10 Vol. 16 No. 07
The Broad Ripple Gazette
Mar 29 - Apr 11, 2019
touch the face of the crystal and find a radio station. Around 1924, the Atwater Kent company was making the first wooden box radio sets. Milton was a straight-A student at Arsenal Technical High School, and was friends with Dale Chastain. “[Dad and Dale] were both in electric shop class at Tech and in those days everybody was building crystal sets and one-tube radios and trying to pull in Philadelphia or maybe Cincinnati stations at that time,” recalls Don Albershardt, Milton’s son. Milton graduated from Tech in 1926 and was accepted to Purdue University. That summer Milton’s plans changed as family circumstances required him to stay home to start working. Milton and his friend Dale decided to open a store to sell and repair the new radios that were becoming all the rage. They picked 652 E. 52nd Street. They called it AC Radio Electric Shop, for their last names Albershardt and Chastain. Editor’s note: Some people thought AC Radio was named for Alternating Current. Others thought the C was for the building the shop was in for many years at 5207 College Avenue (where Edward Jones is today) - The Clark Building. Some 1928 Atwater Kent radios are seen in the window of the new shop. Radios in this era were operated on batteries, as most home were not yet wired with electricity. The radio catalog listed the required batteries for one model - One 2-volt “A” batteries (an acid-filled, car battery type), three 45-volt “B” batteries, and one 7 1/2-volt “C” battery. photo courtesy of Don Albershardt
August and Elgie Albershardt in front of their Fountain Square home (on the right side of the photo) at 1906 Prospect Street, probably taken around the turn of the century.
ACR Appliances - the story of a corner: part one By Alan Hague
alan@broadripplegazette.com Background: In 2008 through 2019 I conducted a series of interviews with Don Albershardt. Don ran ACR Appliances at 5215 College Avenue from the 1960s into the 1990s His dad, Milton, started with a small radio shop on 52nd Street around 1927/28. I will try to tell the story of this store and also of the surrounding businesses at that corner in the coming installments. It is an interesting story.
Milton Albershardt was born to parents August and Elgie Albershardt in August of 1907. August was a Veterinary Doctor in Fountain Square. He and Elgie lived in a large, three-story house with spindle-work at 1906 Prospect Street. August’s veterinary office was at 1108 Prospect Street, right across the street from the Fountain Square fountain. During his high school years at Arsenal Technical High School, 1923-1926, Milton was building radios in the waiting room of his dad’s office. These were very early days for radio. Vacuum tubes and loudspeakers were just being developed at the time. Crystal radios were available for tinkerers. They used a rock crystal embedded in a base, and a “cat whisker” wire on a twistable lever to
photo courtesy of Don Albershardt
AC Radio Electric Shop at 652 E. 52nd Street in 1928. Atwater Kent radios in the window.
end of ACR part one