The Indianapolis Star looks back at 107 years at 307 N. Pennsylvania St.

When The Indianapolis Star was first published, on June 6, 1903, it operated from a Victorian-style house at 119-121 E. Ohio St.

We moved to our current location, 307 N. Pennsylvania St., in 1907. On Sept. 29, we're moving again, into spiffy new offices in Circle Centre mall. The guiding concept for the new space is openness.

We will miss our former home, even though the place was strange and confusing. From the street, The Star building looked like most other buildings, uniform with a mid-century modern facade. But it actually was several buildings, purchased separately, that had been cobbled together — "at least three," said Cathy Knapp, a Star researcher since 1969.

"More like four or five," said Dawn Mitchell, who coordinates the online feature Retro Indy.

The building is a warren of hallways and big rooms and small rooms. It doesn't all match up, floor-level-wise. To get from the newsroom to editorial you went down five steps. But to get from the newsroom on the second floor to the cafeteria, just one floor up, you had to go up two flights of stairs — 22 steps.

At one time, you could get from the news department, where most reporters and editors sit, to the photo department via a dizzying spiral staircase. It saved space but at least one person — photographer Joe Vitti — broke his ankle on it. About 2011, the spiral staircase was removed.

Then there are the elevators. Some go to all six floors, while others stopped at four. Visitors frequently were puzzled by the layout, and that made it impossible for them to storm out in a huff, if they had a mind to.

Still, despite its shortcomings, 307 N. Penn was a memorable old place.

1907: The same year The Star moves into 307 N. Penn, it hires an artist and cartoonist. His name was Charles Bacon "Chic" Jackson, and his "Bean Family" comic strip runs from 1913 until 1934, when Jackson died.

1910: The Star hires its first photographer and publishes its first locally snapped photographs.

1914: Mary E. Bostwick joins The Star staff. She becomes sort of famous, performing stunts like being the first woman to loop the Speedway and entering a balloon race. Her advice for making it in "a man's world": "You have to drink with them, swear with them and jump on the back of the police wagon with them." Bostwick keeps a loaded pistol in her desk.

1925: Corbin Patrick joins The Star; becomes drama critic, 1941; retires, 1988, having reviewed, by his count, 5,000 plays.

1927: Robert P. Early joins The Star as a reporter. He is named managing editor in 1960. As such, Early decreed that no photos of rats or snakes could appear in The Star, nor could the word "stink." (Nearly a half-century later, in January 2004, Neill Borowski, named assistant managing editor for news, issues an edict that no sentence can start with "it.")

1942: Robert Clark, a junior at Tech High School, takes a job as a messenger in The Star's advertising department. Years later, after he changes his name to Robert Indiana and becomes a famous artist, he says he wishes he could have worked in news instead of advertising.

1944: Eugene C. Pulliam buys The Star.

1945: Lowell Nussbaum is hired to write human interest stories; he writes repeatedly about how nice zoos are and how Indianapolis should have one. He heads a fundraising drive that in 1964 leads to Indianapolis' first zoo, a modest affair on 30th Street but a zoo nevertheless, Indianapolis' first.

1946: Pulliam buys The Indianapolis News, an afternoon paper.

1948: The Star's wise-cracking cartoon character that appeared daily, "Jim Crow," undergoes a name change, to "Joe Crow."

1951: The Star changes its motto from "Fair and First" to "Where the Spirit of The Lord Is, There Is Liberty" II Cor. 3:17.

1960: John F. Kennedy, running for president, visits The Star building — alone, no entourage — to meet with Pulliam. It is no sale: The Star endorses Kennedy's Republican opponent, Richard Nixon.

1962: The Star falls for a prank: A caller tells The Star that a distinguished Englishman will be a guest at the 500-Mile Race — "Sir Ossis of Liverpool." Get it? Cirrhosis of the liver? The Star didn't get it and printed the item.

1963: "A Prayer for Today" debuts on the editorial page.

1968: "A Prayer for Today" moves to Page 1.

Early 1970s: During this period, more than a few pressmen pass their down time by watching porno films on an 8-millimeter, reel-to-reel movie projector in The Star's basement. Frequently, popcorn is served. Not kidding.

1974: The Star falls again for a hoax, reporting the death (phoned in by unknown persons) of H. Earl Capehart, a prominent local attorney and the son of U.S. Sen. Homer Capehart. Earl Capehart had not died and in fact lived another 22 years. "What was most curious," he said of his premature death report, "was that a number of people said they were glad to see me back, as if I had been gone and then returned."

1975: The Star wins a Pulitzer Prize for its 1974 series on police corruption, reported and written by Dick Cady, Harley Bierce and Bill Anderson.

1976: First computer system is installed in the newsroom; the thing is called Hendricks.

1977: A one-day strike by Teamsters May 2 prevents publication of The News and limits publication and delivery of The Star.

1978: A blizzard hits Indianapolis Jan. 25, preventing some staffers from going home.

1980s: A guy named Jim, a parking attendant (in the days before The Star had a parking garage), positions staffers' cars according to what gifts they brought him — baked goods, sometimes outright cash.

1984: The Star's Sunday lifestyle section changes its name to "Trends." It had been "FemmeFare."

1985: The Star's "Joe Crow," formerly "Jim Crow" (see above), is discontinued Jan. 28; Coretta Scott King's weekly syndicated column begins running in The Star Nov. 6.

Mid-1980s: The exact date is not known but at around this time, a career newsroom messenger named Edwin O. Park, who had both self-confidence and a developmental disability, got on an elevator with Eugene S. Pulliam, publisher and patriarch of a newspaper dynasty. "Morning, Edwin," Pulliam said. "Hit two, would ya, Bub?" was Park's reply.

