At one time, the southside of Indianapolis fed the entire region.
The German immigrants who settled around Bluff Road going back to the mid-19th century built greenhouses as far as the eye could see. Along Bluff Road, these industrious farmers grew tomatoes, lettuce, beets, asparagus, spinach and kale, among other produce.
More than 80 growers featured these “acres under glass,” providing fresh vegetables and fruit to central Indiana year-round. They made up the largest concentration of greenhouses in the country.
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“In many cases, for three or four generations, families were in this businesses. That is a really long-lasting legacy, not just for those families, but for Indianapolis, how we’ve grown to where we are,” said Daniel Gonzales, director of exhibitions research for the Indiana Historical Society. “These are the people who made this city grow, literally and figuratively.”
The southside’s tradition of fruit and vegetable farming is the focus of the newest exhibit by the Indiana Historical Society. “The German Growers of Indianapolis” gathers historical photographs and images dating back into the 1860s, combining it with first-person accounts of the southside’s greenhouse heritage from families who still practice it.
The result is a look not only at an important aspect of history that shaped the area, but a precursor to the local food movement that has become so popular among buyers today.
“Right now, there’s a growing interest in the farm-to-table movement, locally grown, locally sourced foods. I think it’s notable to recognize that 150 years ago, there were folks who were developing a robust system of locally grown and distributed produce,” Gonzales said. “It’s an incredible contribution, and one that lasted for generations.”
The inauspicious historical marker stands in the corner of Bluff Park, just north of Johnson County on the southside. Driving down Bluff Road, or passing along the walking path through the park, it would be easy to miss.
But the marker tells an important story not just to the area round Bluff Park, but to the entire Indianapolis region: German greenhouses.
German immigrants had been settling in central Indiana throughout the 1800s, and many of them brought knowledge of vegetable and fruit cultivation from their homes in Europe.
The southside of Indianapolis became home to a few families, and as they became established, the community attracted other Germans.
“The entire Indianapolis area, and the Midwest in general, was attracting huge numbers of Germans at the same time. It’s not necessarily that the southside is the only place the Germans are going,” Gonzales said. “But there is a concentration there. The families who moved there all came from the same areas of Germany.”
Growers settled in an area with rough boundaries between Bluff Road on the west and Madison Avenue throughout Perry Township.
In the 1860s, these immigrants banded together to form an organization, the German Gardeners Benefit Society of Indianapolis, designed to provide cultural, social and financial support to each others.
“It was a way to help each other and to build the bonds of community,” Gonzales said.
The growers were vital parts of the Indianapolis City Market, towing their produce each week into the city to provide residents with fresh food that they might not otherwise be able to get. Eventually, some of the growers formed their own wholesale market to sell to local grocery stores.
As their businesses became larger, they formed additional organizations to promote their produce to the region. Their “Hoosier Boy” trade name was designed to provide a reliable brand for people looking for fruits and vegetables.
By the 1940s, the southside of Indianapolis had become a behemoth in the greenhouse business. The city had the largest concentration of greenhouses in the country, and were the second-largest producer of winter lettuce and tomatoes, behind only Cleveland, Ohio.
“One of the things that was most fascinating to me, that seemed to run as a tenet throughout all of the interviews and conversations we did, was this was an incredibly tight-knit community. They were business partners, but they were also neighbors and friends,” Gonzales said. “They found way to lift each other up.”
Advances in refrigeration and transporting produce brought a decline to the Indianapolis greenhouse domination. But even today, the legacy of the German growers on the southside remains.
Massive greenhouse complexes along Bluff Road provide flowers, trees, shrubs and other plants to customers all over the country.
Businesses such as Schlegel Hoosier Boy Greenhouse and Brehob Nursery have connections spanning decades on the southside. Peaper Brothers, who currently specialize in heirloom turnips, have roots in the Indianapolis growing community dating back more than 170 years.
The contributions of these families still stands of a source of pride.
“What I can say is that the gardening and growing genes are very, very strong in our family,” said Anne Maschmeyer, beautification director at Downtown Indy, Inc., whose family was integral to the German growers on the southside. “It’s an amazing feeling — like having chlorophyll running through my genes all the way back to my great-grandfather from Germany.”
For the Indiana Historical Society, it seemed like an ideal time to take a closer look at this history. The society already had an collection of photographs, documents and other materials related to the German growers over the decades.
Gonzales interviewed four families, including the Maschmeyers, with roots in local growing. He used stories passed down as well as current family members’ own experiences in the greenhouse business to paint a crisp picture of this history.
Visitors to the exhibit will hear from those families’ stories, and uses images and graphics to take people into these greenhouses and the lives of immigrants who worked in this business.
“It’s really incredible to see the depth of community they developed and compassion they had for each other as neighbors. Hearing those stories definitely inspired me,” Gonzales said.
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"The German Growers of Indianapolis"
What: A new Indiana Historical Society exhibit looking at the history of German immigrants and greenhouse owners who built one of the largest concentrated growing operations in the entire U.S.
Where: Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St., Indianapolis
When: Today through April 20
Admission: $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $5 for children ages 5 to 17 and free for kids 4 and under
Information: indianahistory.org
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