New Knoxville Heritage Center

Dr. Fledderjohann House

Summer Kitchen

Doctor's Office

Our Heritage Center

The white wood frame home located at 107 West German Street was built in 1879 by Dr. Gustav Zuelch. The German doctor had placed an ad in an Allentown, Pennsylvania newspaper saying he wanted to locate in a German community in Ohio or Indiana. H. W. Eschmeyer, a New Knoxville resident, was a subscriber to this publication, and contact was made. With $3.00 in his pocket, Dr. Zuelch met Mr. Eschmeyer, who suggested he rent a room and hang out a shingle. Success and acceptability soon followed.

Decades later this was the home of Dr. Henry E. Fledderjohann, his daughter Zella, and her husband Ferd Eversman. Today the doctor’s home displays historical items of the schools, starting in the 1840’s, vintage clothing, relics, toys, war items, church history and many pictures.

The summer kitchen served as an all-season utility building for washing clothes, canning fruits and vegetables, baking bread and butchering of chickens. These were among the weekly chores necessary for all families in the early 1900’s. Displays reflect items of necessities for healthy living.

Approximately a year and a half after his graduation from medical school in Pennsylvania in 1886, Dr. Fledderjohann assumed Dr. Zuelch’s medical practice. The three-room, ornate doctor’s office was built by Dr. Fledderhohann in 1890, and he used this office over a 55-year span for patients of all ages. Many items used by him in his medical practice are displayed in the office along with other historical artifacts.

In 1993 the three aforementioned buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.

Historic Marker

The Barn

The Barn

The barn, originally owned by August H. Stienecker, was built in 1915. It was a typical village barn with hay loft, housing horses, chickens, buggies, garden tools and an outside toilet. The gambrel roof gave ample storage space in the loft for hay and straw for horses and the family cow. This barn was later moved to the property of the New Knoxville Telephone Company for their use while Mr. Stienecker was the manager of that company. Decades later it was again moved by local volunteers to the site of our Historical Society Heritage Center to replace the original barn which was destroyed by fire while Zella Eversman owned the property.

The barn displays rural, primitive hand tools used to cut trees and small horse-drawn wooden tillage tools, used in the first decades when our German immigrants settled in this rural, timber-covered community. Many carpenter tools are on display with local business memorabilia, pictures, signs and advertising handouts.

Log Building

The Log Building

Log buildings existed only the first several decades in this area. Our hand-hewn log structure was a smokehouse for curing meat from farm animals, and it was moved to our location from the former Henry and Raymond Hoelscher residence located at 09144 Center Road. On display are primitive tools for butchering, a gun for hunting and tools to hew logs for buildings.

Barber Shop

The Barber Shop

The latest addition to our complex (our sixth building) is a barber shop built by Mr. George Kattman in 1915 on East Bremen Street, just a block north of our location. It was moved to our museum complex in 2022, and we are in the process of preparing it to display more historical items from the lives of the people of New Knoxville and the surrounding community.