Nestled between the senior center and Sharon Hammond's law office lies a small vintage and antique shop: Vintage on Franklin. Its address is 5 W. Franklin St.
From first edition comics, vinyl records, maps from the 1830s and even a replica of a civil war era sword fill the rooms. Bill Sullivan's shop has it all.
"I'm out of control," Sullivan said of purchasing new items for the shop.
Sullivan and his wife, Lynn, opened the shop about a year and a half ago.
"I kind of set it up for kids at DePauw," Sullivan said. "They come in here every once in a while and they say, 'I didn't know this was here.'"
Originally from Minnesota, Bill Sullivan has been perusing antiques and vintage items for about 34 years.
"Our parents both collected antiques and sometimes we just fell in love with the stuff," Sullivan said. "It's not a get rich quick sort of scheme. It's more of a passion."
Each antique in Vintage on Franklin holds a unique story.
"I probably bought this 20 years ago," Sullivan said pointing to a black western style shirt.
Then, Sullivan displayed a maroon sweater from Montgomery Ward's, a mail order and department store retailer that opened in 1872 and closed in 2000.
"This is a sweater here that's never been worn," Sullivan said. "It's probably from the 60s."
Next, Sullivan pointed to a white fur coat hanging next to the sweater.
"This went on sale January 1, 1930, so it must have been right after the stock market crash," Sullivan said. "It was for sale for $37.50. It never sold, so I suppose everybody lost their money and nobody could afford to buy it."
Sullivan recalled a time that someone came into the shop and asked him how he felt about recycling.
"This is recycling. Taking something that was made 50 years ago and selling it to somebody," Sullivan said. "It takes energy to make something new, and it doesn't take any energy to resell something that's used."
Vintage on Franklin holds items that Sullivan believes parents of college students would enjoy.
"You got to have something for the parents too," Sullivan said. "[We have] a little bit of everything."
Sullivan urges students to make the trip to his shop to see what they can find.
"You can't spend your whole life in the library. You've got to have some fun. We've got a lot of interesting thing here [for students]," he said.
However, he believes that the reason more students do not come to the shop is simply because they do not know about it.
"We're not on Facebook. I don't do Craigslist," Sullivan said. "When students do come in, I ask them to put it on Facebook."
He believes that word of mouth is the best type of advertisement.
Sophomore Hanae Weber found the shop after walking around the square with some of her friends.
"We went because we were wandering around the square, saw it and had never been in before, so we decided to go," Weber said. "It's a cute shop and there are lots of cool things in it."
Sullivan noted that a lot of his business comes from people outside of Greencastle.
In between customers at the shop, Sullivan reads books about antiques.
"It's kind of like a treasure hunt," Sullivan said. "One of the best things I ever found was a Babe Ruth clock, and I still have that."
A few of the store's treasures caught sophomore Sarah Jylkka's eye.
"There's a box of comics up in the front, like old Marvel comics that I thought was really cool," Jylkka said.
She thinks that students will enjoy the antique shop because of the one of a kind quality antiques entail.
"There are a lot of themed parties around DePauw," Jylkka said. "It's definitely a good place to go to pick up items for the next theme party or something."
Vintage on Franklin, which is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., accepts only cash or check.
"It's definitely a hidden little shop that people don't know about," Jylkka said. "I think they should."