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'You'd see everyone
there'
Kendallville
residents have lasting memories of teen hangouts old and new
By DENNIS NARTKER
The News-Sun
 KENDALLVILLE
- The Palace, DQ, Redwood Drive-in, Publix, G.C. Murphy's,
Olympia Sweet Shop, Central Drug Store, Kendall Hotel, Morris'
5 and 10 Cent Store and the Youth Center are just a few of Kendallville's
teen hangouts over the years.
Many have disappeared.
Hanging out also meant chopping town, then cruising and gathering
in parking lots.
For Noble County's smaller communities, schools, churches, parks,
service stations, recreation centers, farm barns, swimming holes,
basketball courts and popular eating establishments where people
gathered like the St. James Restaurant in Avilla were youth hangouts
before teens became mobile with automobiles.
 Music, hamburgers,
french fries and Cokes attracted the young set.
Edythe Nartker, who attended school in the 1920s, remembers going
with friends to the Palace of Sweets, 215 S. Main St., Kendallville,
after school.
"You'd see everyone there," she said.
Guy Swartzlander, retired downtown Kendallville businessman and
1940 Kendallville High School graduate, worked after school in
his father's jewelry store but remembers going to the Palace
for "a soda or Coke."
The Palace of Sweets, now Garcia's Restaurant, remained a youth
hangout for nearly five decades.
Marianna Reick, 1965 Kendallville High School graduate, went
there after school with friends.
"The place was filled with kids after school," she
said. "It had a jukebox, booths, pinball machine and was
close to the Strand Theatre."
Reick remembers Kenny Blech, the Palace's owner-manager, chasing
kids out during meal times to attract adults but inviting the
kids back later.
"Rotary sponsored free movie nights at the Strand, I believe
on Wednesday nights. After the movies we all walked to the Palace
for a green river or cherry Coke."
Kids were fascinated by Blech making his own candy and operating
his taffy-pulling machine.
Blech operated the Palace until his retirement in 1975 and became
one of the downtown business district's best remembered characters.
Many teens in the 1920s and 1930s had little time to "hang
out" because they worked after school and on weekends.
Swartzlander worked in his father's store, then apprenticed there
and took over the business. He closed Swartzlander's Jewelry
in 1991 when he retired.
Nartker worked at Nartker's Cafe in the 100 block of North Main
Street in Kendallville.
A hangout for her and her friends in the winter was the East
William Street hill beside the Presbyterian Church.
"They would close the street sometimes on weekends so kids
could sled down the hill," she said.
Charlie Blumer's Drug Store in the 1940s and the Central Drug
Store in the 1950s and 1960s were popular with youth because
of their booths and soda counters with the round, cushioned stools
that rotated.
Central Drug Store was the place to go for Jolly Roger sandwiches,
french fries and vanilla Cokes.
The G.C. Murphy Store candy counter in downtown Kendallville
attracted a lot of youthful attention in the late 1950s and early
1960s.
"I remember walking with my friends from the Palace to the
DQ and back past Murphy's candy counter," said Reick.
In the late 1950s teen activity moved to the Youth Center on
Iddings Street due in large part to the center's late recreation
director Lois Swartz, who supervised afterschool activities,
Friday and Saturday night teen dances after ballgames and summer
teen dances on the east side of Bixler Lake.
"Teen nights at the Youth Center were great," said
Reick. "The place was always packed."
Teens at this time also congregated in the hot summer months
on the park terraces overlooking Bixler Lake's west beach.
Lake Avenue extended past the beach and the wood frame beach
house and concession stand on the hill.
"We sat on towels and watched traffic go by," said
Reick.
The Redwood Drive-in with its car hops and Kelsey's Drive-in
with its ice-cold root beer and nearby miniature golf course
were popular weekend stops for teens.
In the mid to late 1960s more and more teens in Kendallville
acquired automobiles or the use of their parents' cars.
"Chopping town" and hanging out at Dairy Queen, corner
of U.S. 6 and Ind. 3 North, became popular teen pastimes.
Robin Haines of Rome City, a 1972 East Noble High School graduate,
"chopped" or drove around Dairy Queen and downtown
Kendallville Mondays through Fridays from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday
nights from 6 to midnight in her 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass "four-barrel."
"We had a blast," she said.
Haines and her friends might stop at the DQ, the Redwood Drive-in
on U.S. 6 where the One Stop used auto dealership is now, Kelsey's
Drive-in at the corner of North Riley Street and U.S. 6 or Central
Drug Store.
Teens started a downtown coffee house in the late 1960s that
flourished for a few years.
"Chopping town" became "cruising town" for
teens in the 1980s.
Teens no longer drove through the Dairy Queen lot or hung out
there. The cruising route moved west to include Publix Village
Square shopping center parking lot.
Jeff Platt of Kendallville, a 1986 East Noble High School graduate,
remembers cruising the circuit from Ramsey's Quick Stop at 327
S. Main St. north to Publix Village Square's parking lot and
back.
"We hung out and socialized in Rogers parking lot,"
he said. The Scott's grocery now under construction at Publix
was once a Rogers Market grocery store.
"We go through town to see who was in town and then go back
to the parking lot," he said.
Teens were not bothered much by police in the lot and stayed
out of the way of store customers, according to Platt.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Kendallville acquired the reputation
as the place to cruise on weekends.
Youths from throughout northeast Indiana, Michigan and Ohio,
traveled to Kendallville to drive the cruising circuit and hang
out in the Rogers, then Sturgis SuperValu, parking lot.
"Things got a little unruly then because kids came from
all over," said Platt.
James Beverly, 1989 East Noble graduate, hung out with friends
at the Sturgis parking lot.
"We sat on the hoods, talked and watched for girls,"
he said. "The police would run us off but we'd just turn
around and come back."
Youth gathered in their vehicles at the northwest corner of the
lot at the Ind. 3 North and U.S. 6 intersection.
"The cruising route was so busy on Friday and Saturday nights
it took us a long time to make the circuit from one end of town
to the other."
Sturgis management roped off an area for the cruisers and asked
that they keep it clean and not hassle the store's customers
and employees.
It didn't work. The area was not kept clear of debris.
Kendallville's administration ordered a police crackdown on the
noise and obstructing free passage violations.
Today youths still gather in the Publix parking lot, but not
in the vast numbers they did 10 years ago. Police still patrol
the area and occasionally cite individuals for violating the
city's anti-noise ordinance with their blaring car stereos.
Youths go to the Cole Center Family YMCA to play basketball,
racquetball, and to use the fitness center and swimming pool.
 They gather
at friends' homes to listen to music, watch videos, play video
games, chat on the Internet and eat pizza.
Extracurricular activities at school and church youth groups
draw teens.
A former South Main Street scrapyard in Kendallville is being
turned into a teen activity center called "The Wreck."
Basketball at the Bixler Lake Park courts is a popular evening
activity in the spring, summer and fall.
Hanging out hasn't changed over the years, only the places have
changed.
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