The above photo was taken in 2005, but the Bremen Town Hall didn’t always look like this. In the first half of the 20th century, the building on the southwest corner of Plymouth and Center streets was first the Union State Bank and then the Bremen State Bank, a building with a majestic brick face and stately columns with large, friendly windows. Sometime in the late 1960s, the bank chose to block up those windows, chisel the details off the brick face, and bolt on a front that was rough stone aggregate below and stark steel above.

The building was eventually sold to the town of Bremen, and the town hall was moved around the corner to it. By 1996, the stone and steel were weathered and weakened, so the town board decided it would need to come off for a full renovation.

Indianapolis architect Sites and Structures and Warsaw engineering firm Larry R Long and Associates took up the challenge, and the building was stripped. Duwaine Elliott, director of operations for the town board at the time, says that every brick on the face had to be replaced in addition to the other architectural details. In addition to Elliott, the town board consisted of Rue Dee Marker, Janet Anglemyer, James Cox, and Stanley Getz. They contracted with AAA Realty and Pyramid Excavation to do the work.

The result is a town hall that gives Bremen a beautiful take on the phrase “everything old is new again”.

Click on any of the images to display a gallery.

For the complete photo set from the Historic Bremen photo file, go to our Bremen Town Hall Flickr album!