Inside Wheeler

The back of the photograph reads: “Present location before Building – Old Elm Saloon Building” April 3, 1925

Superintendent Herbert Eberhardt and a transient man in the mission office at 241 N. Delaware, ca. 1920s.

By the 1920s, the mission had outgrown its 241 N. Delaware location but lacked the funds to build a new building on its own. Superintendent Herbert Eberhardt and the board of directors began a building campaign to help raise the money.

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This poster was on the interior of a brochure the mission sent out in April of 1928 to solicit funds for its new building campaign.

On the back of the photograph it reads: “New Building of Wheeler City Rescue Mission 245 N. Delaware Erected in 1929 at cost of $120,000.00”

A postcard celebrating Wheeler’s 50^th anniversary in 1943 shows a mission worker’s quarters at 245 N. Delaware St.

Another postcard celebrating Wheeler’s 50^th anniversary shows the prayer room at 245 N. Delaware St.

The new building at 245 N. Delaware opened in late 1929 and included a radio broadcasting studio and a new, ten-foot-tall rotating cross on the top of the building.

The Dearborn Hotel was purchased in 1991 to serve as the John H. Hughes Community Center. Today it houses Wheeler Mission Ministries’ Center for Women and Children.

These reports from 1920, 1933, and 1947 illustrate the changing focus and needs of the mission in the first half of the twentieth century. Note the “At A Glance” section at the bottom of the 1933 report, which highlights the increased demands the Depression placed on the mission.

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