A downtown Linton building has a lot of historical significance I found out when I began talking with (and finally even met with) a Butler graduate student, named Donny Jones. It seems he has uncovered a gold mine of sorts, a historical gold mine that is.
Until his research began to shine light again on a historic Linton event, the moment had been buried in a thick layer of dust over time. Today, the building, located at 75 South Main Street in Linton is home to several small businesses. In 1919, however, it housed the New Home Telephone Company.
On April 28th of that year, five-hundred people besieged the building, demanding the dismissal of eight "scab" operators, who had replaced thirteen striking young women from Linton, the story goes. The Indiana National Guard became involved, special agents were sent, thousands of union workers united, and Linton was even declared to be under martial law, the paper states.
It's a very, very interesting bit of labor history, and it all happened in downtown Linton, Indiana! But I won't spoil any more of the story, so to read the published paper in the Journal for the Liberal Arts & Sciences, you can follow the link here: http://www.oak.edu/JLAS/Articles/Fall2008/Jones+(SU08).pdf
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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, "Riddle Me This".
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