A schoolhouse serving District 3 has stood at the corner of Old Fort Wayne Road and East Lamont Road in Huntington’s Union Township since at least 1866, when it appeared just north of the Wabash & Erie Canal on land owned by the Silvers family1. The building was commonly known as Whippoorwill2.
Continue reading “Union Township’s Whippoorwill schoolhouse in Huntington County”
I’ve spent the past year documenting the slow destruction of one of East Central Indiana’s most recognizable retail landmarks- Muncie Mall. I stop by to see what’s changed as often as I can! Sometimes the differences are dramatic, like the demolition of old cinema. Other times they’re more subtle. My latest visit found plenty of those transformations.
Continue reading “More updates as Muncie Mall meets its maker”
I’ve written before about Juan’s Mexican Grill & Bar in Chesterfield, the restaurant inside a former Ben Franklin store that’s become my favorite spot. When Juan’s announced that it had purchased another local institution -Gaston’s venerable Mill Street Inn- I was intrigued! The new place was closer to my house, but the real question was whether it could capture the magic of the original. It took me a couple of visits to find out, but I think it did. In fact, it even improved on it.
Continue reading “Juan’s Mill Street Place is better than the original”
I’ve visited five or six Native American mounds and earthworks over the years, but I’ve deliberately avoided writing about them. There’s a lot to unpack, and I’m keenly aware that I’m not an expert on Indigenous cultures. It’s an easy subject to oversimplify or get wrong, but New Castle’s Chrysler Enclosure is too fascinating to ignore: without any exaggeration, it may be 2,000 years old.
Continue reading “The ancient Chrysler Enclosure”
School buildings from the 1800s through the 1920s -or even the thirties- are usually the ones that really grab my attention. Now and then, though, a “modern” school intrigues me too! It’s a little startling to realize that some of them are pushing seventy-five years old, but one is Muncie’s old Sutton Elementary.
Continue reading “Muncie’s old Sutton Elementary School”
As far as I’m concerned, the 2026 Emerging Liberty dime is the best circulating coin the U.S. Mint has produced in generations. I bought my first on a whim for a couple bucks at a local flea market but, almost immediately, they started turning up in my pocket change everywhere I went. Before long, the rest of the Semiquincentennial coinage began appearing too! After months of keeping an eye out, I’ve finally assembled a full set of every denomination, including the three commemorative quarters released so far.
Continue reading “The SemiQ coinage is finally showing up around here”
I was flipping through some new-to-me files the other day when I stumbled across History of the Mt. Pleasant Township School System by Anna Williams. I figured I had a pretty solid grasp on that subject, especially after untangling the whole Cammack brouhaha. Still, one detail jumped off the page as I read: had I somehow overlooked a schoolhouse all this time? I couldn’t have!
Continue reading “A good ol’ schoolhouse wild goose chase”
I start a new job today. That’s a sentence I’ve waited more than seven months to write! Since I was unexpectedly laid off during an overwhelming downsizing in early December, this has been the hardest stretch of my life. I’ve been unemployed before, but never in a market this unforgiving- and never while navigating so many personal hardships all at once.
Continue reading “Back to work!”
I’m a sucker for obscure history, especially when it’s Hoosier history. I love to fall down abstruse rabbit holes and disappear into research vortices that most people don’t bother with! That’s why I’m always excited to meet someone else who’s just as willing to chase their own obscure interest, like Dean Alger. The result, his brand-new book Indiana’s Historic Fire Towers, makes everything richer for those who appreciate the overlooked.
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I’m curious about places where people once gathered. That interest often leads me to schoolhouses and courthouses, but I’ve got a soft spot for movie theaters, too. They don’t even have to be particularly old to catch my eye, and case in point is the long-shuttered Holiday I and II in Elkhart. I found myself slowing down there on my last visit, camera in hand. I couldn’t resist grabbing a few photos of a place that once flickered with life.
Continue reading “Elkhart’s old Holiday I and II”