Read time: 5 min.

Sorry for the jump scare so early in the morning with my head up there, but that’s my Orwellian visage projected on a gigantic screen. It’s nice to loom over an event on occasion, but thid picture comes from a launch party for the fall edition of Ball State’s Ball Bearings magazine, “The Hidden Edition.” Photojournalist Ryan Fleek decided to profile my blog and me.

This story started in September. In an email, Ryan said that he immediately thought of me and my blog when the magazine’s “hidden” theme first came to light. He wanted to profile me and write about my experience as a local historian! To illustrate his piece, Ryan wanted to take photos of me in my workplace. Unfortunately, the place I actually sit down to research and write is not very compelling. The real workplace is out in the field, where I climb and clamber and occasionally dig with a stick. I suggested we venture out to some of those places as we talked. Ryan agreed, and we went out in early October.

The first spot we drove to was in Mt. Pleasant Township near I-69.  There’s a segment of Jackson Street Pike that connected to the interstate when it was completed that far in 1964. State Road 332 -McGalliard Road- was completed in 1981, which rendered the old road obsolete. This 300-foot stretch of Jackson Pike has been abandoned for forty-five years.

The next was just a mile away on Lee Pit Road, just behind the highway near Exit 241. There, the Gernand-Thompson flowing well is believed to be 1,800 feet deep! It’s topped with an old fire hydrant. Thousands of people must pass it every day as they hurry from city to city, but only a tiny fraction probably know of its existence.

We doubled back to the Yorktown area after the artesian well. There, we visited McKinley Cemetery, a pioneer burial ground just behind the Western Hills addition. As a kid, my bus passed it every day. Out of forty-one known burials, the oldest with a marker is Samuel McKinley, who died in 1843. Interestingly, the most recent marked burial is a different Samuel McKinley who died more than a century later.

My intent was to keep our drive quick, but we wanted to go see a schoolhouse and wound up at Oak Grove school. From 1889 to 1916, it served the students of Niles Township’s District 3. Remarkably, it’s still owned by Niles Township and is undergoing an unlikely renovation.

After Oak Grove, we headed back home, but not before stopping at the old Ball batch tower. Built around 1953, only the tops of Ball State’s Teachers College and Shafer Tower, along with the AT&T Building downtown, look down on the 132-foot structure.

A couple of weeks after our trip, Ryan reached out to take more photos. I’m camera shy, but sure, what the hell. We met at Muncie’s grandiose Carnegie Library, a place I’ve spoken and participated in panel discussions inside, but never managed to take a photo of. Of its peers that remain in Indiana, it’s arguably the most impressive.

Ball Bearings‘ “The Hidden Edition” is out in physical form now practically everywhere on campus and will soon be posted online. I haven’t gotten my mitts on one to read what Ryan wrote, but I’m sure it’s great. I tried to impress that, as huge chunks of Indiana’s population continue to relocate to greater metropolitan areas surrounding Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, and others, the history of the places left behind is truly important to preserve. Once they’re gone, they’re gone! Often, many hide in plain sight- exactly what this blog is about.

I don’t expect every old schoolhouse, forgotten road, or obscure landmark I visit to survive forever, but I hope the stories behind them will. I’ve accomplished something if my work encourages someone to look a little more closely at the places they might pass every day! I’m grateful that Ryan recognized the value in my mission as an amateur historian who completely fails to fit the trope of one. It’s not every day that a guy like me -hair like an artichoke, beard, writes like a regular dude, no history degree- gets profiled in a magazine, but the Ball Bearings staff -and Ryan, particularly- should be commended for what I expect to be another fantastic issue.