Folks in Indiana might remember expansive and boundless Marsh supermarkets from not so long ago, but the family’s first grocery stood in the tiny Jay County community of Salem. Not long after Wilmer Marsh was shot in the head there by an associate of Al Capone, he did the unthinkable by opening a second store just three miles west in New Pittsburg! I set out to find it.
Fifty people lived in New Pittsburg when Wilmer Marsh opened shop there back in 19281. Still, the grocery soon became the beating heart of the area. The Marsh family appears to have operated the country store until 1945, when it passed to new owners2. William and Laura Rickert ran it for thirty-three years before they retired3, but the building’s fortunes faded: by the time Muncie’s Star Press checked in on New Pittsburg in 1998, the grocery had long since been abandoned4.
By the time I checked in on New Pittsburg a few weeks ago, little aside from a derelict church at the far northeastern corner of the community suggested that there was a “there” there. Google Maps shows about fifteen houses scattered across roughly twenty-eight acres, and that’s what I experienced. No offense to those who call it home but, today, New Pittsburg might be considered less a town and more a loose cluster of rooftops holding on where a busier crossroads once stood.
When I first visited the place, I circled the block of Main Street, First Street, and Elm as I poked around looking for any sign of the old Marsh grocery. I’d seen a single, tiny picture of it from 1929 or so, but couldn’t identify it in person. Unfortunately -or maybe predictably- I’m far too much of an obsessive completionist to let something like the location of the second-ever Marsh grocery slide! I got to sleuthing, starting with newspaper archives. There, I found all the information I’ve shared so far.
I couldn’t find the store’s location or address, though, so I set my sights toward old plat maps. Frustratingly, I didn’t have any luck. I thought about looking for Sanborn fire insurance maps, but a town the size of New Pittsburg was too small and rural to have one drawn. Fortunately, my friend Dylan jumped into the search! He’s a board member at the Jay County Historical Museum and dug through their archives in hopes that something might surface. New Pittsburg sits just south of the county line. Still, nothing came up.
As a last resort, we turned to social media. Dylan and I found a Randolph County history group on Facebook. There, I explained our predicament, and answers came pouring in- responses that, hilariously, even included a link to something I’d written about the old Marsh grocery in Salem! Eventually, a few people chimed in with more relevant stuff. It turns out the grocery stood at the southwest corner of North 1st Street and East Main. Unfortunately, it’s been demolished. I barely missed it!
As it turns out, the site of Wilmer Marsh’s second grocery -where his second-youngest son Ermal first learned the ropes of the business- hasn’t completely disappeared. It’s still visible in aerial imagery if you know where to look. Additionally, a small house was tacked onto the building’s southeastern side after the Marshes left5. Remarkably, that little home is still standing today! It appears in disrepair, but it’s an everyday survivor that marks the site of the second installment in what would eventually become a Hoosier grocery empire.
New Pittsburg’s grocery is gone, sure, but the story is still there. It hides in plain sight like so many other places I chase. In a village many maps barely acknowledge, the second-ever Marsh store proved that big histories don’t always start in big towns. Sometimes they form at an unremarkable crossroads, in a village of fifty people, with someone stubborn enough to open the lights each morning after being shot in the head. The New Pittsburg Marsh was a big piece of local history! I just wish I’d passed it before the wrecking ball.
Sources Cited
1 Pitts, E. (1998, April 27). She’s enjoyed life in the small town. The Muncie Star Press. p. 7.
2 William L. Rickert, 72 (1990, April 20).
3 (See footnote 2).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Parcel 68-03-06-202-027.000-006 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Randolph County [Winchester]. Web. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
Those little country stores were real American institutions!