Downtown Evansville In 1915
by Pat Sides
The old Vanderburgh County Courthouse, built in the late 1880s, dominates the skyline in this early nineteenth-century image. All of the buildings in the foreground, mostly residences, are gone now, as is the brick commercial structure positioned between them.
At the far left is a church. Originally named the German M. E. Church, it had been standing at Fourth and Vine streets since the 1860s, but strong anti-German sentiment during the First World War forced a name change to Fourth Street M. E. Church. Vacated in 1937, the building functioned as the Courthouse Annex until it was razed in 1973.
The light brick building at right was erected in 1909 as the Furniture Exchange Building, where Evansville’s numerous furniture manufacturing companies could display their products in over 60,000 square feet of space. Renamed the Court building in 1940, it now houses offices.
