Friday, June 4, 2010
Mysteries Toddle House / Church Mystery — SOLVED!
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 9:57 PM
- Photo courtesy Google Images
- First Congregational today
If you've been reading this blog (and really, what else is there to do?), you know I recently turned up an intriguing old photo of a Toddle House nestled in the shadow of a large Gothic Revival church, and everyone has been offering suggestions and theories about the precise location shown in the photo (see the previous post and all your comments below).
It was quite a mystery because the photo, dated 1937, had a notation scribbled on the back "Highland - St. Luke's." But even the folks at St. Luke's said it wasn't St. Luke's. And a caption at the bottom said "J.C. Stedman, Memphis" but I have since discovered that Stedman wasn't a local photographer, but was the developer of almost ALL the Toddle Houses built across the U.S.
And I can now say with 99.99% certainty that the buildings in the old photograph are NOT located on Highland. Not even close. In fact, they are not even located in Memphis.
The picture shows the First Congregational Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. It's still standing today, as you can see from the photos here, "borrowed" from Google and Bing, but the charming little Toddle House is now a parking lot, dang it. The photo here is taken from just about the same position as the original photo; the little red dot shows the approximate location of the old Toddle House. (Scroll to the next page for an aerial view that's a bit more clear.)
All credit for solving this vexing mystery must go to Laura Cunningham, who works in the history department at the Benjamin Hooks Central Library, with additional help pinpointing the correct structure from "critter42" here. Laura knew that the original photo had been mislabeled, and this afternoon, while I set about to slog through old city directories and newspaper files, she disappeared for about 10 minutes and then told me, "I found the church." And she was right.
What she did was truly astounding. Laura began her detective work by — no, I won't give it away here. I will let her research secrets remain a secret, but let me just say that I was very impressed, and the Lauderdales are rarely impressed by anything. Why should we be?
But, to show my gratitude, not only will I give her praise here, but a plug as well. Laura is the author of the very interesting book, Haunted Memphis, and she is currently hard at work on another, to be called Lost Memphis. I'd say she's also got a good start — the first few pages anyway — on a third book, Lost Columbus, Ohio.
And thanks again to critter42 for his fine detective work as well.
The church in Columbus has a long and rather fascinating history. I won't go into that here, because at the rate I'm going these days I will just get it wrong, so visit their site. Or better yet, drive to Columbus and see for yourself.
Though surrounded by parking lots and office buildings, the church has endured after all these years. Too bad we can't say the same about the little Toddle House that once stood next to it.
By the way, thanks also to Wayne Dowdy, the archivist at the main library for his always-capable assistance.
Whew! Now I can finally move on to other things. As soon as I think of them ...
- Photo courtesy Bing Images
- First Congregational today
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES AND BING IMAGES
Comments (7)
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According to Google, the Broad Street Methodist Church is slightly down the street - your description notes the "green serpentine stone" and if you look at the church at Broad and Washington in Street View on Google Maps, it certainly is green - which our mystery church is not.
After a bit of checking, it turns out this church is a half block east of the Broad Street Methodist Church. "Our" church is the First Congregational Church of Christ - see their webpage at http://www.first-church.org/ - the large round stained glass window is evident in their logo.
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critter42, a miracle has happened, and what was Broad Street Methodist Church just yesterday has somehow been transformed — overnight — into First Congregational Church of Christ. The people of Columbus work in mysterious ways.
I really have no idea how Laura determined the Toddle House was in Columbus, but she showed me how she used that address (visible on the door) to find the giant church that stood next to it, and — I'm skipping over many steps here — Google took her to Broad Street Methodist, and the "street view" showed the view of the church that I have posted here. I double-checked it with Bing and pulled up the aerial view. Nothing called First Congregational even came up — if it existed at all.
Yet today, I look at Google and Bing, and there it is: First Congregational. Somehow Broad Street has moved DOWN and ACROSS the street, and except for it being tall and pointy, doesn't look like the church we have been searching for, as you noted. I don't know what to make of it, but as you can see, I have corrected the blog post and given you credit for your fine detective work.
I just hope an entirely different church doesn't turn up on that site tomorrow.
Here is the website for Broad Street United Methodist Church. The address is 501 East Broad Street Columbus, Ohio 43215-3822
http://www.broadstreetumc.net/
Thanks, Laura. But though we initially thought the "mystery church" in the old Toddle House photo was Broad Street Methodist, critter42 pointed out that First Congregational Church of Christ is the actual church. It's just half a block away and on the other side of the street as the Methodist church, but if you go to their website (http://www.first-church.org/), and visit their "photo gallery" there's a nice photo of the church that is identical in every way with the church in the old photo. Unfortunately, regarding the Toddle House, the result is the same: it's STILL a parking lot, regardless of the church.
For what it's worth, I can verify from a directory of Toddle House locations, there was a location at 428 E. Broad Street, in Columbus. I'm researching Toddle Houses myself.
As a member of First Congregational Church, I can assure you that the picture is indeed our church. The parking lot to the left (a former Chrysler dealers used car lot) was recently purchased by the church and just dedicated last Sunday with the removal of the huge used car sign as the main event of the service. The Church plans to revitalize the space with a smaller parking area and much additional green space. The church address is 444 E. Broad St.
