I’ve been hooked on exploring the old roads ever since I was fourteen and stumbled across a residential cul-de-sac that once carried Indiana State Road 67 from Anderson towards Muncie. I’ve never really written about them, but since the back roads between the two cities have basically been my back yard for the past thirty years, here’s a look at another part of what was once State Road 67 that connected them.

Some of this will be a recap from last time, but let’s start by zooming out: Although the the road from Muncie to Anderson was known as the Hoosier Highway and signed as State Road 24 as early as 1920, a statewide renumbering in 1926 rechristened it as State Road 67. By 1933, the highway carried both State Roads 67 and 32. 

In 1935, the Indiana State Highway Commission approved a plan to build a new road to connect the cities from somewhere south of the Madison County Children’s Home east of Anderson onto Madison Street in Muncie. That same year, a new highway -State Road 236- was finished along 53rd Street to connect Anderson to the bedroom community of Middletown six miles east of that city.

State Road 67’s new alignment was completed in 1937. I mentioned the completion of Highway 236 because 67 took it out of Anderson before swooping northbound to overtake Rangeline Road and ultimately follow old Central Indiana Railroad right-of-way into Delaware County. The highway followed the old railroad bed along County Road 550-South east of Daleville, until it curved northeast onto Middletown Pike towards Muncie. From there, 67 turned east again to follow Fuson Road to Madison Street.

For what it’s worth, the proper name for the section of Delaware County Road 300-South from Hoyt Avenue to Burlington Pike that this alignment of State Road 67 followed is “Fuson” Road, not “Fusion.” The road took its name from brothers T.J. and L. Fuson, who entered Monroe Township’s Section 33 in 1835.

At any rate, the 1964 completion of Interstate 69 in the area saw State Road 67 multiplexed onto it around Anderson in an effort to ease the industrial traffic that had clogged the city’s streets. State Road 67’s contemporary northbound routing picks up at I-69’s exit 234 interchange between Daleville and Chesterfield. Four and a half miles east of that exit lies a deaccessioned segment between Bell Creek Road and Honey Creek Road/Middletown Pike.

With the exception of a central merging lane, State Road 67 was only two lanes wide between Anderson to Muncie for most of its history. Officials in Delaware County long clamored for the highway to be widened, but the project was tabled after work began to widen State Road 332 that connects Muncie’s northwest side to I-69 in 1986. In 1994, though, The U.S. House Public Works Committee finally authorized funds to widen State Road 67 largely thanks to years of efforts from Representative Phil Sharp, whom the modern-day highway is named after.

It soon became apparent to INDOT engineers that the highway segment between Bell Creek and Honey Creek Road/Middletown Pike, a bloody portion of which traversed what locals knew as “Carroll’s Curve,” would need bypassed. In 1994, that segment of road saw its eighteenth casualty in fewer than thirty years. By 1997, two more motorists had perished there. In fact, the curve was the site of one of the deadliest vehicular accidents in the history of the nation when nine people died in a single crash near the curve in 1964. Most collisions seem to have resulted from motorists crossing over the center line for one reason or another.

The new highway, completed at a cost of $33 million, opened in October, 1999. On the surface, the results of the state’s efforts to replace a single, treacherous curve seem like a sad instance of government overreach and misunderstanding since State Road 67’s new alignment featured a whopping three curves of its own. INDOT engineers responded to allegations of conspiracy by stating that the angles of the new curves, in addition to the grade separation and banking of the pavement, made the new highway safer than the old, and that the cost of acquiring property for right-of-way prevented 67’s original alignment from being rebuilt reutilized. Nevertheless, the project was completed, albeit way over budget due to the quality of the soil under the new routing. Local conspiracy theories still abound, but what’s done is done.

Personally, I buy INDOT’s assessment at face value. This section of highway was completed two years after my mom started teaching at Cowan High School, and I remember being the passenger of cars that traveled on both routings. A virtual drive up the Muncie Bypass, which the widened State Road 67 has become a part of, can be accomplished via a trip to AARoads, where an expansive trip report has been compiled. You’d be hard-pressed to find any of its curves difficult to navigate, except for maybe the turns used to access the old road if someone’s about to put a turtle shell up your tailpipe.

A northbound trip down this old stretch of State Road 67 begins by turning right from the present highway onto what’s signed as County Road 550-South just as it begins its curve onto the former Bell Creek Road. The image above the Mario GIF is what the connector looks like from the path of the old road.

Bell Creek Road curves slightly to align with the old routing of State Road 67, which continues due east past about fifteen houses towards an intersection with Pugsley Road. I didn’t take any photos of the homes there, but it’s easy to see how their proximity to the highway would have made acquiring the proper right-of-way a costly proposition for the state.

About half of a mile into the old alignment, southbound travelers will find a painted-over reassurance marker from this road’s days as State Road 67 at its intersection with Pugsley Road, along with a sign indicating that the Knights of Pythias’ Pythean Sisters of nearby Yorktown had adopted the highway at one point. The Knights of Pythias have not been active in Yorktown for at least twenty-three years.

There’s not much that calls this section of road out as a former state highway aside from this building, which was once the Star Lite Motel. It sits due south of the old highway signs. A postcard of the establishment exists from the late 1950s or early 1960s, when it was owned by Kenneth E. And Mabel Scott. At that point, the building was painted yellow and consisted of a single story that housed seven rooms. By the mid-1980s, the motel was advertising efficiency apartments for $15 per day or $45 per week. A Google search of the address today led me to a listing for a “Vision Corp Distribution Company” at that address, whatever that is.

From 1951 to about 1980, Bork’s Truck Stop stood just west of the motel and served up fried chicken dinners and ten-inch pies on Sundays. Six small cabins that offered board to weary travelers stood behind the truck stop, but today nothing remains of the establishment; it was demolished in 1983.

The old highway transitions into Carroll’s infamous curve about two-fifths of a mile west of the motel. Honey Creek Road/Middletown Pike enters the curve at an obscenely shallow angle, seen below, midway through the curve as Old 67 overtakes its path.

Just before the old highway reconnects with its replacement, a segment of County Road 500-South makes an S-curve south to meet it. Returning to the contemporary routing of State Road 67 is an understated affair for a contemporary motorist, marked only by a disheveled stop sign.

A portion of the abandoned roadbed between what’s left of Old 67 and New 67 is visible if you know where to look, but it must be best seen during the winter months as the photos I took revealed nearly nothing. The next deaccessioned section of State Road 67 is almost two miles northbound, just after where Hoyt Avenue and Fuson Road peel off of the modern highway. Although southbound traffic from Muncie flows directly into State Road 67, people traveling northbound with the intent to follow 67’s signed business route through Muncie must exit via a trumpet interchange. Although Hoyt appears to be an older alignment of the highway that predates the Fuson Road bypass, it’s actually just part of Middletown Pike, a portion of which State Road 67 overtook back at Carroll’s Curve. It never took highway traffic.

The areas that connect Madison and Delaware Counties have been my stomping grounds for nearly thirty years; just about my entire life. I’m pretty new to posts like this, but we’ll document the rest of State Road 67’s old alignments between the two cities in the coming months, along the old routings of State Road 32. Because I have a tendency towards obsessive completionism, we’ll also look at the histories of State Roads 332 and 236 that vaguely connect the two cities.