Henderson riverfront building had a long, storied history

A large building that went up about the time the Civil War began was being converted a century ago into a cigar factory.

That building, which used the property now occupied by Rockhouse on the River at 212 N. Water St., had a convoluted history that I delved into before in 2015. But I wanted to revisit it so I can outline the cigar factory usage and also because I wanted to see whether I could pin down when it had originally been built.

It was a three-story brick building, although the first floor was separated into two halves. The second and third floors were large open rooms.

Historically it was known as Woodruff Hall, after William B. Woodruff, one of the two partners who built it in the early 1860s. Woodruff bought one of the two lots Jan. 17, 1857, and the other lot July 5, 1860. He paid $1,200 for each and the deed for the latter allowed Peter Semonin to remove “an old frame building” before vacating.

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Woodruff was in a partnership with John Funk and on March 2, 1863, he and his wife Elizabeth sold their interest to Funk. That deed specifies a store building was on the property. So, it seems clear it was erected sometime between mid-1860 and early 1862.

I say that because there’s a notice in the Henderson Reporter of March 6, 1862, that told of Henderson’s “German friends” holding a ball in the building, with music provided by an Evansville band. They also held a celebration there Nov. 10, 1863.

The May 21, 1863, Reporter noted that a Col. J.H. McHenry had addressed a “small audience” in the building, probably because few people knew he was speaking there. The appearance originally had been scheduled for the courthouse but was moved because “that place is being occupied by the military authorities as a guardhouse.”

The May 28 Reporter reported Professor G.W. Swann was giving dancing lessons in the building, and the July 30 edition noted a community chorus of mostly children was giving a concert that evening.

The last mention of Woodruff Hall I was able to find in the Reporter was on Nov. 12, 1863: “Woodruff Hall will be fitted up the ensuing week for the reception of tobacco, the proceeds from shows, theatres, and ‘sich like’ not being sufficient to justify the proprietor in allowing it to stand without being put to use.”

Various Gleaner stories between 1922 and 1940 said subsequent usage of the building was all over the map. Graffiti scratched into its interior walls by Confederate prisoners indicate it was a military prison during part of the Civil War.

Looking back at old Sanborn fire insurance maps, I see that in 1885 the second floor was used as some type of meeting hall, while the rest was used as warehouse space and offices. By 1892 the building was a tenement and used for junk storage. (The building next door housed storage of hides and bones, so it probably wasn’t a particularly desirable address.)

The Jarvis Tobacco Co. occupied it, according to the 1897, 1901 and 1906 maps, while by 1913 it was a hardware concern. By 1923 it was the Roby Cigar factory.

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It was still being called the Woodruff Building when Gleaner announced Nov. 26, 1922, that the cigar company was coming to town. That story noted the building was “once a thriving mart of trade but lately used but little.”

The building was “undergoing complete rejuvenation,” which was expected to convert it into “one of the really modern factories in this section.” The company planned, once up to full speed, to employ about 400 women.

The factory opened for business Jan. 8, 1923, and The Gleaner of two days later noted an “eager crowd of workers” was there the first two days. The Gleaner carried four more articles about the factory over the following month. (As near as I can tell it never had more than about 100 employees.)

The Roby company had headquarters in Barnesville, Ohio, and had Ohio factories in Byesville and Hendrysburg. Carl Fowler of Barnesville was manager of the local plant. Henderson native Harry E. Thixton was the southern representative for the firm. The Roby company wanted Thixton to expand business across the South.

The Gleaner of March 27, 1923, reported Vance Evans, secretary of the local Chamber of Commerce, was largely responsible for the new factory locating here.

“Henderson attracted the attention of the company by its situation with respect to shipping facilities, but few cities having the superior advantages of access to three railroads and a river. A survey of the industrial condition, the available labor supply, the minimum of wage disputes and the enthusiastic cooperation of the Chamber of Commerce … convinced the business scouts of the Roby Co. that Henderson was the place they sought to use as a distributing center for the southern states.”

A Gleaner advertisement April 1, 1923, noted the firm was making cigars under the “Sunset Trail” and “Smo-Ko” brands, which were available at 64 locations in Henderson County. (A Google search will come up with colorful cigar tins for the Sunset Trail brand.)

A weekly tobacco trade publication noted that on March 1, 1924, the stockholders of the Roby Cigar Co. had met in Milwaukee and reorganized the company. Roby was ousted as president and general manager and those roles were filled by Henderson men. Charles Argue became president and W.W. Winstead became general manager. They planned “to put the plant on a paying basis” by a major expansion, hiring as many as 500 employees.

That effort failed. The building was empty by 1931, that year’s Sanborn map shows. Its next occupant was the McKee Button Co., according to The Gleaner of Sept. 26, 1936. The firm made blanks out of Ohio River mussel shells that were turned into buttons elsewhere.

It operated on and off and the building was again vacant when a spectacular fire destroyed it Sept. 7, 1940, The Gleaner noted. The ruins remained until the state bought the property in 1953 and built a new state office building there. It opened at the end of June 1954.

That building went into private hands at the beginning of 2018 and was converted into Rockhouse on the River later that year.

75 YEARS AGO

A knife fight at Second and Green streets led to the death seven hours later of Jesse Jackson Wilson, 18, according to The Gleaner of Nov. 25, 1947. His brother, James, was also in the hospital in critical condition with a punctured lung.

Witnesses said the two men had been in a fight with Carl Stone in front of the Red Spot Tavern just before the stabbings. Stone high-tailed it. At that point, the two brothers turned their attention to Tommy Ervin, 25, who was exonerated by a coroner’s jury.

“Ervin told the jury the Wilson brothers attacked him. He took a knife away from one and stabbed Jesse in the abdomen and James in the right chest.”

Zadie Wilson, mother of the two Wilson men, swore out a warrant charging Ervin with willful murder and malicious cutting with intent to kill, according to the Nov. 26 Gleaner. It did not result in a conviction.

50 YEARS AGO

I knew Carl Boyd as a personable member of Henderson’s legal community but apparently there was a lot about him I did not know.

He died at his home in Franklin on June 18 this year at the age of 82. I knew he had been a history professor at Henderson Community College for 17 years before embarking on a legal career, but he was also a world traveler – on trains.

As of 1972, according to a Gleaner article published Nov. 26 of that year, he had racked up nearly 85,000 miles on trains. About 45,000 of that was on 22 U.S. railroads; the remainder was on foreign trains, including the famed Orient Express.

The crux of the story, however, was Boyd’s fulfillment of a lifelong dream: to travel all the way across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

“The railroad system in Russia is enormously developed and carries, with the exception of Japan, more passengers than any other country of the world,” Boyd wrote. “That’s because the roads are so bad or non-existent. A lot of the area we crossed just didn’t have any roads at all.”

25 YEARS AGO

Circuit Judge Steve Hayden issued a ruling reestablishing city government in Robards, according to The Gleaner of Nov. 26, 1997. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld that action in 1999, ending 17 months of legal battles.

The city limits encompassed more than 2.5 square miles, much of which was rural but was “in transition toward urban,” Hayden said in his ruling.

Hayden named Marion Lee Eakins as mayor and the four initial commissioners were Denver Merritt Jr., Hugh Sellers, Gregg Bland and Lawrence Dale Cates.

Robards had been founded in 1868 and the General Assembly incorporated it the first time March 24, 1882. Citizens dissolved that government Oct. 21, 1912.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.

This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Henderson riverfront building had a long, storied history