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Gale Bradfordโ€™s post-war assembly line-style home construction drew national accolades

Few neighborhoods in Evansville are as instantly recognized as Iroquois Gardens. Tucked in an area south of the Lloyd Expressway to Lincoln Avenue, just west of the Green River Road shopping district, the homes are small by modern standards, mostly brick and built on slab. For many thousands of homebuyers, they have served as what real estate agents call โ€œstarter homes.โ€ Few are aware of the areaโ€™s significance: the history of its development, and the creative genius who built it.

Born in 1910, Gale Bradford was a noted homebuilder in Evansville for many years. At the same time his competitor Guthrie May was developing small homes on the North Side, Bradford, like May, was trying to build homes in the late 1940s and early 1950s for returning military service members and their families who precipitated what we call the โ€œbaby boom.โ€ World War II left homebuilders with limited resources, including labor. The need for new housing was intense, with thousands of men coming back to the area from the war anxious to start families.

An Evansville native, Bradford was the son of a homebuilder, A. A. Bradford, and served in the military during the war. Coming home, he jumped into the building of war housing. He built the Columbia Apartments, which have since been retitled Bradford Pointe Apartments and still stand in the 1600 block of East Franklin Street, just east of U.S. 41.

Prior to his military service, he had worked at Briggs Indiana Corporation, an assembly line plant in Evansville, and learned the science of multi-line assembly, which in a stroke of genius he decided to apply to home construction in his proposed Iroquois Gardens subdivision in 1946-47. He convinced the local Congress of Industrial Organizations to allow an influx of apprentice labor to join journeymen, and his โ€œassembly lineโ€ was underway. (The national CIO merged with the American Federation of Labor in 1955.)

The speed and quality of his homes drew national attention in LIFE magazine, a weekly publication very popular at the time. It included photos and his work in the June 9, 1947, issue in a story about post-war housing construction in the U.S. LIFE described Bradford as โ€œthe biggest builder in the state of Indianaโ€ and lauded his collaboration with the CIO to allow 10 apprentices to work under one journeyman.

Life magazine article provided by Kelley Coures

The LIFE article said this method meant all laborers could do almost every job, which was radical in 1947. Bradford built nearly 3,000 homes in the 10-year period following the war.

The Department of Metropolitan Development began consideration of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for Iroquois Gardens in 2020 after an application for the mid-century Hebron Meadows neighborhood โ€” bordered by Bellemeade and Washington Avenues and Colony and Blue Ridge Roads โ€” was successful. It is believed that the significance of both the developer and his methods, the national recognition they received, and the intact nature of the 261 homes that stand relatively unchanged, will qualify Iroquois Gardens for recognition.

Iroquois Gardens was indeed intended for returning servicemen, but only white families could buy homes there. Black families were excluded, as they were from all the other burgeoning housing subdivisions sprouting in Evansville on the East and North sides at the time. It wasnโ€™t until 1968 with the passage of the national Fair Housing Act that Black families could purchase homes in Iroquois Gardens and elsewhere.

Iroquois Gardens under construction in the 1940s. Photo provided by Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library

Bradfordโ€™s innovation wasnโ€™t limited to Iroquois Gardens. His work with Bradford Homes Inc. is evident in the slightly larger single-family homes on Greencove and Cass Avenues near the intersection where Covert Avenue and South Green River Road meet. One Bradford new build on Cass, listed for sale in the Jan. 25, 1972, issue of The Evansville Press was highlighted for its โ€œdisposal with serving bar, electric fireplace, [and] fine neighborhoodโ€ and priced at $23,800.

The homes built by Bradford in Iroquois Gardens nearly 80 years ago still contribute to Evansvilleโ€™s real estate economy. One home sold in 2021 for more than $120,000, well over the original $7,500 average price tag in the late 1940s. It is likely that Bradford โ€” who died at age 66 in 1976 and had retired the year prior โ€” would be pleased but not surprised. He built these homes of brick to make sure they stood the test of time.

โ€œIt is testimony to his legacy that properties in Iroquois Gardens are still viable in the current marketplace,โ€ says Carol McClintock, a leading real estate broker at F.C. Tucker Emge. โ€œThey are especially important in providing young families with their first home just as they were for returning servicemen at the time.โ€

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