Read time: 5 min.

I joined the board of the Delaware County Historical Society last October. We’re an active group that emphasizes going out into the field, and I’ve embraced that by editing our newsletter, the Society Quarterly. Some of us are asked to give occasional presentations, and I participated in one on Thursday as part of our ongoing Lost and Found series. 

Programs like Lost and Found are a crucial component of the historical society’s mission, which is to be the county’s storyteller by sharing the compelling narrative of its history. Not to brag, but our work is well-received. In 2019, we won the Indiana Historical Society’s Indiana History Outstanding Event or Project Award for our Remember When series. 

I wasn’t on the board during Remember When, but contributed to the project as a volunteer. Traveling from township to township, we invited the residents of Delaware County to share local history and stories in a twelve-part series. The program was a boon for some of the county’s most rural areas: four hundred attendees brought historic images and documents for us to digitize! As one of the people doing the scanning, I was sorry to see it end.

Fortunately, Lost and Found picked up where Remember When left off in February. Our first discussion was in Center Township at Beech Grove Cemetery. Our second was Thursday at the Yorktown-Mt. Pleasant Township Historical Alliance. My colleague on the board, Chris Flook, kicked things off with a piece focusing on Mt. Pleasant Township’s historic settlements, its early modes of transportation, and the township’s political establishment. I learned a lot about the place where I grew up!

My segment came next. It sounds funny, but it seems like tiny Yorktown has been striving to perfect its impression of the highfalutin Indianapolis suburbs over the past several years. Despite all the changes around town, my main point was that you can still find pieces of history as long as you have a keen eye. I focused on the township’s remaining one-room schools, flowing artesian wells, and metal truss bridges. 

East-Central Indiana is home to a slew of old schools. Delaware County has more than any I’ve been to, and four remain standing in Mt. Pleasant Township along with the remains of a fifth. Our old schools are more than just buildings waiting to be demolished. They’re pieces of the educational and social history that shaped our communities! Nearly a century after they last saw a student, the schoolhouses of Mt. Pleasant Township continue to teach us valuable lessons.

Scads of artesian wells can also be found in Mt. Pleasant Township. Flowing wells have been in the news lately, and an email I just received from a WRTV6 reporter suggests that the trend will continue. I’ve been to four in Mt. Pleasant Township, and I hope highlighting them helps advocate for their preservation. Artesian wells are vital reminders of our historical and cultural heritage. They also contribute to sustainable water management and the health of our communities. If that wasn’t enough, they’re just plain cool.

The last thing I discussed was Mt. Pleasant Township’s metal truss bridges. Believe it or not, the Yorktown area is home to three! Two are native to the area, but a third at Morrow’s Meadow was only recently relocated here from Mahalasville in Morgan County. Truss bridges are certainly functional, but they also embody beauty, innovation, and engineering excellence. Preserving them honors the past while providing practical benefits for the present and future.

Old-fashioned schoolhouses, ancient flowing wells, and antique truss bridges are important topics in a rapidly-gentrifying place like Yorktown. In fact, they’re significant enough to prompt me to talk about them in person! I’m no fan of public speaking, but I decided to power through since places like this are where I need to be. I felt at home with the rest of the history fans who attended and especially enjoyed chatting with everyone afterward. I’ve worked in factories for the past four years and have found that the less time I spend in them, the better.

The narrow walls of the Yorktown Historical Society were packed with thirty or forty people, but I hope this series continues to grow. I don’t know where our next trip will take us, but I hope it’s one of Delaware County’s more rural townships like Niles, Harrison, or Perry. All of our communities have stories worth telling.