When 302 W 1st Street Came a-Tumblin’ Down (1973): The Storm House
By: derekandjenrichey
Tags: 1800s, 1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 2012, Bloomington, Bloomington Fading, Bloomington Then and Now, Historic, Indiana, Ketcham, Morton Street, Piercy, Storm House
Category: 1880s, 1920s, 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, 1st Street, Bloomington, Bloomington Fading, Monroe County, Morton Street, Then and Now, Uncategorized
| Aperture: | f/8 |
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| Focal Length: | 6.2mm |
| ISO: | 100 |
| Shutter: | 1/0 sec |
| Camera: | Canon PowerShot A3000 IS |
————————–302 W 1st Street as it would have appeared from Morton in 1973. The house had entrances on both the south, east and north sides. The big tree on the right still stands today.———————-
In 1973, a while before it was considered a good idea to preserve, restore and reuse old historic homes, 302 W 1st Street (once known as the “Storm House”) met a sad end under the forks of a bulldozer along the NW corner of Morton and 1st Street.
During the demolition of the Storm House no one knew much about its origins to the Storm family and their ongoing historic connections to the famous Monroe County pioneering family, the Ketchams. Nor did anyone know that the Storm family were also local settlers/pioneers of Monroe County.
In Monroe County (Indiana) Commissioners’ Book A (1818-1824), available at the Monroe County History Center, it is noted that in 1821, John Ketcham and John Storm were appointed “overseers of the poor” for Clear Creek Township. We do know that John Storm was a lawyer, and we’re all much more familiar with Colonel Ketcham’s history and local fame as state legislator, associate judge and builder of the first Monroe County Courthouse.
It turns out that future Ketcham and Storm families maintained their connections as the years went by even as those descendants of the original settlers moved further north to settle the land near 1st and Rogers, near what would become Indiana University. Absalom Ketcham (son of John) built a home on the NW corner of 1st and Rogers in the mid 1800s, where today stands the Bloomington hospital (Ketcham’s old red brick home was purchased and served as the first Bloomington hospital in 1905).
CLICK TO ENLARGE. Absalom Ketcham’s stately home along S Rogers Street became the first Bloomington Hospital in 1905.
Likewise, an unnamed Storm (son of John Storm) built his stately home just a block away along the NW corner Railroad Street (which would later become Morton Street) and 1st Street.
CLICK TO ENLARGE. 302 W 1st Street early in 1973 before the scavengers and looters ripped the front door off the home. This view is looking west taken from Morton Street.
The unnamed Storm named his new son Absalom K Storm in 1872 (after his dear friend and distant relative Absalom Ketcham?). Absalom had a son named Joseph who was so fascinated by the trains that passed by the Storm home as a child along Railroad Street that he became a railroad man. The house seems to have been inherited by Absalom K Storm, though it appears that he lived there through his youth and adult life.
In Absalom’s time in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the house was considered to be one of the “finest homes in Bloomington.”
According to former IU professor Josephine Ketcham Piercy (granddaughter of Mrs. Martha Ketcham and former IU professor) it was a beautiful and stately home. In a 1973 report on the home in Professor Warren Roberts archives, Josephine Piercy recalled being entertained in the parlor of the Storm house , both as a child and young woman. This was in the early 1900s. Josephine retired from IU in 1966, and unfortunately passed away in 1995, seven months short of her 100th birthday. What a joy it would have been to speak to her and get more information!
So it seems that the connections between the Storm, Piercy and Ketcham families endured from the 1820s to the 1920s. The connections with the Piercy family may have dated back much further than the 1900s, as George Ketcham’s (son of John and brother of Absalom Ketcham) middle name was in fact Piercy–this is according to Monroe County local, Gregory Travis, who resides and owns George Ketcham’s old home south of town).
CLICK TO ENLARGE This aerial shows the correct direction of the photographer in the black and white photo.
The Storm house eventually fell to Absalom’s son, Joseph Storm, around the 1940s or 1950s (the dates are unclear). It is here that things get a bit foggier— which is ironic in some ways because it is much more recent!
According to Professor Robert’s archived notes, Joseph Storm sold the house to an Andrew Bissey who in the 1950s turned the home into a 3 apartment unit house and did a number of additions and renovations. The 1949 aerial photos show the home still standing around this time. William Andrew Bissey worked for Hostess in Bloomington for over 30 years and died in 2000. His daughter, Ann Bissey Koontz can be found on facebook. Bissey sold the house to Joseph Wilson in 1961.
In 1973, Dr Warren Robert’s listed 302 West 1st Street as a “historic home” and had a student of his visit the home to document the demolition and take a last “goodbye” survey of the old house. The student’s notes reveal the trend of things as far as old houses went in the 1960s-1970s, and the many preceding years before it: old houses were one thing—old. It was the land, not the home, that developers saw as valuable.
