On September 15, 2007, one of my oldest friends and I went in search of the original alignments of US 31 in Indiana from the Michigan state line to Indianapolis. I wrote about this trip on my old Roads site back then, but am now bringing those articles over to this blog.
US 31 followed its original path for the next 26 miles to Westfield, which it then bypassed. When you look at Westfield on a map it looks small, its downtown just a short strip along State Road 32, with some cul-de-sac neighborhoods extending north and south from there. But Westfield is a sparse, sprawling suburb of about eight square miles, a place to have a home while you work elsewhere. Still, it adopted a city-style government the first of 2008 and is now officially considered a city in Indiana. But without nearby Indianapolis, it would only be a little town in the country.
Because of its growth, US 31 bypasses downtown Westfield, but the city swallowed the bypass some time ago. This map shows the northern two-thirds of the route.
Here’s where we turned onto old US 31. There is a long stub of old US 31 between the top of this curve and current US 31, too.
This photo shows old US 31 southbound as it heads toward Westfield.
The old town of Westfield is a nicely-kept typical Indiana town. This northbound photo is of old US 31 a block or so before Main St.
This bank building is on the northeast corner of downtown Westfield. It’s an antique shop, and as far as I could tell the most prominent business on this corner.
Here’s the southbound road leaving downtown.
This map shows how US 31 curves back to the road’s original path.
Here’s where old US 31 curves to end at current US 31, for completism’s sake.
Not that long ago, Westfield and Carmel were separated by a couple miles of Hamilton County farmland. Today, Westfield ends, and Carmel begins, at 146th St., where US 31 swings west, State Road 431 begins and swings east, and Rangeline Road goes straight south, perfectly in the direction of US 31 before this intersection. I vaguely remember being able to turn on and off 146th St here years ago, but the last time they rebuilt this intersection they made 146th St. an overpass. You can get to it from US 31 using Greyhound Pass. This map shows how it works. Before current US 31 and Keystone Parkway (labeled 431 on the map) were built, US 31 went straight south on Rangeline Road. (This ramp system was heavily revised in the early 2010s.)
Unfortunately, Brian and I didn’t know that when we made this trip. Rangeline Road goes through downtown Carmel and enters Indianapolis as Westfield Road. It goes through the Broad Ripple neighborhood as Westfield Boulevard, and connects with Indianapolis’s Meridian Street just south of the Central Canal. US 31 then followed Meridian Street to downtown Indianapolis. Here’s Rangeline Road northbound toward US 31.
Here’s a closer look showing that Rangeline Road is not through. To get to US 31, you curve left and turn right. (You did in 2007, anyway. Today, you can’t get onto US 31 here. There’s a roundabout here, and an overpass that carries US 31 over a connector road about where the Jeep is, to a shopping center on the other side.)
Instead, Brian and I followed the first alignment of US 31 after the Rangeline/Westfield alignment in Carmel, which is Old Meridian Street. It’s the road that runs diagonally south and east of US 31 on this map.
This northbound photo is of the narrow stub in the upper right corner of the map. This narrow road hasn’t been highway for a very long time.
Brian and I had tried for months to make this trip happen. If we had done it earlier in the year, we would have missed all of the construction on Old Meridian Street, and would have had a record of this road as two lanes. By the time we could take this trip, the road was being widened to four lanes and roundabouts were being installed at three of its intersections. This photo shows the roundabout under construction near St. Vincent Hospital.
Upscale shops and restaurants are being built with high-end condos above. The lighter gray pavement is the original Old Meridian St., still striped for two-way traffic.
Another roundabout was being built at Pennsylvania Ave. All this construction is finished as I write this.
Shortly Old Meridian Street ended at US 31 and we turned left onto the current highway. (You can’t do this anymore; Old Meridian Street dead ends here southbound. A ramp from US 31 allows northbound drivers to reach Old Meridian Street, however.) Our map labeled a short road at 116th St. as Old Meridian St. We went to look, but it was part of a parking lot. We wondered if an older iteration of this road had not been such a straight shot, and this was where the old road had gone before the parking lot was paved. Brian, who had caught the old-alignment bug in a bad way, searched around the woods south of the parking lot for signs of the old road, but found nothing.
Next: Old US 31 in Indianapolis.
To get Down the Road in your inbox or reader six days a week, click here to subscribe!
To get my newsletter with previews of what I’m working on, click here to subscribe!
