North Main Street, then and now — and everything the old photo still remembers.
Batesville (North Main Street)Last updated November 13, 2026
Then and now
Drag to compare.
BeforeAfter
North Main Street in the 1930s — the Sherman House and Meyer’s Furniture anchoring the block. Vintage postcard. The same corner today — the clock tower, the Tudor-style storefronts, and modern cars on North Main. Photo: Darrick Cox.
Photos
Photos of this place.
North Main Street in the 1930s — the Sherman House and Meyer's Furniture. The card was scanned upside down and has been flipped upright. Photo courtesy Batesville Historical Center.Main Street on October 3, 1914 — floats, early cars, and crowds, with the post office on the corner and the water tower behind.South on Main Street — the Batesville Bank, horse-drawn wagons, and the water tower, before the cars took over.The back of the South Main postcard, dated October 5, 1912, to Miss Elizabeth Kroger in Indianapolis — the dance, the “Bull Moose” speaking, and Aurora vs. Batesville basketball that day. (Kraemer Art Co.)North Main Street, postcard 13818 — a dirt street, a horse cart, and the water tower.Main Street and the Batesville Bank — the red-brick bank with the arched doorway, a dentist’s sign upstairs, and a horse wagon out front.Main Street — the columned bank building and M. Benz’s store, in a hand-colored postcard.The bank building front-on, a man standing in the doorway.The Memorial Building, built in 1924.Main Street in the 1940s — Blank’s Rexall Drugs, the bakery, and Holland & Dillon, Attorneys.Batesville Centennial, 1852–1952 — Main Street decked in bunting and flags.Chas. Meyer’s store and residence, Batesville — groceries downstairs, home upstairs, and a horse and buggy at the curb.North on Main Street — the Greeman building. Photo courtesy Batesville Historical Center.The corner of George and Walnut Streets — the drug store, horse-drawn wagons at the curb. Photo courtesy Batesville Historical Center.East George Street — cars, storefronts, and the water tower at the end of the street. Photo courtesy Batesville Historical Center.Belmer Bros., Batesville — the big frame building with horse-drawn wagons out front. Photo courtesy Batesville Historical Center.
The story so far
What happened here.
The old photo is a postcard: North Main Street in the 1930s, cars parked nose-to-tail on both sides, the Sherman House and Meyer's Furniture anchoring the block. The new photo is the same corner today — the same Tudor-style buildings on the left, a much quieter street.
Neighbors read the old picture like a map. The feed mill and Gamble's Department Store stood where the parking lot is now. Kroger moved three times across the decades. The Rexall doubled as the Greyhound stop. And the Gibson Movie Theater is still, for at least one former Scout, the place he saw 'Follow Me Boys' in uniform.
The postcards kept coming. South on Main in 1912 — the Batesville Bank, horse-drawn wagons, and a note home about a dance and a basketball game. The Centennial in 1952, the street decked in bunting. The Rexall, the bakery, the bank’s columned front, and Chas. Meyer’s store and residence — the same block, photographed again and again.
October 5, 1912: a postcard of South Main goes out to Miss Elizabeth Kroger in Indianapolis — the dance, the “Bull Moose” speaking, and Aurora vs. Batesville basketball that day.
October 3, 1914
Main Street fills with floats, early cars, and crowds — a parade day, with the post office on the corner.
1924
The Memorial Building goes up.
1930s
The postcard view: Sherman House, Meyer's Furniture, angle parking, a busy North Main.
1940s–50s
Ray Meyer's barber shop stands in what's now the farmers-market parking lot; a gas station stands where Pizza Haus is today.
1952
Batesville Centennial, 1852–1952: Main Street decked in bunting and flags.
1950s–80s
Walsman's Furniture holds the corner — Meyer's Furniture before it.
Circa 1965
Kroger sits on the same block as Amack's Well, in the brick building on the corner toward Romweber.
Later
Kroger moves to the little shopping mall where the Office Shoppe is, then to the shopping center north of I-74 (now the Label Shopper), then to its current address.
Undated
Gamble's Department Store and the feed mill come down; a parking lot takes their place across from Amack's.
What neighbors remember
According to the locals who lived it.
Lived in Batesville from 1960 to 1970. Next to the Sherman House stood the office building where his dad worked, before the company built new headquarters east of town. Across Pearl Street, the Rexall Drugstore doubled as the Greyhound bus stop — with a soda fountain inside, and a counter where you picked up developed film. Across Main stood the bank where he opened his first account at ten, saving for a five-speed bike from Gamble's around the corner on East Pearl. Down the street stood the Gibson Movie Theater, where he saw 'Follow Me Boys' in his Boy Scout uniform with the rest of his troop. His mom filled two carts at the A&P on West Pearl for $50 and fed a family of six for two weeks.
— Marc Young
Gamble's Department Store and the feed mill stood where the parking lot is now. She remembers the feed mill well — the rocking of the scale unsettled her walking across it to the door. Her mom told her about Gamble's being there, and about Kroger's three moves across town, including the grocery run with baby Courtney in the car that ended in a U-turn home.
— Courtney Wells
Worked as a bus boy at the Sherman House, when people came from all over and strolled after dinner. He is sad the history was torn down for parking lots, and notes those same people now go to Brookville and Lawrenceburg.
— Paul Goldsmith
As a little girl she walked into the feed mill store with her dad when he went there.
— Nikki Wagner
Spotted the furniture sign on the corner of what is now Amack's Well and read it as Meyer's Furniture — the photo itself confirms it. Darrick added the full name from the thread: Meyer's Hardware Furniture, with a Goodyear Tires sign.
— Rich Gallagher
Reckons the town has been downhill since they tore the feed mill down.
— Hunter Kellerman
“Going to town” isn't near as much a thing anymore — online shopping did a number on the small-town shopping, window-shopping and lunch days.
— Stephanie Litzinger
Sees a downtown she would have enjoyed and wanted to be in — buildings and cars that make it look like there was actually life downtown — and reads the empty second photo as the answer to why anyone would want to be there.
— Jaime Mustaine
Her great-uncle Ray Meyer kept a barber shop in the 1940s and 50s in the parking lot where the farmers market sets up now. A gas station stood where Pizza Haus is today.
— Deb Meyer Krieger
It was Walsman's Furniture on the corner from the 1950s into the 1980s — Meyer's Furniture before it.
— Deborah Bland Sherman
The building at 4 S. Park Avenue is being turned into apartments. Langen Meats is now just across the street from the building where the railroad-crossing sign is.
— Mary Ellen Rippe
Still to learn
Open questions.
What year is the vintage postcard, exactly? (1930s cars; no date on it.)
When was the feed mill torn down?
Which bank was the “stately bank” across Main where Marc Young opened his account at ten?
Where exactly was the Gibson Movie Theater?
Was there a clothing store across the street from the Rexall, as Marc Young half-remembers?
What was the building where the parking lot is now across from Amack's? Jack Timothy Kennedy started to say, and the thread never finished it.
Mary Ellen Rippe offered to show Darrick the old photos in her office lobby — “Just text me.”
Share a memory, a photo, or a correction — or answer one of the open questions above. Submissions are reviewed by a person before anything appears publicly, and nothing is posted as-is. Photos are used only with your permission and with credit as you give it.
Last updated November 13, 2026. New memories appear here after review.
