Brownlee Addition Historic District

Brownlee Addition Historic District. . The Brownlee Addition Historic District is located along West Spruce and West Walnut Streets between North West Street and Brownlee Avenue. Most of this district was originally owned by Robert W. Evans. On April 15, 1828 Judge Samuel Hall, who later become Lieutenant Governor of Indiana from 1840-1843, purchased the land from Evans. Judge Hall built a home at what is now 404 W. Walnut in 1832 with materials brought from Baltimore, Maryland. According to an article in the Indy Star Magazine (January 1954) the house was located on a 100-acre tract and was designed after the Governor's Palace in Virginia. A later owner of the house was John Brownlee who developed the area as an addition to the city of Princeton. After the Brownlees sold the home in 1936 Judge A. Dale Eby purchased it. Judge Eby served in world war one in the Field Artillery and later in the air service leaving with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. He practiced law in Princeton beginning in 1920 and served as prosecuting attorney and then judge of the circuit court. Most notably, he was the judge for the famous landmark case of the “Mad Dog” Leslie Irvin murder trial from Vanderburgh County in 1955. , The Brownlee Addition Historic District contains many architectural styles ranging from Carpenter-Builder and Queen Anne to Bungalow and English Cottage. The most architecturally significant structure in the district is the Mary Hawe Yeager House, a c. 1885 Queen Anne home on North West Street. Today the Brownlee Addition remains a good example of a middle-class neighborhood of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. , Source(s): Gibson County Warrick County Interim Report, September 1984; Indy Star Magazine, January 1954; and local Princeton historians.