Serendipitous photos have often been helpful to my research, like when I came across an image of someone’s old V-Twin motorcycle taken around 1915 that happened to feature Salem Township’s long-demolished Davis schoolhouse in the background. Today, the tables have turned: last November, I took an iPhone photo of the Graham Furniture building in Chesterfield that incidentally showed its old sign. Yesterday, I noticed it was gone! Maybe my image will be of use to someone in the far-flung future.
I live in Muncie but work in Anderson. The areas between the two cities have been my stomping grounds for nearly thirty years, and we’ve talked about every way to get between them. One follows an old routing of State Roads 32 and 67 through Chesterfield. I like a specific supermarket there, so I go past the old Graham Furniture building pretty frequently.
I don’t know that much about Graham Furniture, but the company was founded by Charles Graham in 19541 as far as I can tell. The following year, he built a 50×100 foot concrete-and-brick office building to house his burgeoning enterprise. The lower floor of the structure featured Graham’s store and another business, while offices and apartments took up the second story2.
Graham Furniture’s new home was erected during a mini building boom in Chesterfield that also saw the construction of the town’s 45×45 foot post office and a new Indiana Bell telephone station3. Graham Furniture was the most prominent of the buildings since it sat on State Road 32. In those days, the highway followed Plum Street.
The store was active in its greater community, furnishing houses exhibited in Anderson’s annual Parade of Homes throughout the early 1960s4, joining 205 other Madison County establishments in accepting an early credit card sponsored by the Anderson Banking Company in 19675, and congratulating the Highland Scots high school basketball team on their regional championship in 19766.
Along the way, Charles’ son Phil started working for his father’s store as a delivery boy at the age of fourteen7. At some point, the Grahams added a more modern storefront that measured 11,000 square feet to the north of the building, facing the new routing of State Road 32, which was established on Main Street around 1960.
Charles Graham died at eighty-three on January 3, 2008. Three months later, Phil closed the store, citing the recession. “I don’t think it’s a Madison County problem,” Graham said about the economics of running a furniture store, “I think it’s a nationwide problem. I think it’s more people buying homes and not being able to afford to buy furniture8.”
“Vietnam and China have taken over the industry,” said Graham. That year, more than half of the furniture sold in the USA was imported, even though Graham Furniture still got most of its stock from domestic manufacturers like Smith Brothers in Berne9.
After the store closed, the Grahams retained ownership of the building until they sold it to a pet groomer called Dogs in Style in 2019. Despite the changes, the sign still hung over the old building’s awning an entrance for several years; at least until very recently. I drive past the place at least twice a week and didn’t notice it was gone until yesterday.
It’s weird to think that my incidental iPhone snapshots are now inadvertent parts of the historical record, but roadsleuth and photographer Jim Grey has known that for years with his own photos. Jim recently drove the entire length of State Road 67’s old routing from Indianapolis up to Muncie and took an even better photo of the Graham Furniture sign when he passed through town. Now that it’s gone, I’m kicking myself for not doing the same!
Sources Cited
1 Serving the Community for 19 Years (1972, February 22). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 37.
2 Work Starts On Chesterfield Postoffice, Business Building (1955, March 11). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 1.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 Don’t miss seeing our Entry in Anderson’s 8th Annual Parade of Homes (1963, September 6). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 25.
5 205 Merchants can’t be wrong…(1967, February 14). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 16.
6 Good Luck Scots! (1976, March 19). The Anderson Herald. p. 6.
7 Newkirk, B. (2008, March 26). Graham’s Furniture closing. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved June 27, 2023.
8 Roysdon, K. (2008, May 4). Booming in bad economy. The Muncie Star Press. p. 29.
9 (See footnote 8).
Sad. I’m glad I happened upon it in what turned out to be its last days.
It is really true – if you just take pictures of ordinary streetscapes, they will soon show only history. I have an interest in historic photos of car dealers. I missed a great opportunity as a new one was being built down the road from my former office. I drove past the site every day as it progressed from an undeveloped field to a shiny new Kia dealership full of cars. I did not think about it until too late, but I should have started snapping a photo every week. It would have been a great historical record for someone someday.