Until 1980, the house at 612 E. Wabash Ave. was well known around town as a brothel. Now, the home will be known nationwide, when it is featured on HGTV’s “If Walls Could Talk.”

On Friday, homeowner Cheryl Callahan took a camera crew and producers through the home as she told stories about its past as part of an area once called the “red-light district” and “the lines.”

One of the stories she shares was of a major raid that shut the district down 27 years ago.

According to a Pharos-Tribune article from October 1980, the raid included 49 city policemen, state troopers and federal agents, and it led to the arrests of more than 20 individuals. There were several other homes in the area included in the raid. Criminal charges included promoting prostitution, conspiracy, bribery and corrupt business influence.

Callahan, who grew up in Logansport and moved to Florida in the 1970s, bought the home in September 2001. The 1963 graduate of Logansport High School said she remembered the area well from her childhood.

Callahan began restoring the home not long after she bought it, gutting it from top to bottom.

While restoring the home, Callahan, who continues to work on the house when she visits her father, Harold Reid, found many items of interest.

“When we were gutting one of the walls, lo and behold, there were two blouses,” Callahan told host Mike Siegel as she held up two off-white tops. “It really made you feel in touch with the people.”

Covered up on a wall in the middle of the house was a small, rectangular peephole that Callahan uncovered while restoring the home.

“We can only imagine what it was for,” she said. “I’d like to think it was to pass the money. There was a room on the other side of the peephole.”

When she ripped up layers of carpet, Callahan found in every doorway buzzers that were wired to the house next door. She said the women would press down on the buttons with their feet, and that would send out an alert that there was an emergency.

As part of the research on the home, Callahan sat down one day a few years ago with Lee Allen, a woman who owned the home for 30 years. Allen recently passed away.

“She had a lot of stories,” Callahan recalled. “She called it a ‘sporting house.’”

Callahan said she spoke with people around town about the brothel and learned that local businesses benefited from the women who worked there. Owners would close down stores when the women wanted to shop. They were known to make expensive clothing purchases.

Callahan spoke about the home as she looked through photos from before and after the restoration. She said she researched the home and the red-light district in the library and Cass County Historical Society.

A 2004 issue of the historical society’s Jeroloman Times stated that by 1880, there were a significant number of working girls in the area.

Callahan displayed a 1952 article from Look magazine placing Logansport on a nationwide map of “hot spots” for prostitution in the United States.

She also had a friend from Washington, D.C., provide her with a copy of an FBI case from the area. The basis of the case: illegal prostitution.

Along with Logansport, the crew also filmed homes in Zionsville, Seymour and Fortville this week.

According to producer Paul Baldwin, the crew filmed a funeral parlor/mansion that was the first house in Seymour to have electricity in the 1890s. In Zionsville, the crew filmed an old farm house, and in Fortville, it filmed a building that housed a gambling establishment during prohibition.

Baldwin said each of the Indiana homes would be featured in different episodes.

He said the producers look for homes that have stories to tell, and that was one reason Callahan’s home was chosen. Callahan learned of the show’s interest in local homes through an article in the Pharos-Tribune.

Callahan said Friday’s experience was fun, and she said she was glad she was able to share her home’s stories for younger generations.

“I wish we knew more stories about the home, but people just don’t talk,” she said. “That’s the fun part of owning it. I’m on a mission to get as many stories as possible.”

Melissa Soria may be reached at 574-732-5143 or melissa.soria@pharostribune.com