(This article first appeared in the March print edition published Feb. 28)
My wife and I were motoring south recently past the Cresline Plastic Pipe plant. She remarked that Cresline had been an uncommonly enduring name in our community, since before we moved here 44 years ago.
Impermanence is a surprisingly permanent feature of our world. Very little stays the same. Dust to dust, and all that.
I give you as evidence the brick gateways at the beginning of the RiverWalk, up by Park Field.
A little over 30 years ago, a community beautification organization called Operation Community Pride, under the guidance of Eddie Davis, sought to carve a walking path that would encourage citizens to get out and take a stroll. In those early days, it would wind a little over a mile from Park Field to 12th Street. But the money needed to pave an approximately seven-foot-wide asphalt path hugging the Ohio River didn’t grow on trees.
So the OCP folks hit on the idea to ask people, companies and organizations to pony up some dough and, in return, have their names carved in stone.
Or at least on bricks.
By my count, 400 donors agreed to the proposition. The vast majority, 360 in all, contributed enough to qualify to get their name engraved on a brick in the RiverWalk’s gateways. Another 40, mostly businesses, donated enough to warrant their names being emblazoned on bronze plaques.
I can only speculate as to their motivations. Many, I’m sure, figured it was a worthy community improvement, and they weren’t wrong. The RiverWalk is a jewel, a delight for people wanting to stretch their legs: to walk themselves or a dog, to jog, to push a baby (or, so help me, a little dog) in a stroller. I’m grateful to those donors from back in 1992 or thereabouts.
But it is striking how many of those businesses and organizations have since changed names, slipped from our community or vanished altogether.
Let me just share from among the 40 donors who gave enough to warrant a plaque:
The Raymond B. Preston Family Foundation was among the biggest contributors, and, happily, it is still a force in Henderson. The Henderson Moose Lodge #732 is still kicking as well.
But some of the other big donors have, well, changed.
Community Methodist Hospital years ago became, simply, Methodist Hospital and then, for financial reasons, was absorbed into Evansville’s Deaconess Hospital. Still around, but going by a much different name.
Farmers Bank & Trust Co. was long ago acquired by Evansville’s Old National Bank.
And Peabody Coal Co., which back then was headquartered atop a hill beside Henderson’s cloverleaf, not only is no longer based here, but hasn’t a single mine in Kentucky anymore.
Smaller donors have undergone vast changes as well. Great Financial Bank, never a major a financial player here, is no more; its office is now a branch of US Bank.
Sani-Clean Services morphed into Sitex, but earlier this year was sold to Cintas and will undoubtedly adopt that name.
KB Alloys is now AMG Aluminum.
Dempewolf Ford became Henderson Ford, and is now Kate Faupel Ford.
Eaton Corp. long ago was purchased by Dana Corp. PB&S Chemical years ago became Brenntag Mid-South. Alcan Ingot was bought by Century Aluminum. Ohio Valley National Bank is now Field & Main Bank. And Unison Transformer Services is now the Norsk Hydro aluminum recycling mill.
Period Furniture burned up in a spectacular wintry fire, relocated to Madisonville, and now is no more. Audubon Paving evaporated as a corporation not long after the RiverWalk opened. Frank G. Schmitt closed years ago. Ditto for the law firm of Sheffer Hoffman Thomas Morton & Lee.
The Gleaner still exists, barely, but with neither an office nor any full-time employees.
Yes, some donors remain. WalMart. Royster’s Machine Shop. J-Ron Molded Products. Both the Benton-Glunt and Rudy-Rowland funeral homes. The Henderson Rotary Club and the Henderson City Lions, although the Henderson Lioness(es) are a memory.
And, reassuringly, Cresline Plastic Pipe, which was a RiverWalk donor.
The donations commemorated in those bricks and plaques weren’t wasted. They made a tangible and appreciated difference still enjoyed today. If those companies, or names, no longer exist, at least they are preserved as ghost names, like Delker Brothers. Newberry’s. Spencer Chemical. Kraver Theater. Ruby’s Café. Barret Manual Training High School.
How about Operation Community Pride itself? Its 1992 plaque welcomes visitors to “Henderson’s River/Park Walk,” a name that didn’t last a minute after its opening. It’s just the RiverWalk, right?
OCP survived the retirement of Eddie Davis and operated for several years under Nola Bernstein. After she retired, there was no life left. OCP expired in about 2010.
But its legacy in the RiverWalk — like the legacy of all those donors, 30-plus years ago — lives on.
We’re a better community for it.
