Eagles Home (Evansville, Indiana) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Eagles Home
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Front and side of the Eagles Home
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| Location | 221 NW 5th St., Evansville, Indiana |
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| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1912 |
| Architect | Boyle, Harry E. |
| MPS | Downtown Evansville MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 82000090 |
| Added to NRHP | July 1, 1982 |
The Eagles Home is an old building in Evansville, Indiana. It was built in 1912 by an architect named Harry Boyle. Over the years, it has been used for many different things. It was once a clubhouse, then a college, and now it's a law office. This special building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Today, it is the Evansville office for the Jackson Kelly law firm.
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The Fraternal Order of Eagles
This building was first built in 1912 for a group called the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Harry Boyle, a local architect, designed it. The Eagles group started with people who worked in performing arts, like actors and musicians.
Over time, the Eagles grew much bigger. They are known for helping to create the Mother's Day holiday in the United States. They also helped push for Social Security, which helps people with money when they retire. Their meeting places are called "aeries."
The Eagles group also offered many benefits to its members. For example, they helped pay for funerals. They also provided a doctor for their members. These benefits made the group very popular.
Expanding the Clubhouse
The local Eagles group in Evansville was very successful. Because they had so many members, they added more space to the building in 1940. This made the building much larger, with 32,000 square feet across three floors.
By 1965, the group started thinking about moving to a new place. However, their rules about who could join caused some delays. By 1968, they found a new location. It was a building on a large piece of land west of Burkhardt Road.
Lockyear Business College
In the late 1800s, several business colleges opened in downtown Evansville. This was probably because the typewriter had just been invented. Melvin H. Lockyear helped start Columbian Business College in 1893. Four years later, it became Lockyear Business College.
The college moved to a new building in 1911. This building was right next to the Eagles Home. In 1968, Lockyear Business College bought the Eagles Home building. They used it as a students' union, which is a place for students to gather.
College Programs and Closure
Lockyear Business College taught regular business classes. They also had a very popular sales training program called Dale Carnegie. More than 6,000 people finished this program by 1962.
The college was almost 100 years old when it closed in April 1991. The owners had financial problems. In 1992, the Eagles Home building was sold. A bank bought it because the college had not paid back its loans. The original college building next door was torn down in 1993 to make a parking lot. But the Eagles Home building stayed standing.
New Life as Offices
In 1994, the Eagles Home building was changed into office spaces. An accounting group and a law firm moved in. The Kemper CPA Group used about 6,500 square feet. The law firm of Mattingly, Rudolph, Fine and Porter used about 5,700 square feet on the second floor. This law firm later became Rudolph, Fine, Porter & Johnson, LLP ("RFPJ").
By 2006, RFPJ and Lockyear Title used the entire building. Later, RFPJ joined with the Jackson Kelly law firm. The building is still used as a law office today.
