White River Township resident Gilbert Bullock, also known as “The Button Man,” displays a handful of the buttons he had collected over a 20-year period.
Daily Journal Archive Photo
News from around Johnson County as reported on Feb. 9 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.
On this day in 1987, the main story on the front page of the Daily Journal was about a White River Township man’s button collection hobby.
Sixty-eight year-old resident Gilbert Bullock had stored thousands of colorful buttons of every size imaginable in the basement of his home on Olive Branch Road. Seated at the kitchen table, he reached for one of the eight gallon-sized pickle jars arranged in front of him.
The gray-headed retired builder gently unscrewed the lid.
“These are just a few of them,” he said, dumping out a handful of buttons.
Each jar contained thousands and thousands of buttons. There were 60 jars inside his house, he said.
Bullock and his wife had been collecting the buttons for 20 years. They planned to open a little shop and sell the buttons along with other things they collected.
But the plans came to an abrupt halt when his wife died in 1984. After that the buttons became a reminder of the past and what he’d lost.
After losing his wife, he fought stress by getting involved in other activities. The buttons remained unattended, and he eventually decided to get rid of them, he said.
“There are pieces here from all over the United States,” Bullock said.
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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2013
The city of Franklin was considering forming a sports corporation as a way to promote the city as a destination for sporting events.
1995
The city of Greenwood was vowing to keep its municipal airport open after the company that ran the facility announced it would pull out of the facility.
1980
Nearly 4 of 10 motorists questioned in the Franklin area were not using passenger seatbelts, according to a unique survey taken by a sixth grade class at Northwood Elementary School in Franklin.
