Read time: 8 min.

I grew up in Muncie, Indiana, and live here today. In high school, I learned that a doppelgänger existed after a kid in my brother’s class accidentally had his ACT scores sent there. I’d always wondered what Muncie, Illinois was like! Three years ago, I found out.

Muncie, Illinois, was platted in 1875 in Vermillion County’s Oakwood Township. Boosters Alexander Bowman and Edward Corbley originally decided to call the community Corbley¹, but changed its name to Independence. Eventually, they landed on Muncie².

Salt springs and coal were the key to Muncie’s success in its earliest days³. Unfortunately, the village never took off. Instead, the nearby communities of Oakwood and Fithian became the commercial centers of Oakwood Township. Muncie’s population peaked at 324 around 1903 when an Illinois Traction System station was built. In 2020, only 157 called the village home.

It’s been sixty-five years since you could get there by interurban⁴. Today, the trip from Muncie to Muncie takes about two-and-a-half hours if you use the interstate. The town sits just west of Danville, the seat of Vermillion County, which was my first stop of the day.

Danville was a regional powerhouse thanks to its location near the Vermillion River, the railroad, and the area’s underlying coal system⁵. The city’s population peaked at 42,000 in 1970, but eventually declined to its present total of 29,204. If you’re from Indiana and have driven through Marion, you’ve pretty much been to Danville.

Aside from Marion, some parts of the city also reminded me of Muncie. I hopped out of the car to take photos of the Vermillion County Courthouse, but a yellow smudge atop Danville’s tallest building caught my eye. The Thunderbolt siren perched above the twelve-story Bresee Tower should be familiar to anyone from here: Three of them have interrupted our Friday mornings for the past six decades!

The courthouse sits across North Vermillion Street from the Thunderbolt. Like Muncie’s, it’s an L-shaped structure faced in stone. Unlike Muncie’s, it’s got an intriguing history: by 1910, Danville’s thirty-three-year-old courthouse couldn’t keep up with the demands of its increasing population. Officials wanted to build a new one, but they weren’t allowed to proceed unless they could pass a referendum⁶.

A referendum was out of the question. Fortunately, they didn’t need one to “repair” the existing courthouse, so they did, by demolishing it down to the cornerstone and completely rebuilding it! The current courthouse -a five story structure with a central atrium- was dedicated in 1914.

Officials eventually ran out of room again. In 1980, a group of local businessmen donated the Daniel Building, a historic structure that once housed a Woolworth’s five-and-dime, to the county to use as a courthouse annex⁷. The structure was remodeled into one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen!

Eventually I made it to Muncie. The village sits southwest of Danville on US-150. The highway largely parallels the old Indianapolis, Bloomington, & Western Railway, parts of which have been converted to a rail trail that connects the Kickapoo State Recreation Area with the city of Urbana. Twelve miles after leaving Danville proper, a sign beckons travelers to turn right onto Muncie’s Main Street.

Unfortunately, there’s not much there there. I counted three historic buildings when I arrived, all concentrated around Main and Fowler Streets. The most prominent structure houses the Muncie Post Office, an HVAC repair company, and apartments.

Muncie has been home to a post office since it was first laid out⁸, but I haven’t been able to find where it originally stood. In the 1880s, a local named William Lynch belonged to Muncie’s Modern Woodmen of America lodge and operated a general store⁹. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the extant building was once home to both places.

There are some pretty big gaps in Muncie’s smile, and I haven’t been able to find much in the way of Sanborn or plat maps to help implant a bridge. A brick building I imagine was once home to a livery stable sits behind Muncie’s post office to the west. The last historic building in town is a single-story block structure with tall windows across Main Street. It stands just behind the sign welcoming people to the community, and I’d bet dollars to donuts it was once Muncie’s interurban station.

Muncie Baptist Church sits two blocks north of the town’s cluster of old buildings. An affiliate of American Baptist Churches USA, the congregation dates to 1852¹⁰ when it was known as Walnut Creek¹¹. The present building was erected in the 1950s or 60s and consists of a sanctuary and an educational wing.

The former Muncie Grade School stands near the western fringes of the community and was my last stop in town. Students attended classes at one-room schoolhouses a mile northwest and southwest of town when Muncie was founded. Eventually, officials established a K-8 institution in Muncie proper.

The most recent iteration of the school operated from 1967 to 1986¹², when its students were sent to nearby Oakwood¹³. Muncie Baptist bought the property in 1998 to serve as an educational annex¹⁴. The building was vacant, but well-kept, when I visited.

I circled back through Muncie later in the day to see if I’d missed anything. I hadn’t. I still don’t think I have after three years of research, and that bothers me. Muncie might have a rich narrative that awaits discovery! Muncie, Indiana, certainly does. Nevertheless, the absence of much of a written record leaves a missed opportunity to preserve the cultural heritage of places like Muncie for future generations.

We don’t just maintain the history of small, rural towns like Muncie by documenting their stories. We also bridge the gap between the local and the universal and allow their narratives to resonate with a broader audience. Going to Muncie in Illinois was a novelty, but I left the village with a renewed appreciation for my own Muncie and a newfound commitment to learning about the places nearby to ensure their stories aren’t lost to time.

Sources Cited
1 Tuggle, L.A. (1940). Stories of Historical Days in Vermillion County, Illinois. Vermillion County Schools [Danville]. Pamphlet. 
2 Muncie Illinois (n.d.). My Roots Run Deep. Web. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
3 Jones, L.E. (1911). History of Vermillion County Illinois. Pioneer Publishing Company[Chicago]. Book.
4 Schafer, M. (2003, November). “White Elephants under wires.” Classic Trains Magazine Special Edition. No. 1, Dream Trains. Kalmbach Media [Waukesha]. Magazine.
5 Richter, D. (2012, January 8). Danville enjoyed boom time in early 1900s. The Danville Commercial-News. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
6 Denman, M. (2017, July 30). Courthouse history traces back almost 200 years. The Danville Commercial-News. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
7 (See footnote 6).
8 Forte, Jim. United States and Worldwide Postal History. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
9 The Past and Present of Vermillion County Illinois (1903). S.J. Clarke Publishing Company [Chicago]. Book.
10 Welcome to Muncie Baptist Church (n.d.). Muncie Baptist Church. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
11 (See footnote 2).
12 Motor Fuel Dispensing Permits (n.d.). Division of Petroleum & Chemical Safety. The Office of the Illinois Fire Marshall [Springfield]. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023. 
13 Background of Oakwood Grade School (n.d.) Community Resources Homer-Oakwood. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
14 Cunningham, R. (2010, November 27). Muncie Illinois former grade school. Photograph. Flickr. Web. Retrieved November 18, 2023.