The Terre Haute Boys Club

This Boys and Girls Club traces back to one woman and five boys reading by candlelight. Her name was Flora Gilman Gulick, and she worked in the money order department at the Terre Haute post office. Troubled by the underprivileged boys she saw around the city, she started a free night school for them at a settlement house in January of nineteen oh eight.

Her first class was just five boys gathered around a candle. Word spread fast. The class grew quickly after that.

To pay for it, she raised money from prominent local families. What began as one clerk's act of kindness grew into a lasting institution that has served the children of this city for well over a century, moving from building to building but never closing its doors.