A secret society’s meeting place, a silent movie theater, a performance hall, and a pool hall all under the same roof in downtown Lawrenceburg?

That’s part of the colorful past of the Gallaher Building, on the east side of the Public Square.

Today, the Gallaher Building principally houses the law offices of White and Betz, as well as gift- and clothing-store Creative Designs Lawrenceburg. White and Betz, which has served our area for more than thirty years, is owned and operated by City Attorney and 2015 ‘Citizen of the Year’ Alan Betz.

Mr. Betz and his staff of courteous professionals offer quality legal services backed by decades of valuable experience. They have also been very kind to allow me to sell ‘Lawrence County History Trivia’ the book from their offices since its release last autumn.

The Gallaher Building occupies all of original town lot 5, which was first purchased from the city in 1832 by William H. Fields for $285.

The first Sanborn Insurance Map of Lawrenceburg, drawn in 1896, indicates that there was a frame building on the site that year, a building which contained three separate businesses: a dry goods store on the north, a gentleman’s clothing shop in the middle, and a hardware store in the southernmost partition of the building.

That frame building appears to have escaped the ravages of the Lawrenceburg Fire of 1898 (which destroyed most of the northern half of the Square), and by 1899, the gentleman’s clothing store had gone out and was replaced by a saloon. By 1905, both the dry goods store and the saloon had closed their doors. The northernmost partition was vacant that year and the center partition was a grocery and restaurant.

Sometime between 1905 and 1908, a gentleman named J. Polk Rippey is said to have operated an opera house on the property. Unfortunately for Mr. Rippey, the building burned and, according to Rippey, he “did not have a penny of insurance on it.”

The current brick Gallaher Building was built around 1910. By 1916, it was home to an eclectic variety of businesses: Tripp’s Pool Hall in the southern end, a silent movie theater known as the Jitney in the middle, and a grocery on the northern end owned by Jim Crews occupied the ground level. The second floor of the building housed the law offices of Tom Helton and W.H. “Bid” Lindsey. A large room on the second floor was also used for meetings by the local chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows, a secretive fraternal organization that had been active in its philanthropic work in Lawrence County since before the Civil War.

The Jitney showed many classic movies of the silent era, but it also had a stage on which traveling musical acts frequently performed.

The building was named for Dr. W.M. Gallaher, a prominent local physician who owned the building in the mid-20th century and who operated the Gallaher Dry Goods Company there. Dr. Gallaher was a philanthropist and civic leader who practiced medicine in this area for 65 years and remained active in civil and religious causes until his death.

In more recent local history, the Gallaher Building–specifically the office of Mr. Betz–was featured in the author photos of ‘Teaching the Pig to Dance,’ Senator Fred Thompson’s book about growing up in Lawrenceburg.

The Gallaher Building–along with the rest of downtown Lawrenceburg’s Historic Commercial District–was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1992.

This segment is the first in a series which will focus on buildings in our county which are more than 100 years old. Stay tuned for the next installment.