CLICK TO ENLARGE. A student of Warren Robert’s at IU took photos of the home as it was razed. Professor Glassie, still at IU, lived only a block away at the time and is quoted in the report regarding the many vandals who damaged the purposefully abandoned home for “fun” prior to its demolition.
The notes reveal that in 1961 Joseph Wilson purchased the house and moved his family into the bottom floor and rented the top floors. Around the late 1960s, Joseph Wilson sold the house to Wayne Johnson, a local real estate developer who bought the home on the condition (according to Wilson) that the home be maintained.
According to Wilson, Johnson did not honor the agreement and left the house empty and abandoned for the purpose of letting it weather, decay and become a public nuisance. In a few years, the house began to fall into disrepair. Vandals broke windows, and teenagers damaged the inside by kicking in walls for “fun.”
CLICK TO ENLARGE. And then 302 W 1st Street was no more. From the Warren Roberts archives at IU.
Joseph Wilson explained further in 1973: “Wayne Johnson viewed the property as an investment in hopes to build income property, small houses or apartments. I later saw that he had no intentions to occupy it.”
Unfortunately, Wayne Johnson is no longer around to defend his decisions, as he passed away in 1997 at the age of 74. Regardless, his attitude about the old home and historic architecture were not unique at the time. Between 1949 and 1975, nearly 50% of all the oldest homes along College and Walnut Streets were demolished because they were deemed old, unmodern, and difficult to maintain. Moreover, the property was worth more than the deteriorating homes on them. There was a new wave of development underway, and a whole new thinking about living and architecture being forged—“ancient history” be damned.
Two years later, Bloomingtonians sat in amazement as the historic General Morton Hunter mansion was demolished in front of a crowd along N Walnut and 11th Streets. This gave birth to the preservation movement in Bloomington. Some people had finally had enough.
In 1973, the old Storm House was demolished and the history of the home, as well as its connections to the Ketcham, Piercy and Storm families were left in a box in Professor Warren Robert’s archives (after his death in 1999) somewhere in a storage room at the Lilly Library. Jennifer and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity, thanks to our friends at the library, to reawaken the past.
Today, the lot is owned by Michael May and Ann St John (who had nothing to do with the demolition of the Storm house).
CLICK TO ENLARGE. Absalom K Storm’s grave at South Union Church Cemetery in Monroe County. Rumors are his middle name was “Ketcham” though I have found no documentation to prove it. His date of death is unknown. He outlived his first wife and continued to live at 302 W 1st Street. Local newspaper reports have Absalom and his new wife living at the home in 1924. Absalom married Myrtle Billings in 1907, two years after his first wife passed away.
Bloomington Fading 
Excellent research, thanks! It’s interesting in the aerial photo to see the trees just south of the house, along First street….when the house was torn down and replaced by that weird brick earth-bermed structure that sits there now, the trees were so large that they had retaining walls built around their bases to protect them from the slope of the new berm immediately behind. Most (maybe all) the trees are now gone, but their retaining walls remain. I remember when the trees still stood; they were quite old and big.
Thanks Carrol! Those trees were gigantic. You can still see the stumps, and some of them are enormous. In the aerial, you can see those three large trees, and in the B/W photos you can see one of those large monsters on the right side. What could possibly be the reason for building such a gigantic mound to plop the new structure atop?
Earth-berm was cool in the 1970s. “Innovative building technology sweeps away obsolete structures,” something like that.
Does anyone else want to cry for the loss of so many historic homes and building? If I were rich, I would, without a second thought, buy these historic homes and buildings and preserve them, much like the City of Madison has done with theirs!
Re: the digression about the Absalom Ketchum home that became Bloomington Hospital: I remember the structure well. It was located immediately to the north of the later limestone hospital structure that was parallel to south Rogers St. In 1961-63 my wife worked in the building as a medical transcriptionist as the medical records department was located there. She was a 1961 IU grad with a degree in medical records, and worked while I finished my Masters at IU. She next became the director of the records department of the LaRue Carter Hospital on the IU Med Center campus. She recalls that the entrance used was probably on the southwest aspect of the brick structure, facing the then driveway to the emergency ward. Just inside that entry to the left was a counter behind which sat Linda Meister, department director; there were two other clerks; my wife was the only transcriptionist. Across from the counter was a group of dictation booths for the doctors. Also on the floor was a kitchen, a restroom and two or three other rooms for files. Dictations were done onto discs at that time, and consisted of operation summaries, admission summaries and correspondence. She recalls the medical staff being relatively small, no bigger than one or two dozen. She doesn’t recall the porch seen in the picture above. She recalls no other use for the building and has no recollection of the second floor.