The tiny Grant County community of Fowlerton isn’t on the way to anywhere, but 268 people still call it home. An old schoolhouse anchors the north end of town, but much of Leach Avenue -Fowlerton’s main drag- has long shed its commercial storefronts. All except one, that is: a lone survivor anchors the southeast corner of Leach and West Second Street. On a recent drive through town, I found myself slowing down and wondering about it.
Fowlerton didn’t start as Fowlerton. It was originally called Leach, named for the family who first settled there. Everything changed in 1895, when brothers Elbert and Jefferson Fowler opened a tile mill fueled by the East-Central Indiana gas boom1. The town took their name2. Before long, the community was buzzing.
At its peak, Folwerton boasted three bottle factories, two glass factories, thirteen saloons, a post office, a grain elevator, a sawmill, a blacksmith, a butcher, a millinery, a jewelry store, an ice cream parlor, a men’s clothing shop, two groceries, barbers, restaurants, and even a funeral home3! Little of that remains today. In fact, the two-story building at the town’s lone stoplight is the last of Fowlerton’s oldest buildings4. The county assessor says it dates to 1900, but I bet it came along a little earlier.
I’m not sure why, but I started linking angled doorways with old banks somewhere my studies. If a building’s entry is set in its corner, like in Fowlerton, my brain immediately jumps to “former bank!” Given that it featured that arrangement, I assumed that the two-story structure in the middle of town I’d found was one. There was a Fowlerton Bank at some point5, but I haven’t been able to tie it to the town’s most prominent commercial structure.
I have come across an old photo of the building when it served as an ice cream shop6. Whatever roles it played before or after, the structure earned its strongest claim to fame between 1963 and 1987, when it operated as the Nottingham Restaurant and Betty’s Lunch after owner Mary “Betty” Nottingham7. The joint built a reputation that far outgrew Fowlerton’s borders8, celebrated for its pool table9, its legendary chocolate Cokes10, and a slate of unforgettable pizza burgers11.
Today, Betty’s Lunch appears to be used for storage. Some of its windows are boarded up, and others are missing entirely. That said, the building radiates endurance. Driving away, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror at that lone survivor at Fowlerton’s only stoplight. It’s easy to overlook the town now, but buildings like this remind us that even the smallest places were once fuller, louder, and more involved than we give them credit for.
Sources Cited
1 McBride, M. (1998, February 23). Natural gas put tiny Grant County town on the map. The Muncie Star. p. 7.
2 “Grant County”. Jim Forte Postal History. Web. Retrieved March 16, 2025.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Warr, A. (1971, November 22). Fowlerton. The Marion Chronicle Tribune. p. 15.
5 Charter No. 349 Report of the Condition of Fowlerton Bank (1931, January 14). The Muncie Star. p. 13.
6 Fowlerton – Main Street. Ice cream shop (which I’ve read later became a restaurant, grocery store, pharmacy and post office (2021, May 5). Town of Fowlerton [Post]. Facebook.
7 Mary E. “Betty” Nottingham. (2000, December 26). The Upland Courier. p. 2.
8 Small Town Indiana (2018, February 18). Day 35: Fowlerton Fowlerton was first platted as Leach in 1895. The local Tower family operated a mill in the area [Post]. Facebook.
9 Bennett, T. Small Town Indiana. (2021, February 20). I remember her pool table if said bad words you had to put 25 cents in can [Comment]. Facebook.
10 Wilson, N. Small Town Indiana. (2021, February 18). Her chocolate cokes were so good! [Comment]. Facebook.
11 Thomasson, S. Small Town Indiana (2021, February 18). Best pizza burger you ever ate at Betty’s. [Comment]. Facebook.
I love those little small-town restaurants. They are disappearing fast.
I was happy to learn a tiny part of its history!
When I saw the title I was hoping Ted was going to clue us in on a great tenderloin!
Best one recently was at the Grill-A in Markleville!
The life and death of the small Indiana communities is so interesting. They thrived when everything was local. It’s a lost world that will never come back. As a teen I lived in Greensboro (Henry County) in the 1960s. It was dying then, with a general store, a restaurant and a garage. Today the Store (that my father owned) survives as a bait and tackle. The restaurant which my dad bought when it was empty, is demolished and the town is about 2/3rds of the population when I lived there.
Wow. Thanks for the Greensboro history. I’ve been meaning to write about the school there, but so far have come up empty regarding the year it closed.
I know you are on FB, Send a friend request to my friend, Kevin Stonerock. He is somewhat of a historian of Greensboro and knows a lot about the school, the Underground railroad, the churches and the general history. His mother was the Postmistress there for years. https://www.facebook.com/kevin.stonerock.3
This building reminds me of the Modern Woodmen hall in Eaton, with that garage door cut into the street side – as well as any number of old banks.
I wonder why people are installing garage doors in old small-town brick buildings!
It is amazing how these small towns used to have so much more to them. The population is currently 268, but the largest it ever was was 337 in 1970, so it’s not like this was a place of several thousand that got decimated. It was just a different time when everything was more local. Now it’s just a place where a few people live and most are passing through. Doesn’t look like the railroad goes there anymore. Yet at one time Fowlerton hummed with activity.
Back home in CT there’s a lot of small villages and sites tucked away in the countryside that hosted factories in the 19th century, and now there’s little to no evidence of their industrial past. There was a place near where I lived, Southford Falls, that is now a nice state park and great “graduation/engagement” photo op. But in the late 19th century it hosted “gristmills, sawmills, and the shops of iron workers, button makers, knife makers, clothiers and other skilled tradesmen.” Famously Diamond Match built a plant here to make cardboard matchbooks. When that burned down 100 years ago, they gave the land to the state. There is virtually no evidence of its industrial past outside of the dam on Eight Mile Brook that provided power for all the activities.
Fun fact: I used to work in brand management and marketing for Diamond Match when it was part of Jarden Corp. the 100-year-old factory was in Cloquet, MN at the time. Much more of a fascinating brand than you might think.