As you drive old highways, you’ll occasionally see right-of-way markers. In many states they are low concrete posts, but regardless what they’re made of their markings usually include “R/W” or “ROW.” The markings usually face the road that the state owns or owned, and the back edge of the marker is the outer limit of the right of way. If you can read the R/W marking, you are standing in the right of way. Most right-of-way markers you find in Indiana look like this. More recent markers, I hear, just read “R/W” without the “IND.”

States generally place right-of-way markers when they build or improve a road, to mark land that they purchased for that purpose. I’ve seen dozens of these on Indiana highways and old highway alignments. But I’ve never seen one on a narrow gravel road before.

This right-of-way marker is approximately at the location at this link, on County Road 940 N, about 3½ miles northeast of Worthington. It’s hard to believe that this road was ever State Road 67, as it in no way matches modern conceptions of a highway. But the right-of-way marker says otherwise — that this road was an improvement over some earlier configuration or construction of this bit of highway!
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