Pieces of Indy history unearthed at transit center site

A tiny slice of city history is being unearthed Downtown.

Archaeologists hired by IndyGo have dug up artifacts that offer a blueprint — show-and-tell style — of prior development at the site of the new transit center being built on Washington Street, between Alabama and Delaware streets.

"Some of the items go back to the 1820s, and some are prehistoric material," said Amy Johnson, an  archaeologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

The site was a parking lot before work crews demolished it to build the $20 million transit center. Last month, they discovered a building foundation on the southwest quadrant of the site, which has halted construction in that area.

IndyGo, the city's public transportation agency, hired a firm to sift through the area, which is where bus bays would be built. Construction on the rest of the land, including the indoor station, is proceeding, and the station is expected to open by the end of the year.

City officials said warehouses, shops and offices were at the site in the 1950s, and now they're discovering some older businesses that aren't on any historical maps.

Johnson said diggers have found evidence that a livery, a clothing store, a hotel and a restaurant might have been there before that.

She said the researchers have found blackboards, menus, clothing store displays and evidence that horses and stables were there. They also have found two safes and an arrowhead that would indicate artifacts go back much further in time.

"It's been very labor-intensive," she said.

The architects work for AECOM, a global architecture, engineering and planning firm that designed Indianapolis' Deep Rock Tunnel Connector, a 25-mile sewage system under construction.

A spokesman for AECOM referred questionsto IndyGo. The agency did not respond to several requests for information Friday.

The relics are being shipped to AECOM's office in Cincinnati for study and cataloging.

Call Star reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418. Follow him on Twitter: @john_tuohy.