I had never heard of the Indiana community of Weaver before an acquaintance of mine brought it up a few months ago. As soon as he did, I knew I had to visit: about all that remains of the place is the acre-wide Weaver Cemetery, but it’s full of history.
Continue reading “Grant County’s Weaver settlement cemetery”
Delaware County boasts basketball cathedrals like the Muncie Fieldhouse and Ball Gymnasium, but its history thins out fast after a step outside the city. In fact, only one true survivor from Indiana’s golden age of hoops remains- the home of the Gaston Bulldogs. After years of trying to find someone to let us in, My friend Brett and I visited yesterday. We might have made it just in time. Here’s how it all unfolded, with some history to boot.
Continue reading “A glimpse inside the Gaston gym”
Just east of Irvington’s carefully preserved core, a sprawling, worn-down shopping center sits quietly along Washington Street. Irvington Plaza doesn’t fit the story its neighborhood tells today, but it once did. Long before the vacancies and the slow decline, the center was one of Indianapolis’s most ambitious retail destinations.
Continue reading “Indy’s Irvington Plaza”
Growing up in the heart of Hoosier Hysteria, it was probably inevitable that I’d fall for basketball. What I didn’t expect was how deeply I’d get hooked on the places it was played. Long after the final buzzer, I’m still thinking about balconies, locker rooms, and oddly shaped floors. Recently, I’ve been digging through old Sanborn Maps to trace how high school gyms were first built, how they evolved, and what those changes say about the communities that packed them. Here’s a little more of what turned up.
Continue reading “One last set of ten old gyms as they appeared in Sanborn Maps”
I was surprised and humbled yesterday to receive the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution Bronze Good Citizenship Medal and the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution America250! Commendation. What an honor!
Continue reading “An honor I never saw coming”
In terms of restaurants, big names tend to crowd out the near-misses. Every once in a while, though, something surfaces that makes you stop and wonder how it ever slipped away. That’s exactly what happened when my friend Dylan stumbled across Golden Dome, a short-lived fried chicken concept from MCL. It seemed poised to be its next big thing! Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
Continue reading “The Golden Dome of MCL”
Not many people know this, but I’m a birthright Quaker. I haven’t regularly attended meeting since I was a kid, but I found myself unexpectedly drawn back to that part of my story a few years ago. My mom has an 1866 diary kept by our ancestor Mary Jane Edwards, and we set out to follow the trail she left behind. One of those places was Rush County’s old Carthage Friends Meetinghouse.
Continue reading “The Meetinghouse at Carthage”
When I think of opera houses, my mind jumps straight to big cities with bright marquees like Sydney, Paris, or New York. The last place I’d expect to find one is tiny Pennville, Indiana. Still, the town had an honest-to-goodness opera house of its own, and the old building still stands today.
Continue reading “Pennville’s Pastime Theater”
Practically everyone in Central Indiana Pizza Kings. But have you really Pizza King’d if you haven’t been to Clara’s? Recently, I found out: you haven’t.
Continue reading “My first trip to Richmond’s Clara’s Pizza King”
Dead malls have become unlikely celebrities across Indiana and the Midwest. Departing national chains left behind huge concrete footprints that communities could never refill! Sadly, their empty storefronts are now photographed and debated almost as often as the courthouses and town squares that once anchored local life. In Marion, one mall sits in silence as it waits for a second act.
Continue reading “Then and Now: Marion’s Five Points Mall”