By Eric Berman
11/4/2009
Indiana's first savings bank and an Aurora company which once made parts for cotton gins are among 97 Hoosier companies honored at the statehouse Wednesday for more than 50 years in business.
Then-Governor Evan Bayh began the annual Century and Half-Century Business Awards in 1991. Businesses do not automatically receive the honor on their centennials, but must be nominated for a history of service to their communities.
28 honorees have been in operation for a century or more, weathering not only the current recession but the Great Depression, and in many cases the Panic of 1893 as well.
"Our purchasing manager worked (for us) for 40 years, and his father worked there for 50 years," says Jasper Desk Company president Philip Gramelspacher. "During the Depression, the plant was shut down. When we'd get an order for a desk or something, his father would come in, make the desk, and then go back home until we got another order."
Gramelspacher is the fifth generation of his family to run the 133-year-old business, which is now the oldest maker of wood office furniture in the U.S.
Banks in Odon, Napoleon, Richland and Lafayette were all honored for passing their 100th birthday. Lafayette Savings Bank is the oldest of them at 140. Indiana's first savings bank, it formed a year before Indiana began regulating banks.
Other businesses' histories also reflect the sweep of a century of history. The Stedman Machine Company, the oldest of the honorees at 175 years in business, started out making castings for cotton gins. The Aurora firm now makes machinery for crushing, grinding, and otherwise breaking down a variety of materials.
Hancock Telecom began providing phone service in 1895, 19 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Today, the company supplies broadband and wi-fi in five central Indiana counties.
Two newspapers, the Greenfield Daily Reporter and the Albion New Era, were celebrated for 101 and 137 years in business, respectively.
Governor Mitch Daniels told business owners their companies are a community service in themselves.
"All the people who have worked for your factory, your bank, your store, your law firm, your newspaper -- your enterprise, whatever it is -- all those people over all the years, you delivered to them the most important community service you could have: you gave them a chance in life," Daniels said.
Daniels and Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman presented plaques to the Half-Century Award winners and cut-glass vases to the businesses which have surpassed 100 years.
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