Indiana Dahlia Farm: Located!
February 28th, 2011 | 
It seems rather odd that my Dad doesn’t know where the Indiana Dahlia Farm was located in New Albany, even though, he was born during the time his parents lived there. Its location has been a mystery though. Tonight, I think I finally know where it was, and the flower rows are still visible from Google satellites! I have contacted a couple of very nice ladies at the Floyd County Library. They could not find it in any of their listings. I recently found some extra info that I thought may help.
First of all, I received a nice email from Tracey in Tallahassee, Florida that asked if I wanted a honey pitcher that she had that had the name Sherfick Farms on it. Of course, I said! She had found me by Googling the name, but she didn’t know how it came to be in her family’s possession. After receiving it I emailed Dad a photo of it, and he said that it was an early glass jar, probably from the 1930?s. That made me want to look through some of the old photos to see if I could spot it. I didn’t, but I did notice something for the first time. On the back of one of the company trucks was an ad for the farm with a street address. In all the brochures and newspaper articles about his farm, I had never seen a street address, only the town’s name, New Albany.
Secondly, Washington Carnegie Library recently put an article in the Times-Herald that said that their newspaper archive was available online. I went to their site, typed in a few names, but struck gold when I added Grandpa’s name. In the Washington Herald of Sept. 19, 1924 it said that Thomas Sherfick bought the farm from E. L. Kunsman.
Armed with this information I went on Ancestry.com and found Edw. L. Kunsman in the 1920 US census, in New Albany, Indiana, in the 29th precinct. He was listed as a florist, and even though he was born in Kentucky, he spoke German.
So next I contacted the ladies of Floyd County, and one wrote back with info that some friends had mentioned there was a flower farm off Daisy Lane, which is right of Green Valley Road! So I Google mapped it and noticed ridges in the earth. Move down Daisy Lane, and all of a sudden there are acres of them! It has to be the farm!
To see for yourself, map the following–Google Earth works best. Now I want to go to New Albany with photos of the home to see if it is still standing. How incredible to finally to know this. The stock market crash left everyone in 1929 in pretty bad financial shape, so it is no wonder that by the census of 1930, Dad was living with his family in Kentucky as Grandpa sold the farm and was now a salesman, I think of anvils, but will have to check my memory later.
400-498 E Daisy Ln
New Albany, Indiana 47150
United States
Thanks everyone for all the help!
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The oral family history I have concerning this is E L Kunzman sold his dahlia farm that was located on 22 acres on Green Valley Rd near Hausfeldt Lane. It changed hands briefly. E L Kunzman’s son Carl Kunzman bought the land & business back, eventually relocating the green house to 8 acres he & his wife owned on Daisy Lane. The Green Valley Rd and Daisy Lane properties were known as Kunzman’s Dahlia Farm.
The google earth shot is of property that was a dairy farm. I don’t think it was used for dahlias and certainly not by E L Kunzman. This was property owned by Carl Kunzman’s in-law’s. If you look closely will see radio towers in that shot. It was sold for this in the 60′s I believe. I figured those marking were all the ruts the tractor made cutting grass over the years.
I’m not sure which house you reference. The Green Valley Rd house was a larger 1 1/2 or 2 story, the Daisy Lane a very small 1 1/2 story.
Rex
Thanks! I was on my way to New Albany to check out the area, after visiting my daughters on Spring Break, and my car caught fire! Luckily I still have the photos, but I want to go to see both of the areas and compare them to the pictures. Thank you so much for writing!