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Q:
Indianapolis seems to have a lot of those post–World War II metal houses. Why so many? A: Perhaps because they were made by a firm called the Lustron Corporation in nearby Columbus, Ohio. It’s easy to spot the 150 or so Indiana abodes, because they’re all fairly small, and all made not with bricks or timber, but with porcelain-covered steel squares placed over a steel frame. From 1948 to 1951, Lustron churned out around 2,500 of the prefab structures, several of which can still be seen in (among other places) the Broad Ripple area. Offered in unique colors ranging from “surf blue” to “maize yellow,” the one-story bungalows contain more metal than a P-51 Mustang fighter