TERRE HAUTE — It’s hard to tell with old houses.
“You never know what it could have been,” Carl Thoms remarked of what appears to have once been a tiled sauna in the basement of a house he’s remodeling.
But, considering the years in question, it could have been a bootlegging room, a bath house or any number of possibilities, he said.
According to Vigo County’s Web site, the 886 square-foot house at 1210 Mulberry Street was constructed in 1890.
Between 12th and 13th streets just north of Wabash Avenue, the house sits right next door to the former International Order of Redmen’s Wigwam building.
Thoms, 32, said he plans to go to the library and research the property.
Changing hands as houses do over more than 119 years, the property wound up on the tax sale list and Thoms bought it on contract from an Indianapolis group in 2007 with the intention of moving his wife and their four children there.
“I’ve been working on this place for a year and a half,” the Roselawn Cemetery employee said.
While working on plumbing in the basement, one of his friends noticed pipes entering what appeared to be a tile wall. But upon further inspection, a separate tiled room with a staircase leading up into a bedroom off the kitchen was discovered.
Thoms said he had originally planned on using the bedroom for one of the kids, but now wants to use it as a large bathroom.
Walled off from the rest of the basement, it’s difficult to date the blocks as all appear to be old, but it appears that the room was intentionally separated off.
“It’s really cool to find something like that,” he said, noting that his family thinks it’s a pretty interesting piece of history to puzzle on while remodeling the still-unfinished property.
Brian Boyce can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
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