The Langston Family boulder

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

I’m a pretty observant person, I think, but it must have taken a hundred trips up and down Wheeling Pike north of Muncie before I spied an intriguing boulder. It probably took another hundred before I was able to nab a clear photo with my DSLR! The enormous rock commemorates a pioneer family that settled straddling the Hamilton/Harrison Township line! This boulder waits patiently, letting us speed by on the old highway, until someone curious enough figures out how to slow down, whip out a camera, and start asking questions.

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Here’s your chance to live in a one-room schoolhouse

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 2 min.

My Uncle Jeff texted me the other day with a question: did I know about the old schoolhouse for sale nearby? I knew about the school, but not that it had hit the market. The 1886 Lincoln schoolhouse near Yorktown has grown to 3,951 square feet! After forty-six years in the same family, it could be yours for $325,000.

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Ten cool drone shots

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 8 min.

I bought a drone- specifically, a DJI  Mini SE- four or five years ago when I worked at an old factory. I desperately wanted to explore the ancient tunnel that connected both halves of the historic campus, but the ladder down was rusty and untrustworthy. Unfortunately, an aging air compressor next to the hatch fired off regular, rhythmic blasts that made it impossible to keep the hovering Mini SE centered over the opening. Nevertheless, I still managed to put the drone to good use, and here are ten cool photos I’ve taken with it. 

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Lima lost a landmark when Target came to town

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 8 min.

Lima, Ohio’s Lima Mall will get a sorely needed shot in the arm when its new Target superstore opens on November 8th. For people who prefer shopping inside vibrant businesses instead of taking photos of abandoned ones, Target’s entry into the market is great news! I just wish Lima’s landmark Lazarus didn’t have to be demolished to make it happen.

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The Green Township School at Point Isabel in Grant County

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 3 min.

Throughout its history, Grant County’s Green Township was home to as many as six one-room district schoolhouses1. That changed in 1924, when the Green School Township issued $60,000 in bonds to build a consolidated structure just north of Point Isabel2. All of the rural schools closed when the building was dedicated on August 3, 19253. 

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Meet Richmond’s Madonna of the Trail

Ted Shideler 3 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

Be they Muffler Men, fiberglass Indians, or larger-than-life depictions of country stars like the late Dolly Parton, I’m a sucker for roadside statuary. Richmond, Indiana, has one of the most imposing examples I’ve encountered: standing guard at the entrance to Glen Miller Park is an eighteen-foot monument to the pioneer women who crossed the American wilderness, the Madonna of the Trail. It’s seventeen tons of pioneer mother, baby, and little boy, and you simply can’t miss it.

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I love my early Meijer mornings

Ted Shideler 10 Comments
Read time: 5 min.

It’s funny how routines imprint themselves. I lived with my dad when I was sixteen, and every morning went exactly the same way: up at 5:30, downstairs so my stepmom could shower upstairs, peanut butter toast, then Steve Duval and Elizabeth Colosimo on the WSJV morning news. I hated how that was brainlessly enforced day after day! Nearly twenty years later, though, it makes more sense thanks to Muncie’s Meijer Express. 

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Jackson Township old Shull’s schoolhouse in White County

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 3 min.

I was driving through White County near the northwestern portion of Indiana when I stumbled across this old frame building near of Burnettsville. Based on its appearance, I assumed it may have been an old school so I grabbed a couple of photos just in case. As it turns out, this was Jackson Township’s old Shull Schoolhouse!

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