February 28, 2021 - Thank you for visiting us скачать в хорошем качестве

February 28, 2021 - Thank you for visiting us

We at Lyles Station Historic School and Museum hope you have enjoyed the features we have hosted during Black History month and encourage you to look into these individuals and others to discover more about those who have contributed to African American history, but more importantly, American history as a whole. We have explored the lives of singers, racers, runners, athletes, politicians, and artists and followed them across the country from Natchez, Mississippi, to San Francisco, California, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and even up to Canada with jaunts into Indiana. Now we would like to invite you to come visit us at Lyles Station where you can learn more about our local historical figures and the history of Lyles Station itself. Lyles Station, first known as Switch Station, owes its origin to brothers Joshua and Sanford Lyles, free African Americans who came up from Tennessee in the 1840s and purchased land in southwestern Indiana. Their families joined them, improving and working the land, expanding with newly relocated African American settlers. The Lyles family served as conductors on the Underground Railroad, providing runaway slaves a place to rest on their journey north or a safe home to settle in. The settlement became known as Lyles Station after 1870 when Joshua Lyles donated land to the Old Airline Railroad to establish a train station on the Louisville, Kentucky-to-St. Louis, Missouri line. A Lyles Station resident, James Roundtree, took his case to the Indiana Supreme Court to have the county repair a bridge over the Patoka River. The county commissioners initially refused to maintain the bridge which the Lyles Station community depended upon for travel. Roundtree took his case to court. Although he had several failures, he found success with the Indiana Supreme Court in 1881, when the Court ruled in Lyles Station’s favor. Although the bridge was painted red, it became known as the Black Bridge after his successful legal case. William Roundtree, the first black postmaster north of the Mason-Dixon line, took his petition to the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court when Lyles Station wanted to make him postmaster of the community and receive U.S. postal service. With the arrival of the mail cars, resident William H. Roundtree petitioned the federal government. President Grover Cleveland approved the petition and appointed Roundtree the first African-American postmaster north of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1886. By the early 1900s, Lyles Station was home to 55 households including 800 residents, an elementary school, two churches, two general stores, a lumber mill, and a post office. Education has always been important to the Lyles Station community, as noted in the lives of several who grew up there. Matthias Nolcox went on to study at Harvard and later moved to segregated Indianapolis, where in 1927 he founded the state’s premiere high school "for African-American students, Indianapolis Crispus Attucks, serving as its principal. Dr. Carl Lyles, another Lyles Station native and great-great grandson of Lyles Station founder Joshua Lyles, was the first African American to elected to serve on the Evansville Vanderburgh County School Board. He began teaching in Evansville’s Lincoln High School in 1949, later serving as principal of Central Evening School and assistant principal of Central High School, the first African American to hold such a position in Evansville’s school systems. Alonzo Fields trained as a classical singer at the New England Conservatory of Music, but the Depression forced him to look for work in the winter of 1931 to support his family. He ended up serving as butler, chief butler, and maitre d’ at the White House from 1931 to 1953-- the first African-American chief butler at the White House. The play Looking Over the President's Shoulder is based on his experiences in the White House where he served four U.S. presidents and their families: Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Another Lyles Station native, Dr. Lyman Parks served as the first African American mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the first African-American elected to the Grand Rapids City Commission in 1968. Aaron R. Fisher also called Lyles Station home, but he is distinguished as the most highly decorated African American soldier from Indiana to serve in World War I. Fisher was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross from the U.S. government and the Croix de Guerre with gold star from the French government for the bravery and determination he displayed in battle, describing him as an “officer of admirable courage.” Despite being outnumbered and wounded, Fisher led his troops to successfully repel a German raid. Lyles Station is proud to share Fisher’s story, along with those of Loretta Freeman, Joseph Lucas, and other prominent residents of Lyles Station. We hope you come visit soon to learn more about local history.