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Western Terrace, Evansville, IN, USA

Google Map of Western Terrace [1]

Neighborhood Guide [2]

Western Terrace is a housing subdivision on the West Side of Evansville, Indiana. It was constructed in the 1950's in a suburban style similar to Levittown, New York, where every house is very similar allowing for more efficient homebuilding practices. It is the epitome of a late 50's Midwestern subdivision. Western Terrace is not a town, just a neighborhood of about 80 acres. There are approximately 222 houses on 13 streets (including the bordering thoroughfare Upper Mount Vernon Road). The streets in Western Terrace are: Upper Mount Vernon Road (bordering thouroughfare), Craig Avenue (eastern entrance), Columbia Street, Maryland Street, Oregon Street, Helfrich Avenue (western entrance), Western Avenue, Beale Street, Werner Avenue, Bosse Avenue, Clement Street, Genesta Drive, and Terrace Avenue.

The development was built by CA (Clem) Frank in the latter part of 1950's and was completed in the 1960's. The houses are stick-built with brick veneer and a low roof pitch. The basic model has gables but many have the upgraded hip roof. A gravel driveway was standard, but most have the upgraded concrete drive by now.

The standard house was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with a living room and dine-in kitchen. Common options included basements and carports. Garages and room additions have been common improvements in the ensuing 50 years. Base model houses sold in the $10,000 range at the outset of development. Current values in 2008 are in the $120,000 range giving the area an average compounded appreciation rate of approximately 5.25% over 50 years. During that time, inflation has averaged 4.1%.

In the beginning, Western Terrace was populated mostly by young couples filling their houses with Baby Boom kids. These children attended primarily Perry Heights Elementary School [3] and Corpus Christi Catholic School [4]. From there, they went on to F.J. Reitz High School or Mater Dei High School (Evansville, Indiana).

For many years in the 60's and 70's there was a city staffed playground park in the neighborhood. The "Ballpark", as it was known, was located down a short little lane at the intersection of Clement and Werner streets. It had a chain-link backstop for slow pitch softball and a basketball hoop with a grass and dirt court area as its only permanent fixtures. However, many other games were played there including volleyball, badminton, various running races and field events, washers, and the ever popular box hockey [5]. The park hosted Western Terrace teams that competed against other city parks, mainly in softball. The Ballpark was also a site for qualifying for the Little Olympics which was also hosted by the Evansville City Parks Department [6]. The Little Olympics was a city wide track and field style competition. Ribbons and medals were presented to placewinners at qualifying and finals sites.

As the bulk of the baby-boom aged kids outgrew the Ballpark (as evidenced by softball homeruns that bounced off nearby houses), it began to be staffed less often by the city until it was finally stopped altogether. The backstop fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled by some of the neighborhood men because it was a hazard. The area was used as a makeshift dirt bike bicycle bmx riding area for awhile in the latter 70's.

For a couple years in the 70's the construction site of the nearby Western Hills Apartments were an attraction for the neighborhood kids. The woods that divided Western Terrace from the Western Hills neighborhood was also a popular playground. Vine covered hideouts and treehouses dotted the landscape.

Up until the middle 1970's the Barning family owned a 40 acre horse farm adjacent to the neighborhood at the corner of Craig Avenue and Maryland Street. A popular pasttime was feeding the horses through the fence along Craig Avenue. The Barnings would sometimes give the neighborhood kids horseback and pony rides. Later the Barning house and yard was sold and the rest of the property was purchased by George Marx whose family had owned land in the area for a couple of generations. Marx expanded one of the lakes on the property, cleared it all, and built a nice ranch house as a personal residence. While prohibited, the expanded lake was a semi-popular clandestine swimming hole in the late 70's an early 80's.

Between the old Barning property and Upper Mount Vernon road laid the Brickyard. In the early years of the neighborhood, the Brickyard was a functioning brickyard complete with a clay pit where clay was excavated and baked into bricks in ovens on the site. Most of the houses in Western Terrace were built from bricks fired in these ovens. By the middle 1960's the brickyard manufacturing operations ceased the site became a distribution facility for the brick company. Today it is a General Shale Brick sales and distribution office.

As the first generation of Western Terrace children graduated high school and moved on to college or their work careers, the neighborhood went through a quieter period where the original residents had emptying nests and older kids. Slowly but surely, as happens with all new neighborhoods, Western Terrace began to "turn over". The older original residents sold their houses and moved on to other homes and new young families moved in.

In the 1990's the neighborhood started to experience a renaissance when the Western Terrace Neighborhood Association [7] was formed to do necessary repairs and beautification projects. Signs were installed at the entrances of the neighborhood and the old ballpark began to be used for neighborhood picnics.