Ten old high school gyms, as seen in Sanborn Maps

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

I’m a big basketball fan living smack-dab in the heart of Hoosier Hysteria. My obsession goes well beyond game nights and box scores- I’m fascinated by the places where the game was played! Lately, I’ve been digging into the history of high school gyms, using old Sanborn Maps to see how they were built, expanded, and used over time. Here’s some of what I’ve uncovered.

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My trip to The Toast

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 5 min.

The Toast has been an Anderson, Indiana, institution for seventy-five years. It’s one of those diners everyone seems to know even if they’ve never made it inside. Despite my own long history with the city, I’d somehow managed to miss it! That changed one recent morning when my Mom and I found ourselves in Anderson with breakfast on the brain. We each pulled up a chair, and here’s how it went.

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The Aladdin lamp factory I just wrote about is being demolished

Ted Shideler Leave a comment
Read time: 3 min.

I took some photos of Muncie’s old Aladdin Manufacturing Company property on the day after Christmas. As it turns out, I did that just in time- someone told me that the place is being demolished! I headed back for some final pictures before the southeast corner of Hackley and 18th becomes bare ground and open sky. By the time I made it there, old warehouse to the north was completely gone. An excavator was ripping down the rest.

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The Kirkwood well is broken

Ted Shideler Leave a comment
Read time: 3 min.

Back in October, I swore to you that there was a flowing well hiding in the tall grass of a Grant County pasture. I’d visited the old Kirkwood well before, but this time something felt different: beneath the weeds, I could hear water gurgling at the base of the casing instead of trickling down its trough. Something had changed! I left that day with a promise to return and figure out what was really going on. In December, I finally did.

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Aladdin lamps lit up Muncie until they went dark

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 5 min.

People have been asking me to write about old factories for months now. Consider that wish granted! I was driving around the south side of Muncie on the day after Christmas when I stopped to take photos of this imposing property. About a hundred years ago, it was home to the Aladdin Manufacturing Company. 

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New Castle’s First Walmart Baptist Church

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 3 min.

If you drive down South Memorial Drive in New Castle, you might pass a broad, low-slung church with an ocean of parking without a second thought. Look closer, though, and the clues start stacking up- the extra-wide footprint, the grid-patterned masonry, and the unmistakable proportions of a 1990s big-box store. Long before Sunday sermons and fellowship dinners, this place was pure Walmart!

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Speaking to veterans in a century-old school

Ted Shideler 5 Comments
Read time: 7 min.

Lately, life has felt a lot like one of the old buildings I write about: a little worn out and suddenly pushed into a new chapter. After I lost my job in December, I steadied myself the only way I knew how, by leaning into local history. That instinct led me somewhere fitting- an old neighborhood school-turned-community hub.

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The landmark Crain Sanitarium on the National Road

Ted Shideler 10 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

A stately, sprawling Queen Anne home rises just west of the entrance to Richmond’s Glen Miller Park along US-40, and it’s hard not to slow down when it comes into view. The building’s apparent decay only deepens the intrigue for anyone passing through! It hints that this house has lived more than one life. Indeed it has! Among its former identities is one that stopped me cold: the Crain Sanitarium. 

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Delaware County Patriots: William Blunk/Blunt/Blount

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 7 min.

The story of William Blunk isn’t neatly documented, but it’s exactly the kind of tale that built early America. Tracing him means following faint paper trails, family memories, and a series of misunderstandings! Taken together, though, they reveal something powerful: an ordinary man who did his part in both the Revolution and the settlement of Delaware County.

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