I’d heard stories about a ghost town in northwestern Delaware County called Slickville, so one day I decided to look for it. Isolated from the rest of the county by the interstate, I navigated winding country roads until I stumbled upon a weathered metal marker. Without much else to see, the sign was a portal to history! I wish all of my searches ended so easily.
Slickville was never an incorporated community. It didn’t even feature a post office! However, a grocery store1, pair of blacksmith shops, and several houses sprung up around the Slickville Tile Works in 1883. The factory was established on County Road 650-North near the Delaware-Madison County Line2.
In the pioneer days, the swampy expanses of Harrison and Washington Townships were unfit for habitation, let alone farming3. Manassa Myers recognized the need for proper drainage, so he took action. In 1883, Myers and his five sons leased five acres of Charles Leeson’s land to establish the Slickville Tile Works. Their work helped turn boggy ground into fertile soil.
The land Myers chose was rich with timber, which prompted his son Monroe to establish a sawmill as the family embarked on clearing their plot. Eventually, they installed a production mill and three beehive kilns fueled by the trees they felled4. A gas well drilled in 1887 let the tile works ramp up operations5. At its peak, Slickville employed fifteen people who churned out an impressive 400 rods (6,600 feet) of 4-inch drainage tile per day6!
Unfortunately, that’s about all anyone knows about Slickville. Some say the tile works operated until 18937, while others believe it shut down in 19108. The reason the factory closed is murky as well, but most think that it ran until the new railroad bypassed the community, the gas well ran dry, or both unfortunate occasions occurred9. Although the tile works appeared on an 1887 plat map of Delaware County, it was absent from similar maps published in 1900 and 1904. The nearest railroad was extended through Gaston in 190110.
Little remains of Slickville or its tile works today, but farmers occasionally uncover brick and tile from the old kilns as they till the fields where the community once thrived. The only indication of the bygone settlement is the historical marker, erected in 1996, that quietly marks its site.
Sources Cited
1 Flook, C. (2019). Lost Towns of Delaware County, Indiana. The History Press [Charleston]. book.
2 Roysdon, K. (2006, February 22). Slickville, pop. 0. The Muncie Star Press. p. 15.
3 Penticuff, D. (1996, September 8). Slickville lives again at marker. The Muncie Star Press. p. 3.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Spurgeon, B. (1996, August 27). Never heard of Slickville? It once was a thriving community. The Muncie Star Press. p. 8.
6 Farm News (1935, July 25). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 7.
7 (See footnote 6).
8 (See footnote 2).
9 (See footnote 3).
10 Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1. book, Lewis Publishing Company.
I say its downfall was the name. What self-respecting Hoosier would want to tell people he lived in Slickville?
Better than Lick Skillet!