This newest "Then and Now" features a bonus "Then."
These "Then and Now" images are all from CCHS's online photo archive, comprising over 17,000 images collected from every decade and generation of Carroll County's history. Within this collection are hundreds of views of Delphi's courthouse square and the surrounding businesses.
A good many of these views are of the South side of East Main St.
1875 is someone's pretty well-informed guess for the oldest view. Three of the seven buildings still on this block have already been built. Conspicuous in its absence is the magnificent corner block, to be erected 6 years later by Odd Fellows Lodge 28.
All the buildings in the 1928 view are still there today. Does anyone remember Quick & Clifford in the Odd Fellows building? Or recall eating in the Welcome Inn cafe? Can anyone recognize the parked cars in the 1928 view? I see a couple of Model Ts & As and the 2nd from right might be a Chrysler 60.
The view today is remarkably unchanged. The IOOF's magnificent mansard roof was lost in a January 2nd, 1955 fire. And 106 E Main, next door, is missing its 3rd floor. Was this from the 1955 fire? Somebody here knows, I'd bet.
The Russ building, already shabby in the 1875 view, was comically dilapidated before it was finally put out of its misery in 1909.
IOOF fire, Main & Washington Sts. January 2nd, 1955. It's fortunate that the rest of the building could be saved!