Published: June 22, 2009 08:13 am      

Nappanee murals being refurbished

Nappanee is a community that relishes tradition and keeping history alive. Part of that tradition are the murals that decorate the downtown.

Members of the Nappanee Redevelopment Commission hired resident artist and muralist Jeff Stillson to revive three of those murals and to paint a new mural over top of a faded one. The group received a $20,000 grant for the project.

The historic murals include: Boots Market, Selz Shoes, Pillsbury and an old Mail Pouch tobacco ad that was replaced with a different design.

“You could hardly see them,” Redevelopment and Chamber of Commerce Director Larry Andrews said.

He also explained that the Mail Pouch tobacco mural was being replaced with a Dutch kitchen maiden, something more in line with Nappanee’s heritage.

The murals

The Selz Shoes mural is on the side of Hepler’s Barber Shop, 158 S. Main St., and has been restored to its original design. Stillson said the mural was used in the early 1900s as an advertisement for Hartman Brother’s Dry Goods, which was located around the corner.

The Coppes Dutch Girl mural on the side of the Corner Café building on the corner of South Main Street and Lincoln Street was not an original mural design. Stillson said the original mural was located in the same place but rather than an advertisement for Mail Pouch tobacco, the commission “wanted something that more appropriately defined Nappanee,” he said.

The Dutch Girl points the way to what the city is now calling the “Coppes Corridor” — a portion of Lincoln Street that was closed off for many years by one of the Coppes factory buildings but is now open and slated for improvements in the coming years.

Stillson is still working on the final historic advertisement mural — a Pillsbury mural that is above Newcomer’s Jewelry. In a separate project, Stillson is also working on four new murals for downtown that will be in the alleys. These murals will replace the Garden Quilt Tour murals, which were relocated to the north gateway to the city along Ind. 19.

The addition of those murals will bring the number of murals in town to approximately 25. Stillson said the number of murals per capita in Nappanee has to be noteworthy.

Andrews said, “We’d like to be known as a mural center. It’s just a way to bring out our heritage.”

Andrews said he thinks Stillson will be done with the murals by the end of summer.