1986: The Star builds a parking garage for its employees, who begin the tradition of watching the July 4 fireworks from atop it.

1987: A scene from the not-great movie "Viper" is shot in The Star newsroom Oct. 17. Becky Walter, a 39-year staffer who left the paper in 2013, recalls certain logistical problems with the script, such as when the protagonists announced they'd hide out in the mountains of Indiana.

1988: On Aug. 16, Republican presidential nominee George Bush makes Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle his vice presidential running mate. Quayle was unknown outside Indiana, plus he was a relative of the Pulliams, who owned The Star. This also was before the Internet. Phone calls come flooding in from around the world seeking more biographical information on Quayle. The calls are routed to research librarians, who claim this was the busiest day in the history of The Star's telephone lines.

1989: Shares of stock in Central Newspapers Inc., The Star's parent company, are traded publicly for the first time on Sept. 21.

1990: Lawrence "Bo" Connor retires as The Star's managing editor. He had worked at the paper since 1949. As he exited the building the last time, quietly, without fanfare (it was late in the day and the newsroom was up against deadline), someone in the newsroom noticed him and began applauding. Others joined in, and soon the entire newsroom was standing and applauding as Connor strolled away — like a scene out of a movie but totally real, totally spontaneous.

1991: The Star wins the Pulitzer Prize for a series on medical malpractice. In the newsroom, champagne is poured over the heads of triumphant reporters Joe Hallinan and Susan Headden.

1992: Newsroom staffer Jennifer Morlan meets newsroom staffer Scott Horner in February. They marry and later have a son. They're still married and still work here (and still have a son). Staffer Dawn Mitchell met her husband, Wendell Mitchell, in 1990. They, too, are still married. These couples are among dozens of couples who met at The Star and married, or at least hooked up for a while.

1998: Ernie Banks, the great Cub, visits The Star newsroom to promote high blood pressure awareness. Sixteen years later, Banks is still alive. He's 83.

1999: The News, its circulation having fallen for decades, ceases publication Oct. 1. In an unusual homage-type gesture, company executives appear in the newsroom on The News' final day, as staffers assemble the final edition of a newspaper that first published Dec. 7, 1869, and offer coffee and danishes.

2000: The Star, including its building, plus the other properties of Central Newspapers Inc., is sold to Gannett Co. for $2.6 billion on June 28.

Early 2000s: A small cadre of copy editors led by Carl Sygiel begins pooling money to buy lottery tickets. Since then, the group has mushroomed to as many as 150 investors. Twice in a decade, the group has won $100. Still, Sygiel continues to claim each time the jackpot gets big that victory is close at hand.

2001: On Oct. 16, The Star furnishes its staff with rubber gloves, for wearing while opening the mail. The reason: anthrax. The gloves are widely mocked, but an actual anthrax scare would come seven years later.

2002: The Star is printed offsite with new presses on the Northwestside. The presses formerly had been in the basement of 307 N. Penn, and when they ran, the building hummed.

Dec. 5: The U2 lead singer Bono visits 307 N. Penn on a tour with other celebrities to urge the United States to do more to help Africa's dire situation regarding AIDS. Actor Chris Tucker accompanies Bono, but Ashley Judd stays on the tour bus. Star administrative assistant Kim Mitchell over the years has met governors and senators and other movers and shakers, but she was blown away by the Irish rock star's charisma, even in a brief, mundane exchange. "In the hallway," Mitchell said, "Bono said to me, 'Excuse me, love, can you find me a phone with a bit of preevacy?' "

2006: Wicked storm sweeps through Downtown, blowing out windows at The Star building's southwest corner. The Star's library takes a hit, and the publisher's office is practically destroyed.

July 3: Star photographer Mpozi Mshale Tolbert, working the photo desk, collapses, is rushed to Wishard Hospital and dies an hour later, at age 34.

Sept. 18: In a meeting at The Star's editorial board office, U.S. Rep. Julia Carson advises that her formidable opponent in the upcoming election, businessman Eric Dickerson, 15 years earlier had "beat his wife to a pulp." A police report is found, Dickerson is undone, and Carson is re-elected for the 17th time.

2008: The Star's building is placed on "lockdown" Nov. 3 after an envelope purportedly containing anthrax is opened. The substance was later determined not to be anthrax.

April 25: Barack Obama, then Illinois senator campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, visits The Star and is calm, cool and collected, said Mitchell, Obama's building guide. "He stopped and talked to people on his way to his meeting" with the editorial board, she said. Four days later, Mitchell escorted Obama's rival, Hillary Clinton, through the building. She was, by contrast, guarded. "It was as if she expected people to ask her hard questions, whereas Obama seemed to expect that people would like him," Mitchell said. The Star endorsed Clinton.

May 23: Jim Nabors visits newsroom. Does this qualify as a moment? Maybe.

2009: A cardboard box containing excrement arrives in the mail, addressed to editor Dennis Ryerson, following the newspaper's investigation of how gun permits are issued.

2011: On July 29, Christopher Wray played a trick on his girlfriend, Jacquelyn, who worked in advertising. At his bidding, her boss arranged a fake "team building" exercise. It involved Jacquelyn being led around blindfolded. When she removed the blindfold, there stood Wray. Right then and there, in front of a coterie of ad salespeople, he took a knee and popped the question. Yes, she said.

2013: David Newell, who played Mr. McFeely on "Mr. Rogers," stops by The Star to promote a WFYI event. Certain staffers squeal with excitement, especially reporter Dana Benbow, who gets Newell's autograph.

On May 9, The Star building is sold to developer The Whitsett Group, which plans to convert it into apartments and, on the ground floor, retail.

Sources: Star research; Star interviews; "Star in the Hoosier Sky," by Lawrence Connor.

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter: @WillRHiggins.