The Wallack House

432 Center Street

To trace the history of the Ashland chapter house of the
American Red Cross we must go back to a man named Eli Wallack. As a lad of 20, Wallack came to Ashland in 1848 and went into partnership in the provision business with J.W. Harman and later the Freer Brothers, Randolph and Jonas.
In 1859, he and his wife, the former Anne Faws, bought
property at 432 Center Street for $500. They purchased it from
C.K. and Charlotte Risser, who bought the land in 1848 when
Center Street was laid out. Their home was probably built a short time later.

Mrs. Wallack died in 1873 when she was only 39, and three years later, Wallack married a widow, Caroline Campbell. Wallick passed away in 1888 and W.C. Frazee was named trustee for the second Mrs. Wallack. Edgar Koehl, grandson of the second Mrs. Wallack, acquired the home in 1921 and lived there until 1926, when they moved across the street into the former home of William V.B. Topping, built by him in 1907, at 421 Center Street.

The original Wallack home was sold to Veda Winbigler, who had the house split and the back portion moved to the rear of the lot and has since been razed. Rumor has it that Mrs. Winbigler thought one stairway was sufficient and had the front stairs removed.
Her son, Howard Winbigler, inherited the property and sold it on May 8, 1946, the the Red Cross for
$8,500. (J.L. Clark of 622 Center Street was responsible for staring the local Red Cross chapter in 1917.)
The fireplace tiles are encaustic tile from Indianapolis, Indiana. The tiles to the left of the center of the hearth are known as sycamore bells. The tiles to the

right of the hearth center are known as apples and blossoms. The surround top corner tiles are Trent tiles from Trenton, New Jersey. The center “cube” like tiles are rare never before seen by

Mike Sims, member of the National Heritage Tile Foundation. He said, “This fireplace is a composite of different companies, and may have been put together by a builder that had a lot of sample tiles left over. “

An old Center Street postcard with the porch of the Wallack home at the extreme right