South Calhoun Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana

By special request from Kevin over at Urban Indy, this is a post following South Calhoun Street in Fort Wayne from Rudisill to Murray Street, which is right before the overpass that leads you into downtown. It's an eclectic stretch full of great old buildings and signs and now with a mix of ethnicities breathing life into it. (click photos for larger image)

At 3702 S. Calhoun is Southside Vacuum, in business since 1947!

This building at 2730 S. Calhoun is the Calhoun Street Emporium. We love the top of the building where the name Leland is with 19 and 23 on either side of it.

At the Pontiac and S. Calhoun intersection, we liked the detail at the top of this building.

We couldn't tell what this rusty round thing on the side of the Rialto Theatre was from the street but, from the picture, we see that it reads "police alarm".

The gorgeous Rialto Theatre has had many lives. Right now, a non-profit is in the midst of restoring it into the "Rialto World Cafe and Cultural Center- a gathering place to engage and serve the growing international community".

This is a detail at the top of the building right next to the Rialto which is the store Finders Keepers.

And this is the wide shot of the Finders Keepers building at 2608 S. Calhoun. You can see both eagles at the upper corners.

At 2124 S. Calhoun is the adorable City Glass shop.

At 2302 S. Calhoun is Mannie's Place which Manta.com says was established in 1948.

We loved the look of the Mungovan and Sons Mortuary at 2221 S. Calhoun.

OK, St. Patrick's church is actually on Harrison, not Calhoun, but it was so gorgeous seen from the mortuary parking lot that we had to include a couple of pictures.

Hopefully something will go into this building at the corner of S. Calhoun and W. Masterson.
The Oyster Bar Restaurant building at 1830 S. Calhoun is so cute that we have to show 2 views.

We adore the people behind Calhoun Street Salads and Spirits for making this building look so good!

We had to take a picture of the public phone outside of Saigon Restaurant because they are a rarity now and will probably soon be obsolete.

We love old advertisements painted on the sides of buildings. This one was at Dewald and S. Calhoun.
The gorgeous Troy Laundry building at 1717 S. Calhoun which, according to this site, was built in 1914 and is one of only 3 remaining buildings in Fort Wayne with a glazed terra cotta facade (one of the other ones is the Rialto).

We loved the look of this building at S. Calhoun and Murray Street but had no idea what the HBC at the top meant. It turns out that it stands for Holsum Baking Company.

Little Blessings Bath & Body Products Made in Indiana

We weren't in a buying mood when we were at the Indiana State Fair in August but we are so glad that we picked up a brochure for Little Blessings who had some goat's milk lotions and soaps for sale there. We checked out their website and placed an order for some soaps, lotions, and even some incense. Their products are "proudly made in Indiana", Larwill, Indiana to be exact, and they are all natural. Some of our order was for gifts but some was for us and we love the lotion. It's fragrant without being overpowering, not greasy but feels luxurious. They even have a musk lotion which can be hard to find. We also love that the prices are really reasonable. The cute 2 oz. bottles of lotion are $2.50 (that just screams stocking stuffer to us) and 8 oz. bottles are only $6.50. We can never have enough of this kind of stuff and it makes us happy to patronize Hoosiers lovingly making such great products.

Lustron Homes in Fort Wayne, Indiana

This month's Midwest Home magazine has an article about a "Lustrous Lustron" home in Minneapolis, MN but there are plenty in Indiana. As it so happens, there are several Lustron homes within walking distance of Mrs. WYA!'s parents' house so those are the ones highlighted here. Lustron homes were post WWII prefabricated porcelain-enameled steel houses made for those who wanted a low maintenance home. We've never been inside one but we think that they are intriguing. These are in a lovely older neighborhood in Fort Wayne so we recommend spending a gorgeous afternoon or morning making your own walking tour to see them.

4105 S. Webster:

316 W. Fleming:

415 W. Maplegrove Avenue:

Be sure to check out the Strand Theatre's website for info about their B Movie Celebration and Tromadance Film Festival this weekend.

My Space Music Finds

Occasionally we get emails from marketers and individuals wanting us to promote things on the blog. Generally we just delete them unless it is something that genuinely grabs our interest. The music of local artist Pres Maxson we do genuinely like. Take a listen on his MySpace page (where you can also download the songs for free).



We also recently checked out another musician's MySpace page because a paper that we picked up in Columbus, Ohio had an article about her comparing her to an angry Patsy Cline. How could we not listen to Lydia Loveless after reading that? We are looking forward to her first CD.

