Black Heritage Trail
The Black Heritage Trail is a self-guided walking tour that explores the history of land usage by Blacks in Columbus, Indiana. Bronze trail markers indicate the locations of significant cultural events and Black businesses in the late 1880s to early 1900s.
Goins Hotel on Fourth Street. Courtesy of The Bartholomew County Historical Society
Little Harlem at Eighth and Jackson Street. Courtesy of Rick King. The header photo with the red arrow points out Little Harlem within downtown Columbus in the sixties. Courtesy The Bartholomew County Historical Society.
Yellow Front Courtesy of The Bartholomew County Historical Society
1. Goins Hotel
415 ½ Fourth Street
Business Owners: Elmer And Lydia Goins
Est. 1928
Elmer and Lydia Goins operated the 23-room Goins Hotel—a boarding house—from 1928 to 1946. Lydia passed away in 1945, and Elmer continued running the business until the following year. The hotel building had originally been constructed as an addition to the Griffith Building, which was demolished in 1924. The Goins Hotel itself was razed in 1955 to make way for a drive-up window for the First National Bank. In 2023, the site was reimagined as A Carousel for Columbus, an Exhibit Columbus project designed to create an outdoor gathering space along Fourth Street.
2. Frederick Douglass Speech
401–409 Washington Street
Former Crump Opera House
January 1873
On January 6, 1873, Frederick Douglass—widely regarded as one of the greatest Black orators of his time—delivered a lecture titled Anti-Slavery and the Future of Our Country Based on Equality of Races at Crump’s new Opera House. At the time, the Opera House was the largest and most modern meeting venue in the city, occupying the entire second floor of this building. Its appearance then was significantly different from the second floor as it exists today.
3. Yellow Front
512 Washington Street
Business Owner: Elmer Goins
Est. 1928
Elmer Goins worked in the shoe-shining business for 53 years, including 25 years at the Yellow Front Store. He estimated that over the course of his career, he had shined more than one million pairs of shoes, including those of notable figures such as William Jennings Bryan and President William McKinley. His business ended in 1953 when the Yellow Front Store relocated and shifted from shoe repair to sporting goods. The building on Washington Street was later demolished to make way for the construction of the Irwin Union Bank.
4. Noah Roberts Barbershop
522 Washington Street
Business Owner: Noah Roberts
Est. 1915
Little is known about Noah Roberts beyond his age and professional record. He arrived in the city around 1915 at the age of 56 and worked as a barber for the next 31 years, operating out of three different locations. From 1915 to 1918, his shop was located at 532 Washington Street in the same wood-frame building previously occupied by the Imes & Washington barbershop. He moved to the Fehring Building at 522 Washington Street from 1919 to 1924, and from 1924 to 1946, his shop operated out of the Bossmeier Building at 318 Sixth Street. Of the three locations, only the Fehring Building still stands today.
5. Imes And Washington Barbershop
526 Washington Street
Business Owners: Harry Imes And James Washington
Est. 1899
James Washington, believed to be the first Black barber in the city, arrived in 1894 or 1895. In 1899, he partnered with fellow barber Harry Imes, who had also been working locally since the 1890s. Both men were well-regarded and active in the AME Church and Sunday school. Their partnership continued until 1907, when Imes died at the age of 49. His obituary described him as “one of the best known colored men in this city.” That same year, the barbershop relocated to a temporary wood-frame building at 532 Washington Street. Washington left in 1917 and continued barbering in Indianapolis until his death in 1941.
6. Annex Barber And Beauty Shop
617 Washington Street
Business Owner: Grant Smith
Est. 1908
The Annex Barber and Beauty Shop was one of nine barbershops Grant Smith owned and operated over the course of his career. It operated downtown from 1934 to 1944 and again from 1947 to 1961, alongside a shop in his home on 10th Street, for a total of 24 years. His son, Eugene, worked with him until Eugene’s death in 1955. Eugene’s wife, Madeline, managed the beauty shop portion of the business. During segregation, Grant Smith shined shoes for white customers during regular hours and for Black customers after hours.
7. Hammond Café
621–625 Washington Street
Business Owner: Elijah Hammond
Est. 1903
The original Hammond Café opened in 1903 in the Duffy Building at 625 Washington Street. In 1905, the café expanded into an adjacent space, and its address changed to 621 Washington. That same year, a ticket office for the interurban railway, operated by Mrs. Hammond, was installed in the café and remained there until 1907. The café closed in 1906 when Elijah Hammond assumed management of the Bissell Hotel Dining Room. In 1908, the Hammonds opened a second café at 544 Washington Street, which they operated until 1910. Both cafés were well known as gathering places for group lunches and dinners. In later years, locals fondly recalled wanting their Thanksgiving meals prepared “the Hammond way.”
8. Art Beauty Shop
621–625 Washington Street
Business Owner: Elijah Hammond
Est. 1903
The Art Beauty Shop was one of the earliest beauty salons in the city and offered a notably wide range of services for its time. A newspaper advertisement once promoted, “The social season is here. Now is the time Milady wishes to look her best. Come to see us today. We do manicuring, massaging, hair-dressing, shampooing, and children’s hair-bobbing.” Cora Stewart established the business after marrying E. Emmet Stewart and ran it while he attended college. She sold the shop in 1921 before relocating to Chicago, where he was later employed. The salon remained in operation under new ownership for two more years.
9. Postal Shining Parlor
647 Washington Street
Business Owner: Wayne Handley
Est. 1913
The Postal Shining Parlor operated from 1916 to 1924 in a small room attached to a house on the south side of Seventh Street, across from the then-new Post Office. Wayne Handley ran the business during those years. In 1924, the parlor and the adjoining building were razed to make way for the Charlotte Building, which was constructed in 1925 and still stands today.
10. Little Harlem
302 8th Street
Business Owner: Albert Philips
Est. 1942
Little Harlem operated from 1942 to 1954 and served as a popular gathering place for Black residents and Black soldiers stationed at Camp Atterbury, during a time when they were excluded from many white-owned establishments. In 1954—the same year Camp Atterbury closed—the business was sold and renamed the Plantation Bar, which remained in operation until 1979. Both establishments were classified as restaurants by the liquor board. In 2011, the site was recognized as one of only four Bartholomew County locations included in Landmark Indiana’s survey, African American Sites of Indiana.