Before there was a Hinkle Fieldhouse...

During Butler University's tenure in Irvington, many mainstream sporting events grew in popularity. Basketball took longer to take root as baseball and football remained enormously popular. After World War One, campus officials took over the former Student Army Training Corp barracks for a new gym. The college finally had a larger venue for indoor sports like basketball. The building was completed around 1918 and was located on the southwest corner of University and Ohmer Avenues. Ten years later, the college completed the famed Hinkle Fieldhouse at the new campus at Fairview in northwestern Marion County.

In the historic photo, taken in 1922, you can see the historic gymnasium. The photographer was actually standing on the campus as you can see that University Avenue used to dead end into South Butler Avenue. In the distance, you can see the double located at 5317-19 University Avenue. In the late 1930s, local officials saw to the demolition of most of the structures on campus after Butler moved away, including the old gym. In the early 1940s, a developer built several smaller homes on the site. You can see the same view, taken 90 years later, in the contemporary image shot on April 12, 2012.

Tony Hinkle in Irvington--1921-1928

Paul D. "Tony" Hinkle (1898-1992) began his storied coaching career at Butler University's Irvington campus. After playing football and basketball for the University of Chicago, he was asked by his friend and Chicago alum, Harlan Page (320 North Ritter Avenue) to assist him at Butler in 1921. Hinkle's first task for the Bulldogs was to coach the baseball team. Eventually, he coached both football and basketball. When Page left Butler for Indiana University in 1926, Hinkle took over as the athletic director. Hinkle and the rest of Butler left Irvington in 1928 for the Fairview campus where he inaugurated the 1928-29 season with a win over Notre Dame in one of the largest fieldhouses in the nation at the time. The huge arena would later be named for him in 1965 while he was still the athletic director for Butler.

Hinkle boarded and rented in a variety of houses and apartments while coaching at the Irvington campus. He lived above a storefront at 5604 East Washington Street (demolished) and he dwelled the longest at 14 North Irvington Avenue. (demolished) He and his wife Jane eventually moved into an apartment on North Meridian Street in the early 1930s to be closer to the Fairview campus.

In the images posted above, Tony Hinkle poses for a Butler yearbook photographer in 1922 and 1928.