Indiana’s Adams County Home

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

I’ve always been drawn to big, sweeping statewide projects. There’s something irresistible about assembling a collection than informs the bigger picture! A few months ago, I decided my next long quest would be to visit each of Indiana’s old county infirmaries. I’d already been to six when I set out for the Adams County site just southeast of Decatur. For many years, it went by another name: Golden Meadows.

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Jefferson Township’s I. P. Gray marker in Jay County

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 3 min.

A single high school serves Jay County today, but things weren’t always that simple. Not so long ago, eight separate high schools dotted the county, each one anchoring its own community. Time and consolidation have erased them all, but one exception stands in New Mount Pleasant: there, a modest marker commemorates the site of I. P. Gray High School.

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My first run-in with the Pay Less robot

Ted Shideler 8 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

Kroger comes in two flavors here in Muncie: Ruler Foods, a no-frills ALDI competitor, and Pay Less, a full-service alternative. Pay Less began in Anderson in 1947, but Kroger snapped it up in 19991. Muncie was never kind to Kroger, but it re-entered the market with Ruler in 20132. A bigger investment came in 2017, when the company bought two closing Marsh supermarkets and reopened them as Pay Less3. I recently ran into its wandering robot. It was weird! 

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Indiana’s Wayne County Home

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 7 min.

I’m a loner drawn to places where people once gathered. Lately, Indiana’s old county homes and infirmaries have captured my attention. They weren’t places people chose to be; they were places people ended up- communities of necessity where the poor, the elderly, and the ill spent the final chapters of their lives together. In Wayne County, an infirmary still stands off U.S. 40 -the old National Road- quietly removed from the traffic that speeds past. It’s easy to miss but hard to forget.

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Ten more gyms, as seen in Sanborn Maps

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 7 min.

I’m a basketball fan who lives in the middle of Hoosier Hysteria, but my love for the game goes beyond buzzer-beaters and obscure stats: I’m fascinated by the history of the gyms themselves! Recently, I’ve been diving into old Sanborn Maps to see how high school gymnasiums were laid out, built, and changed over time. Here’s some more of what I’ve found.

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Mixed signals at the High Banks wells

Ted Shideler 8 Comments
Read time: 4 min.

A recent drive through the frozen backroads of Delaware County sent me chasing a winter mystery: how were the old artesian wells holding up in the cold? There, near one of three “high banks” in the area, the Lennington well was still doing what it’s always done! Over at Mt. Pleasant Church Cemetery, though, the story was different. Just a third of a mile south, it was dry. 

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A sad, strange story at the Abington well

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 9 min.

When they’re flowing, artesian wells are dynamic things. They’re so much so, that sometimes I miss the forest for the trees when I visit them! The dry well at Abington in the hills of Wayne County is a perfect example. Behind its unusual geology lies a strange human story. I’m still figuring out how to tell it, but I’ll try my best.

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It takes more than a giant lemon to cover up this Marsh labelscar

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 2 min.

Back when I still had family to visit in Fort Wayne, I almost always chose State Road 3 to venture there over the interstate. It was a slower route, but the drive rewarded me with a changing landscape instead of concrete and guardrails. One familiar landmark along that drive was the old Marsh Supermarket in Hartford City. Even today, the ghost of its old sign remains strikingly evident.

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