(This article first appeared in the February print edition of the Hendersonian)
Visiting HistoricHenderson.com or its companion Facebook page is like Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.
It might be a photo of the tombstone in Fernwood Cemetery for Pvt. Herman L. Paff, killed in action in France on Oct. 3, 1918 during World War II.
Or a 1952 plat of a subdivision off Old Evansville Road (aka, North Elm Street near Barker Road) that envisioned streets like Woodland Lane and Memorial Drive that don’t exist today.
Or a 1966 photo of the new A&P Food Store at First and Green streets that now houses Tomblinson Funeral Home.
Or the Dec. 9, 1941 front page of the Henderson Morning Gleaner, reporting that Congress had declared war on Japan — and also announcing that daredevil aerial stunt performers Betty and Benny Fox would perform four shows daily atop a 125-foot pole on the roof of the Hotel Soaper over the next two days.
There are old advertisements, such as for Park Carriage Co. (“The Wag-On They Brag-On”).
Or photos of poker chips from various of the many illicit gambling houses that dotted the city around the 1940s.
Or a 1912 description of the Savoy Theatre at 222 N. Main St. that “caters to the amusement loving public who seeks entertaining, instructive and amusing motion pictures of a high class” for 5 cents.
Bit by bit, photo by photo, tombstone by tombstone, map by map, ancient advertisement by ancient advertisement, the website’s creator, Daniel Lehman, peels back layers of Henderson’s history going back 140 years or further.
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Lehman is 38 years old, but you might say he is an old soul.
“I don’t watch a whole lot of sports,” he said. “I’m typically reading a newspaper from 100 years ago.”
He is neither Henderson-born nor a resident of the city. He grew up and lives in Evansville.
But the Purdue graduate, who got a degree in law and society, hired on with the Henderson Police Department in July 2010. After graduating from the police academy at Eastern Kentucky University in January 2011, “I started field training, when you actually learn how to be the police,” Lehman said.
“I didn’t know where anything in Henderson was … I had been on the main (U.S.) 41 Strip and Main Street (where his friend Isaac Gadient grew up) and Atkinson Park. I had no idea the rest of Henderson was there.
“One of the main things about being a police officer is, you have to learn all the streets. It was overwhelming—all the streets and all the blocks. You learn pretty quick every street in city, and the block numbers. When someone says 1300 South Green, I know that’s (at) Sand Lane.”
But Lehman seemingly is endlessly curious. Having learned all the streets in the city, he became curious about individual buildings and businesses. He started applying skills he gained from his extensive family genealogy, his college training in forensic science and old-fashioned detective work.
“I started looking at old Sanborn maps,” the online versions of the detailed maps of cities that fire insurance companies once used to write policies, he said. They shed insights particularly on commercial and industrial buildings.
He uses other online tools as well: Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com, FindaGrave.com, eBay and more.
Lehman uncovered long-forgotten names for old neighborhoods — the Midway, Ragtown, Shelbyville, Goosetown.
“I love maps,” Lehman said. “When I run across plats and deeds, I think it’s really interesting how things evolve over time. If I see an old photo, I might start researching that. I’ve been to cemeteries quite a bit.”
“It’s kind of never-ending. It’s a matter of which rabbit hole do you go down,” he said. And when he learned things, “I wanted to share it with everybody.”
He first posted one of his finds on July 25, 2023. “I didn’t necessarily have a plan,” Lehman said. “It just kind of evolved.”
And as vast as his searchable website already is, there are limits. “There’s only so much time, and I have two kids at home and a full-time job,” he said. “This is just a hobby.”
To be sure, Lehman — who is now a lieutenant with HPD — is not the first to try to capture and preserve Henderson’s history.
Local history books have been written. Frank Boyett writes the deeply researched Yesterday’s News local history column, which appeared weekly for decades in The Gleaner and now monthly in the Hendersonian. And there are the “I grew up in Henderson” Facebook pages where people share old photos and ask questions.
But no one has undertaken such determined research and daily presentation of the ephemeral remnants of Henderson’s past as Lehman.
“It’s very eclectic,” he said. “It’s a very wide spread of topics. It’s a lot of what interests me.”
And other folks as well.
