As Lingle Road (Old SR 67) crosses from Morgan County into Owen County, it gets rough.
This hasn’t been SR 67 since 1939. Period maps from the Indiana Highway Commission show that this alignment might have been improved from gravel to oiled gravel in 1931 or 1932. The 1933 map shows this alignment to have been further improved with a “”bituminous mulch top, surface-treated water-bound macadam, [or] road oil mat” surface. The 1938 map shows the road still on this alignment, but the 1939 map shows the road on its current alignment.
This road becomes mighty pretty as it passes through a wooded area. But by this time, it had reverted entirely to gravel.
A road and its environment can change an awful lot in 90 years, especially when it falls under county maintenance and is lightly used. Check out this article I wrote, in which I show a photo of a bridge on US 40 from 1928, a few years after the bridge was built, compared to my own photos of that bridge on what is now a local road made in 2009. It’s hard to tell this is the same place.
After the road passes through the woods, it shortly crosses this pony truss bridge over Indian Creek.
Here’s a northbound view of the bridge and the gravel road leading to it.
This bridge is standard Indiana highway stuff of the period when this road was the highway.
From here, Lingle Road continues to cross current SR 67 and continue on the other side. The road runs straight west until it reaches a T intersection, at which point it heads straight south, crossing SR 67 again on its way into Gosport.
After the road crosses current SR 67 the first time, the road becomes paved in asphalt and passes between two sides of the Gosport Cemetery.
Little pony truss bridges and bisected cemeteries are part of the joy of exploring the old road alignments. The locals all know these things are here and probably find them to be unremarkable. But I’m newly discovering them.
I like old cemeteries, so we stopped and lingered to make some photographs.
SR 67 enters Gosport on its west side along 7th Street, missing the heart of its downtown. Here’s a photo from 4th Street westbound along Main Street.
The original alignment of SR 67 is permanently closed a few miles from here, so we detoured along current SR 67 until it met the original alignment.
Next: A classic drive-in theater on State Road 67.
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