Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Indiana State Road 67: Worthington

Jim Grey
8 comments on Indiana State Road 67: Worthington
2 minutes
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Worthington, IN

Driving Indiana’s highways like I do, I pass through a lot of my home state’s small towns. A lot of them are in sorry condition thanks to decades of neglect. The last 50 years have run roughshod over most of Indiana’s out-of-the-way communities.

Tidy, well-kept Indiana small towns are unfortunately not the norm. Worthington, on State Road 67 on Greene County, is tidy and well-kept. So I stopped to take it in.

Worthington, IN

Worthington doesn’t fill a full square mile in land size, and is home to only about 1,500 people. The nearest city is Bloomington, about 30 miles away. Spencer is just 18 miles away, and that’s where you’ll find the nearest supermarket.

Worthington, IN

What that means is when you choose to live in Worthington, you trade away convenience and you must own a car. You have to want to live in Worthington. Not only do 1,500 people want to live in Worthington, but they want to keep it this nice.

Route 67 Ice Cream & Diner, Worthington

I made this trip with my longtime road-trip companion Dawn. It’s our tradition to stop somewhere for ice cream along the way. We have yet to not find an ice-cream shop on any of our trips. Sometimes it’s been just a Dairy Queen. I love me some Dairy Queen, but I love it even more when we find a local place. We did this day, in Worthington. We’ll forgive that they use a US highway shield with the State Road number in it.

Dawn

This place had installed a shiny new tin ceiling. My camera rendered it as more of a pewter color, but it’s still a good photograph.

Tin ceiling

There are some vacant storefronts in Worthington, but even those are tidy and well-kept.

Worthington, IN

State Road 67 exits Worthington on its original alignment.

Worthington, IN

But I’m not sure how SR 67 entered Worthington. Richard Simpson’s otherwise outstanding series of maps of SR 67’s original alignment is missing a map of this area. I’ve drawn my educated guess in blue on this map.

Worthington came near the end of this day on our State Road 67 trip. A day on the road ends when I run out of one of two things: light or energy. My energy flagged after this, helped along I’m sure by a post-ice-cream sugar crash. We turned around and headed for home shortly after this, and I picked up the rest of SR 67 to Vincennes a couple Saturdays later.

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Comments

8 responses to “Indiana State Road 67: Worthington”

  1. Forrest Johnson Avatar
    Forrest Johnson

    My Mom’s family was from Worthington. I can remember traveling down Ind 67 starting in the early ’50s thru the present. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Point Commerce just across the dirt road from what was once a hotel. The old bridge in those days was not covered but a steel truss, one lane bridge. One of my uncles and I drove out on it and ate our breakfast snack sitting in the middle of it. Yes, at one time it was a busy and always clean little town with a drug store and a couple of grocery stores, the last was an A&P. You should have gone to the park on the northwest part of town, it has a part of the largest tree that the Indians used for a meeting place which was south of town.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I’ve learned since writing these articles that the river was rerouted, making the old covered bridge unnecessary. The steel truss bridge was built over the river’s new path.

      Reply
    2. Marc Beebe Avatar
      Marc Beebe

      Curious you should mention the large tree meeting place: my hometown many miles and states away had the same thing! Part of the tree is now at the museum there, and there’s still the Big Tree Inn on Main Street. Must have been a common cultural thing to find a large, easily identifiable landmark to set as a meeting place.

      Reply
  2. Warren W Jenkins Avatar
    Warren W Jenkins

    When you visit these small towns and villages, I like to look up their fire protection on: indianafiretrucks.smugmug.com
    An acquaintance of over 30 years is one of the admins/contributors to this site, and he thinks he’s seen every corner of Indiana in his travels.
    Rural fire protection seems to vary wildly by county in Indiana, something to consider when moving someplace in the outback…

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Having always lived in cities, this is not something I would have known to think about!

      Reply
  3. Darts and Letters Avatar
    Darts and Letters

    I might have a hard time being so far from a supermarket. But thirty miles from Bloomington, a college town with culture and associated amenities, 30 miles doesn’t seem too bad. What flavor of ice cream did you get?

    These tin roofs seem to be a very popular traditional style making a comeback in the Midwest. I have seen original tin roofs in some vintage Portland, Oregon homes. We don’t really see them in Seattle, at all. More common back east, it seems. My little sister’s looking for a house and she has seen lots of tin roofs or backsplashes in remodeled old homes or even new homes. I love the style but they seem embarrassingly out of scale in more modest houses.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I forget now what ice cream I got! It was a year ago at this point.

      Bloomington has a great deal of charm. But there’s also a deep schism between people/things associated with the university, and the deeply blue collar rest of the town. Two of my kids have lived there/now live there and they both experience(d) it.

      Reply
      1. Darts and Letters Avatar
        Darts and Letters

        That’s sad to hear about the poor relationship between the university and part of the community. Not a surprise exactly, given the ivory tower reputation of a lot of colleges and depending left/right divides. But both of them could be an amazing asset to each other.

        Reply

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