Historic Treasure of the Week - June 6, 1982
By Dorothy W. Jerse
Curator, Vigo County Historical Society
Historic Treasure of the Week - June 6, 1982
By Dorothy W. Jerse
Curator, Vigo County Historical Society
Punch, a favorite of Wabash Valley residents for the past 115 years, welcomes visitors to
the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley. He was once a popular advertising figure on
Wabash Avenue.
Punch arrived in Terre Haute in 1867. Two years before, Fred J. Biel opened his first tobacco store here. Soon after he traveled to New York to purchase a wooden figure that would entice customers to his shop. An east coast woodcarver fashioned the figure Punch from the base of a sailing ship mast.
Typical of the carved figures used a century ago, Punch was wheeled out onto the sidewalk in the morning and back into the store for safekeeping at night.
The wooden figures were used to portray a business. The figure might be a bear and her cubs in front of a shop of a furrier or an Oriental figure holding a box of tea in front of a tea importer's establishment. Punch holds cigars in one hand and a plug of tobacco in the other.
The Biel heirs gave Punch to the Vigo County Historical Society in 1955 and he continues to bring pleasure to the thousands of visitors who tour the museum each year.