Then and Now: Marion’s Five Points Mall

Read time: 13 min.

Dead malls have become unlikely celebrities across Indiana and the Midwest. Departing national chains left behind huge concrete footprints that communities could never refill! Sadly, their empty storefronts are now photographed and debated almost as often as the courthouses and town squares that once anchored local life. In Marion, one mall sits in silence as it waits for a second act.

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Not just Muncie: MCLs are closing at an alarming rate

Read time: 4 min.

There are some stories you chase, and others that keep showing up on your plate whether you ordered them or not. Lately, MCL has been the latter. Locations are closing, answers are scarce, and a chain that’s unassumingly fed generations of Hoosiers now seems to be slipping away without much explanation.

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A rare glimpse of the New Lancaster school

Read time: 3 min.

I was busy researching Hobbs’ old Schoolhouse of Educated Wicker when I learned that another building just like it still stood in the nearby crossroads community of New Lancaster. Unfortunately, the school was obscured by trees. It took a while to wait for the foliage to shed, but I finally stopped by to take some pictures. There’s a school back there- I swear! 

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Indiana’s Howard County Home

Read time: 5 min.

I’d been to six or seven county homes by the time I ventured to Howard Haven just west of Kokomo. A couple of things struck me as I circled the property. For one, it’s still owned and operated by Howard County! Aside from that, it’s far more modern than the majority of the institutions I’d visited at that stage of my journey. Here’s some of its story. 

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1.5 milestones on the old National Road

Read time: 4 min.

The history of the National Road -an early highway that connected Cumberland, Maryland, with Vandalia, Illinois, and blazed its way through East-Central Indiana in the 1820s- is fascinating. Along the route, travelers once relied on tombstone-shaped markers that recorded distances between towns and state lines. Many still stand in other states, but Indiana’s are few, if not far between. At least, they were.

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The Bugatti incident 

Read time: 5 min.

I’ve loved Hot Wheels for as long as I can remember. Honestly, what kid doesn’t? Lately, I’ve rediscovered the YouTube channel baremetalHW, where battered old die-cast cars -Hot Wheels Redlines, Matchbox, Johnny Lightning, and even more obscure brands like Siku and Corgi- are carefully restored back to life. Watching those tiny survivors get a second chance has stirred up a few die-cast memories of my own. Here’s one of them. 

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A new clock for Redkey’s tower?

Read time: 5 min.

I pass through Redkey every now and then. For years, it was my quickest way past the landmark Oak Grove Schoolhouse. Recently, though, I learned the town has been working to restore a 117-year-old clock downtown! Once I heard the story behind it, I realized the place was far more interesting than a quick drive around its outskirts might suggest.

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The first Dollar General in Muncie

Read time: 5 min.

My brain often brims with burning questions of no real consequence. One recent obsession was where Muncie’s first Dollar General store was. Here alone, there are at least ten today. That works out to roughly one Dollar General for every 6,500 people! That sheer density made me curious. It didn’t just happen overnight, so where did the phenomenon begin? As it turns out, Muncie’s first Dollar General was in the old Southway Plaza.

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