State Road 37 was upgraded to a four-lane expressway between Indianapolis and Bloomington during the 1970s. This left behind a number of segments of the original road, but most of them were easy to reach — you turned off modern SR 37 onto them. This was still the case when I made my 2007 and 2012 road trips along this old road. But when it was decided I-69 would be routed over this segment of SR 37, it was not clear at first whether those segments of the old road would still be reachable.
I needn’t have worried — they all are. As a matter of fact, it’s possible to drive them all without ever needing to get onto I-69. You have to take a few detours along local streets, but you can drive directly from the south end of Indianapolis to the north end of Bloomington. This map details the route.
Unfortunately, construction of I-69 brought destruction to some of what used to be on the route.
In Morgan County, the original alignment of SR 37 passes through Waverly, a small town. A small bit of road was abandoned at the end of that alignment, and a small concrete-arch bridge was left behind on it. I put a star on the map showing where the bridge used to be.
I wrote in detail about this bridge here, but here is a photo of the bridge’s railing.
From the bridge, I made this photo of what was then modern SR 37 just to the east.
Construction of I-69 meant demolishing a lot of structures that stood too close to where the new highway was going. Given that you can’t have driveways off an Interstate, a lot of buildings that used to connect directly to SR 37 were purchased and demolished as well. It might seem like a small thing, but a Marathon gas station was demolished. It stood on Old SR 37 about 4 miles north of Martinsville. I marked its location with a star on this map. A newer Marathon station was built just west of it.
Here’s what the old station looked like. I stopped here a number of times on my trips along this road, as the restrooms were clean.
Immediately north of Martinsville, the original road headed southwest toward the city, but SR 37 was later built to bypass it to the east. This post describes what it all looked like in 2007. This map shows this whole area in transition during I-69 construction.
The road marked N Egbert Rd is the original alignment of SR 37 and the Dixie Highway. For many years, it dead ended just north of the church. Here’s what it looked like, northbound.
During construction this road was rebuilt north from here to connect to a golf course a couple hundred yards to the north. This connection would not be needed permanently, as when construction finishes the golf course will be accessible via another route. Google Maps Street View captured this image in September of 2022 that shows Egbert Road re-truncated, albeit a little farther north than where it used to end. This photo looks southbound.
Immediagely south of Martinsville a segment of the Dixie and Old SR 37 has been removed. This photo is northbound.
The road was removed north of a derelict bridge, which I’ve marked on the map below with a star. Google Maps incorrectly still shows the road as existing.
Here’s the bridge. It closed several years ago because it had deteriorated enough as to be unsafe.
But I’ve been driving this road long enough that I photographed it while it was still in service. I made this photo in 2007 standing at the same end of the bridge as in the photo above.
A couple years ago I documented similar changes and losses on the original alignment of the Dixie Highway and SR 37 from here to Bloomington. Read it here.
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