Attention horror movie fans, the Dark Carnival film festival is coming up; September 28th- October 4th , 2009 in Bloomington, IN.

We can't really say that we do much tailgating and we're not really traditional people anyway so for our tailgating food contribution, we just tried to think of foods that sound good at around 10AM and some classic Autumn flavors.

We made a couple of basic quiches:

Mrs. WYA! used her old family recipe for dough to make these cinnamon rolls of her childhood. We'd share the recipe with you but it's one of those family secret things.


We love molasses, especially in the fall:


Molasses Crinkles

Mix thoroughly:

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup dark molasses


Sift together and add:

2 1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt



Chill 2 hours and roll into balls the size of large walnuts. Dip tops into granulated sugar and sprinkle with a couple drops of water. Bake 10 mins. at 375 degrees. Do not overbake. These cookies should be set but not hard. They are soft cookies and freeze well.

Butterscotch is another great autumn flavor.


Butterscotch Party Mix

Ingredients:

2 cups oven-toasted cereal squares
2 cups small pretzel twists
1 cup dry-roasted peanuts
1 cup (about 20) caramels, unwrapped, coarsely chopped
1 2/3 cups (11 oz package) butterscotch morsels



Directions:

COAT 13 x 9-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

COMBINE cereal, pretzels, peanuts, and caramels in large bowl. Place morsels in medium, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on Medium-High power for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10 to 20 second intervals, stirring until smooth. Pour over cereal mixture; stir to coat evenly.

SPREAD mixture into prepared baking pan; let stand for 20-30 minutes or until firm. Break into small pieces.

A September Saturday in West Lafayette

We actually don't follow college football but, an opportunity to hang out with friends who are like family on a gorgeous September day with good food- who couldn't get into that?!

Scenes from... Centerville, Indiana

There are several arches along Main Street; many have plaques with dates and names.

How perfect, a classic car on Main Street:

The Old Salisbury Courthouse just behind Mansion House on Main Street. Built in 1811, it was Wayne County's first seat of justice:

It's always fun to browse at White River Architectural Salvage:

We're Chester Morris fans so, while we really wanted this huge poster, we were pretty sure it was out of our budget, pretty sure we'd have to rent a flatbed trailer to get it home, and pretty sure we don't have a wall big enough for it.

On North Morton Avenue:

The school mascot must be the Bulldog because we saw lots of Bulldog pride around town. This statue was in the park off of Morton Avenue:

We definitely recommend a stop at the Centerville Farmers' Market. While there was some fresh produce, there was even more cute home decor items and private label foods like jars of marinated mushrooms, lots of pickled treats, and some delicious dill garlic that we bought.

Mums and pumpkins: a classic Autumn combo. We bought pumpkins and an awesome gourd that was only $1.

Here are some of the cute things that they have for the home:

Their private label soda- we liked the root beer:

They had a whole Christmas room:

As we walked Centerville's Main Street and took pictures, we really felt like we could be on assignment for a publication like Midwest Living. It's just so darn picturesque that it seemed like it would be gracing the pages of a glossy magazine. We're sure that once the fall foliage starts to hit its peak, it will be an especially perfect time to visit so we're giving you a heads up early so you can plan an autumn trip here.

After you visit Webb's and the Warm Glow Candle Outlet, you'll want to stroll a few blocks along Main Street to browse at the shops, see all of the Federal Style architecture, and maybe even grab a bite at the Brown Jug or Blue Monkey. It's an easy trip from Indy; you take a right at Exit 145 off of I-70, immediately to the left is the Warm Glow Candle outlet so you can hit that then or on the way home, 2.5 miles south from the exit is Webb's. From Webb's, you can walk or drive down the road (Centerville Road which becomes Morton Avenue), definitely stop in at the Centerville Farmer's Market & Country Store, and before you know it you are at Main Street. White River Architectural Salvage is at the corner of Morton and Main. We love their Indianapolis store so we had to stop in and browse this smaller version. There are a few shops on Main (and don't miss Mockingbird Antiques on Morton just south of the Main Street intersection) and, for architecture buffs, a lot of cool buildings to see. The Historic Centerville website has a great brochure that you can print to make your own walking tour. While there are some Italianate and Greek Revival styles represented, there are more Federal styles which we don't really remember running across much in our Indiana travels. They really give the place a sense of history; some of them date back to 1830.

Centerville is just way to close to Indy (65 miles from our east side home) and way too cute to miss.