The County Line
Over the years our readers have probably noticed the small bell house on the east lawn of the county courthouse. It’s an unusual type of memorial. The bell within the structure is about the only tangible reminder of a bittersweet chapter in Hamilton County history.
It is from the County Poor Farm, later considered the County Home.
Presumably it was used to summon residents of the institution for meals. County residents with no financial resources, and often aged with no one to care for them, were committed to the home.
Recent publicity about Indiana’s county homes reminded me about ours.
Apparently, there are still 10 county homes in the state in operation. The Hamilton County Poor Farm and home were located along Cumberland Road on the site of the present Noblesville High School. The farm originally was about 160 acres and included land east of Cumberland Road where the county corrections complex is now located.
The three-story brick “home” was built in the post-Civil War years and was well populated for many years. Even orphans with nowhere to go were taken in. It was local government’s way of answering a social need. Residents did farm work like most of the county’s population did at the time.
But, following World War II there was probably an increasing stigma attached to being a county home resident and those who lived there were growing too old for farm work. So the farming operation was abandoned. Then in the 1960s with the advent of Medicaid it became obvious the era of the county home was ending.
By the 1970s the century old home with architecture akin to Gothic looked dreary and forbidding. But, Director Basil Conrad and his wife did their best to maintain clean and comfortable living conditions for the dwindling number of residents. Finally, about 1980 the place was closed and the last 25 or 30 old folks were moved out, mostly to nursing homes.
For several years, there were discussions about letting a private firm renovate the building for low income housing. But, then one night fire swept through the vacant structure. It was completely destroyed. Arson was never ruled out.
The bell and the bricks used for its housing, were about the only items salvaged. It’s a sort of memorial to a bygone institution, but the significance of its history has faded.