In November 1930, in Indiana, a monumental feat of modern engineering was completed: an engineering team moved an 11,000-ton (22-million-pound) telephone headquarters building without interrupting its operations or suspending essential utility services for the 600 employees working inside.
To understand this milestone project in detail, we must trace back to 1888, when German-American architects Bernard Vonnegut and Arthur Bohn founded the architectural firm Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller (later known as Vonnegut & Bohn) in Indianapolis.
In 1907, Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller designed the Indiana Bell Building in Evansville for the Central Union Telephone Company, a seven-story structure; this art-rich building was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as one of Indianapolis's historical landmarks and part of the city’s German-American architectural heritage.
