The Woessner Building was built in 1915 at the intersection of Virginia Avenue and Grove Avenue by the local southside meat market merchant father and son duo, Jacob and William Woessner. This German immigrant family served the neighborhood with their butcher shop since the 1870s. Jacob Woessner was an active businessman and public servant, serving as a member of the Indianapolis Public School board and a member of the City’s Board of Public Works. He was elected county sheriff in 1908 and 1910. Jacob died at his home at 1448 Prospect Street in 1929. 

Architect Charles Byfield designed the Woessner’s brick structure, which was built by Brandt Brothers construction. The building was originally designed with five storerooms on the ground floor and thirteen offices on the second floor. The two-story structure is made up of Hitex South Park Cherry Red brick and adorned with beautiful, purple-toned small glass block windows above the large first floor windows. If you haven’t noticed them before, look up and admire them. 

By 1935, a restaurant, a barbershop, a tavern, a grocery store, and a meat market had occupied the building. A beauty shop and a drug store would move in soon after, and by the 1950s, a physician and a pharmacy occupied the space. The city’s community court and environmental court used the space until it was renovated in 2018 as the Inferno Room tiki bar and restaurant. 

The Woessner Building, illustrated as the large pink square, which denotes a brick structure.
Credit: 1927 Baist Map, MapIndy, City of Indianapolis.

A portrait of Jacob Woessner
Credit: “Coming School Election: Jacob Woessner Formally States His Views,” Indianapolis News, June 9, 1898.

An illustration of the original floorplan for the Woessner Building.
Credit: “New Business Block is South Side Asset,” Indianapolis Star, September 26, 1915.

An advertisement for Woessner’s Meat Market.
Credit: The South Side Bulletin, May Day Celebration, Pamphlet Collection, Indiana Division, Indiana State Library, 1915.