By Julie Schlesselman, Local History & Genealogy Department Manager, FCPLD
This article ran in the February 5, 2020, edition of the Brookville American and in Volume 1 of Forgotten Franklin County.
Do you remember the television show? It was on once a week from 1977 to 1982. Leonard Nimoy was the host. The program investigated controversial and paranormal events, and featured episodes about historical personalities and mysterious historical events. Well, this week our history mystery has to do with artwork. We are “in search of…” the drawings of Jon Cunningham. Where did they go?
Some of you may remember Mr. Cunningham. He moved to Franklin County from Cincinnati in 1982 and was seen throughout the town of Brookville sketching some of his favorite buildings. His primary medium was pencil.
In the Summer of 1985, Cunningham had at least two art exhibits in Brookville – the first was at the Franklin County Historical Society’s June meeting, and the second was a month later when his drawings were on display at the FCN main bank.
So, what prompted our curiosity about the current location of Cunningham’s drawings? A recent donation to the Brookville Library’s History Department, of course!
In December 2019, we received a framed pencil sketch of the Franklin County courthouse, signed by Jon Cunningham. The name was familiar because we already had a small 9”x 9” framed drawing of the Brookville Library by Cunningham hanging in the library’s collection.
Probably about a year or so prior to our newest donation, a patron asked us about Cunningham’s library drawing. He wanted to know if we knew where any more of his sketches were. At the time, we had no clue.
Not until it was brought to our attention that a newspaper article about Cunningham and his exhibit was in the local paper were we able to make any determinations and start asking around. We found the article in the July 31, 1985, Democrat and American. Fortuitously, it was accompanied by a photo of Cunningham, with faint images of his most recent works.
The article said, “A trip to Brookville to visit his family brought his artistic eye’s attention to the aesthetic and unusual design of the local architecture of the homes and buildings in the community.” He was fascinated with the millwork and uniqueness of many of the old structures, and “pegged this area as a nice place to draw.” The article said that his “first endeavor was the building now housing Danner’s Annex at the southeast corner of Sixth and Main.” For those of you not old enough to know what Danner’s was, it was a “dime store” or variety store that sold everything that anyone would need on a daily basis. It was kind of a precursor to the “dollar stores” that we have today. In fact, Dollar General is the store in that location now.
The article mentioned that Cunningham was pleased with his work and decided to continue along Main Street to create a few more sketches. The article alluded to the fact that “a dozen more” were created when the newspaper article went to print. We are not sure exactly how many of Jon Cunningham’s pencil sketches were produced. In addition, we don’t know where they all are, but we would like to find out, and need your help. It would be wonderful to have the original complete set together once again, which we know is an impossibility, but it is possible to at least find out where all the sketches are today, and maybe even get digitally reproduced copies.
When the original news article ran, Cunningham had already sold five of the images in his collection. More than likely, he created approximately fifteen sketches for his exhibit. Between the listing of images that the article gave and trying to determine from the photograph the subject matter, these are the Cunningham sketches that we can come up with. If you have one, please let us know. In addition, if you have one that is not on the list, let us know that as well. We anxiously await your phone call to the History Department at 765.647.4031 or an email to me at julie@fclibraries.org.
1. (listed) Brookville Library…..currently in the Brookville Library collection.
2. (listed) Franklin County Courthouse…..currently in the Brookville Library collection.
3. (listed) Lewis Wilson home (probably also the house known as the Goodwin home)….unknown
4. (listed) Reifel home (the Lew Wallace birth location)…..unknown
5. (listed) Little Cedar Grove Baptist Church….currently in the Franklin County Historical Society collection
6. (listed) Franklin County Museum (Seminary)…..currently in the Franklin County Historical Society collection
7. (article) Danner’s store…..unknown
8. (pictured) Old Brookville Church and Cemetery…..unknown
9. (pictured) Ritzi’s Jewelers…..unknown
10. (pictured) FCN Bank…..unknown
11. (pictured) POSSIBLY Winans’ or Noe’s house…..unknown
12. (pictured) POSSIBLY the O’Byrne house…..unknown
13. (pictured) POSSIBLY the log cabin in the town park…..unknown
14. (pictured) Unknown subject…..unknown
15. (pictured) Unknown subject…..unknown
Jon H. Cunningham was born in West Virginia in 1920 and was only 68 when he passed away in 1989. He is buried at Maple Grove Cemetery. Cunningham had been a Cincinnati resident for the majority of his life, and only got to enjoy Franklin County for about the last seven years of it. He was a WWII veteran, having served in the US Air Force as a Flight Engineer, and was a retired commercial artist. After returning from the service, he attended the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati for two years, the Cincinnati Art Academy for one year, and then to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. It’s been said that Cunningham was the artist who sketched the original Hudy Delight Beer can, and apparently, Hudepohl had the originals in their archives and can confirm Cunningham was the artist on that design!
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