Following the original alignment of Indiana State Road 67 past Anderson and Mounds State Park, the road ends abruptly.
The runway of the Anderson Municipal Airport cuts across SR 67’s original path, which made it necessary to close the road. But when did that happen?
In most cases, you can find historic aerial imagery to fill in the blanks. You can find aerial images that are up to 90 years old! In Indiana, we have the Indiana Historical Aerial Photo Index (IHAPI), which has aerial images as old as 1939. Speaking of which, here’s what the airport runway area looked like in 1939. SR 67 runs diagonally through the center of the image.
IHAPI also offers images from 1950, 1956, 1961, and 1969 for this area. The runway first appears in the 1961 image, but it’s no long enough to interfere with the road.
A stroke of luck: the 1969 image shows this runway being extended, and the road being rerouted around its end!
I turned to Google Earth to pick up the trail. The first usable imagery it has for this area is from 1992. Fortunately, it looks like nothing has changed since the 1969 runway extension was completed. Because of the good resolution, you can clearly see the remnants of the original SR 67 alignment.
By 2010, the runway was reconfigured slightly, and the road had to be slightly realigned to accommodate it.
In this 2012 image, you can see that the road around the end of the runway was closed off.
In this 2019 image, you can see how some of the 1969 realignment of the road was removed.
There it is, the story of Old State Road 67 at the Anderson Municipal Airport.
Fortunately, the resolution of later images is so good that you can zoom way in to see detail. Here’s the strip of SR 67’s original alignment as it leads up to the runway.
Looking through the fence where Old SR 67 is closed off headed northeast toward the runway, you can see some remnant of the old road.
I drove around to where this road comes out of the airport at the other end and photographed it southbound. On both sides of the airport today, this road serves only to provide access to a few houses.
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