Mike Wolanin | The Republic An exterior view of the Mill Race Center in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Aug. 16, 2024.
Even 70 years and a few location changes later, Mill Race Center is going strong.
In celebration of Mill Race Center’s 70th anniversary, retired executive director Bob Pitman will be leading a free discussion Thursday sharing the history and stories around one of the first senior centers in Indiana and the country.
The discussion will be held at Mill Race Center from 3 to 4:30 p.m. and is open to the public. Though it is free to attend, visitors can register in the business office as they walk in.
Founded as the Retirement Study Foundation of Bartholomew County in October of 1956, Mill Race Center opened under the founding director Burhl Ellis, who served in that role until 1982. At that time, there were likely fewer than 100 senior centers in the country.
The initial idea of the organization was to study the problems, needs and interests they thought older adults at the time were experiencing. Other organizations would be asked to provide programs for older adults to meet those identified needs and interests, but when that plan fell through, Pitman said the Retirement Foundation then became a social service organization.
“And Burhl, back in those days, professional women were usually limited in what they got involved in,” Pitman said. “They usually were either teachers or nurses, so she broke the mold. She was the first to really get involved in social service programs.”
Pitman said he was fortunate enough to know Ellis before she died in 1999 and will be sharing stories about her during the event Thursday. As the executive director, he said she led an outstanding board of directors, many of whom served as leaders in different organizations in the community.
She, the center and its supporters helped to get the senior center moved to where Upland Columbus Pump House is now. That move from their past locations on Sixth Street and then at the Harden Building on Fifth and Franklin enabled them to do many more programs including health screenings and continue the center’s growth.
“The board of directors with Burhl, they were very much engaged in developing programs and so there were other programs such as senior employment programs, there were health programs including home health programs… it was very active,” Pitman said. “So it’s pretty amazing that the center has continued to thrive all of these years. There have only been four executive directors since the very beginning 70 years ago, so that’s pretty unusual.”
Now in their current location at 900 Lindsey St., Pitman said the center continues to host several programs, and he plans to discuss the different programs that have evolved from the center during his discussion Thursday. Many of these programs go back to the beginning of the agency and have continued in some form to this day like one of their first programs called Tuesday Night Games, he said.
“… originally it was in the evening, Tuesday evenings and it was quite popular but then later on, they also did playing cards or games during the daytime as people’s schedules changed,” Pitman said. “And it didn’t go off as well but now it continues to be very good. I mean, today, there’s a lot of different games that are played and it’s quite popular.”
