonal. The cone shaped roof is capped with a polygonal cupola and it topped by a square smaller cupola. There is also a large dormer facing the road. This barn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. It is on CR 700S in Noble Township, Shelby County.

As seen from County Road 700S.

Note the face of the dormer matches the polygonal angled panels

Christmas Star on top

Round barns were designed for dairy farming, and were not useful for general farming use. By the late 1920’s round barns had fallen out of favor: there was an ag depression after WWI, and easy  to construct prefabricated barn packages were now available. There were 226 round barns in Indiana but 100 of these have vanished from the Hoosier countryside. Many round barns have been restored and are well maintained. The Rudicel barn, aka locally as the Montgomery round barn, is in need of maintenance and a good coat of paint.

 

The historic Bartholomew County Courthouse in Columbus, Indiana

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

Bartholomew County, Indiana is south of Indianapolis and is known for its architecture, public art and well known and long running industry. Columbus is the county seat, and thus is home to the County Courthouse. This striking edifice was designed by noted Indiana architect Isaac Hodgson. The building was constructed from 1871–1874 at the cost of (then)$250,000. The courthouse was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

A panorama view

The following Court House description is from Wikipedia: It is a three-story, Second Empire style red-brick building trimmed in limestone. It features a mansard roof, corner pavilions, Corinthian-order portico, and a six-level clock tower.  The clock tower is 154 feet tall. A six-inch thick, 10-ten clock bell was installed in 1875. The clock’s weighted mechanism were replaced with an electric motor in 1940 and a 900-pound weight fell.

We visited on a Saturday, so the building was closed. It would be interesting to see inside this county government building.