In 1966, Marsh Supermarkets caused a stir across the Midwest by venturing into the rapidly expanding convenience store market. By the time it was acquired by a private equity firm four decades later, Marsh owned 154 Village Pantries spanning across Indiana and Ohio! Some of the original locations have been repurposed, and I take a photo when I find one.
Continue reading “Spotted in the wild: another old Village Pantry in Muncie”
Way back in October, I posted about some of Delaware County’s tornado sirens I’d recreated in LEGO. No one latched on when it went live, but the internet likes to pin a tail on blog posts. A couple weeks ago, a guy from California reached out to ask if I was the same Ted who designed the Lego warning sirens. Turns out I was!
Continue reading “Revisiting LEGO outdoor warning sirens”
I love basketball and probably always will. Here in Indiana, it’s the perfect time to be a fan: the Fever just drafted Iowa phenom Caitlin Clark, and the Pacers just destroyed the Knicks in game four of the second round of the playoffs! Those are exciting developments, but what I like most about basketball is the history behind my state’s zealous participation in it. A trip to Richmond yesterday led me past three old high school gymnasiums just oozing with stories.
Continue reading “Three old gyms in northern Wayne County”
Madison County’s Boone and Duck Creek Townships operated independent systems of rural schoolhouses until 1949, when officials joined forces to build a $150,000 grade school with six classrooms, a gymnasium/auditorium, and a cafeteria1. The building opened two years later, bringing an end to a hundred-year tradition of one-room schools.
Continue reading “Madison County’s old Duck Creek-Boone Township Grade School”
It’s surreal to compose an obituary for a church. I wasn’t intimately familiar with Wheeling Methodist Episcopal, but I knew the landmark of rural Delaware County had stood for more than a hundred years in northwestern Delaware County. The resilient building endured challenges like surviving a tornado and resisting threats of relocation and demolition, but all that remains today is a pile of brick and timber.
Continue reading “Wheeling Chapel’s final chapter”
The Marsh Supermarket at Muncie’s Southway Plaza opened in 1958. Marsh operated it as its namesake brand along with LoBill Foods, Marsh Hometown Market, and MainStreet Market. The store closed in 2014. It was most recently a flea market.
Continue reading “Abandoned Marsh: South Madison Street in Muncie”
My home of Delaware County, Indiana, demolished its eighty-year-old courthouse in 1967. Fortunately, a two-hour drive is all it takes to satisfy a nostalgic craving for Muncie’s lost courthouse. Completed four years earlier, Kosciusko County’s in Warsaw is nearly identical! Architect Brentwood Tolan of Fort Wayne was responsible.
Continue reading “The Kosciusko County, Indiana Courthouse (1884-)”
In 1881, In 1881, Greene Township’s District 6 schoolhouse stood on land owned by Jonas Siders just west of Portland near the Salamonie River1. Sometime before 1887, a replacement was built at the southwest corner of Division Road and County Road 125-South2. The school sat across the road from a Methodist Episcopal church and took the name Willow Chapel.
Continue reading “Greene Township’s Willow Chapel schoolhouse in Jay County”
St. Joseph County, Indiana, boasts an impressive array of historic courthouses. Built in 1854, the oldest is one of Indiana’s few left from the days before the Civil War. The second is an impressive skyscraper done up in the International style so popular in the 1960s. Sandwiched between is the grandest of all, a Beaux-Arts landmark completed in 1896.
Continue reading “The St. Joseph County, Indiana Courthouse (1898-1969, 1971-)”
In 1881, Greene Township’s District 5 schoolhouse sat next to Center Cemetery at the modern-day corner of State Road 26 and County Road 500-West1. Sometime between 18872 and 19003, a brick replacement was built a half mile south on the land of G.W. Fields.
Continue reading “Greene Township’s Center Schoolhouse in Jay County”
Ted Shideler 