For this feature, we are taking a look at a neighborhood that minus one house is entirely a parking lot now. At the top, we see the houses on Montgomery Blvd. Except for a few, a majority of these were demolished in the 1980s when the Recreation Center (now the Anne C. Steele Center) was about to be constructed.
If the newspaper article above is in the time period I’m thinking of, 105 Montgomery Boulevard was one of those houses to be razed, despite the recent remodeling/repurposing. Someone should put a plaque inside the Steele Center commemorating the efforts of the people who worked on it, only to see it destroyed a few years later. Or at least a Facebook post to tell the remodelers “good job!” From Pat’s Blog Site, thank you for your hard work.
Across from Cambridge Hall is the Lowery House, which I believe was named after a professor (I’ll update this when I read Dr. William Fisk’s College history book again). After Lowery’s passing, the house was used by the university until 2002 when construction began on Caldwell Hall, and along with a few other houses along Stormont and Thompson, was torn down. Lowery House’s location and front is pictured below, with the lower image being used on the old Muskingum College website prior to the house’s demolition.
On Stormont, the ASAs took home to 154 for a short period of time, from the late 90s until 2001. Next to it was 152, which had been gone for a number of years prior to the construction of Caldwell Hall. Pictured below, the featured image is the former ASA House, with the brick house being 150 Stormont Street, then the college Wellness Center and Campus Police building. Also pictured is 148 Stormont, which is now located at 135 Lakeside Drive, and currently home to the Phi Mu Alpha (Sinfonia) fraternity.
Thompson Avenue had a couple of apartment buildings addressed at 104 and 106, both of which came down in 2002. 148 Stormont, along with 104 Montgomery, were the only two houses saved, with the former being moved to the former site of 135 Lakeside Dr. Photos of that event exist, though I have yet to see them uploaded anywhere and hope that changes.
One building I was unable to locate detailed pictures for, but able to write about its history, is the Comin Street Annex. It was constructed by a church community who would later become known as the Church of Christ. They held services in this building until the construction of a new building on Friendship Drive, closer to John Glenn High School. The church would sell the small building to the college, who in turn used it as an annex until its demolition in 2002 for the Caldwell Hall parking lot. As of this writing, I do not know what use the school made of it.
While the neighborhood, consisting of a total of 16 buildings, is entirely gone, its history is held up by one single house in its original place. 104 Montgomery, formerly the International House, currently houses Campus Police. The Wellness Center was moved to its own brand new building on the former site of the MACE House, behind the Lakeside Duplexes. Given that 104 Montgomery is nearly a century old, it’s likely that as much as life, it too, someday, shall pass, and its lot will find a new use.
I will be writing more posts on Muskingum College’s campus based on the numerous photos I’ve saved and collected over the past six years, although I do not intend to do it too frequently as I want my site to be diverse on its architectural studies.
Sources:
– Muskingum County Auditor for the addresses
– Google Earth Satellite imagery from April 1994
– Muskingum College Muscoljuan Yearbooks from 1940-1986
Pat's Blog Site 