A horse and buggy amble quietly over Pigeon Creek on the new Maryland Street bridge in 1909, soon after it replaced a wooden one that had linked the city to the West Side since the 1880s. In the distance are the Globe Furniture Company and the World Furniture Company, which in 1910 merged with the Bosse Furniture Company to form what was advertised as the “largest furniture manufacturing plant in the world.â€
Waves of German immigrants in the nineteenth-century brought their wood-working skills to Evansville, and with the abundance of hardwood in the region, furniture manufacturing became a dominant industry. By 1927, twenty-seven furniture companies operated in Evansville, many of them on the West Side.
As the industry expanded in the early 1900s, businessmen called for a new, wider bridge over the creek to expedite access to the many factories in the area. Some of the buildings in the district are now gone, but enough remain to recognize its footprint.Â
