The Boardman House is for sale! Built in 1834, it may be the oldest house in Indianapolis.
When David Boardman and his son built his house here on the old Michigan Road, the Indianapolis city limits were almost ten miles away. He and another fellow, James Fee, had founded a town they called Augusta on this ground two years before.
I’ve told this house’s story before: Boardman and son built this house the hard way. They made the bricks from clay they dug from this ground, and cut the timbers from poplar and ash trees that grew here abundantly.
Augusta didn’t thrive. It was bad timing, really. A railroad went in a couple miles to the west, making the old Michigan Road much less a source of prosperity. In the 1850s, residents pulled up stakes and built the town of New Augusta alongside those tracks. (New Augusta remains; see some photos here.)
As Indianapolis grew, it eventually swallowed little Augusta. Not much is left today – a few old houses on the original plat’s few streets. It’s all strip malls and subdivisions to the north and to the south. Michigan Road is now four lanes wide, and is constantly choked with traffic.
The property is being sold by a commercial real-estate firm as office space. The fellow who owns it now, whom I once met, both lives in it and operates a business in it.
The Boardman House can be yours for $194,000.
I think that the house across the street is a log cabin! What do you think?
I’ve documented Indiana’s historic Michigan Road extensively. To read all about it, click here.
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