Category: History
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Carnegie libraries in Indiana
Wealthy industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie built an astounding 1,689 libraries around the United States — plus 660 in the UK, 125 in Canada, and 35 in other countries around the world — between 1883 and 1929. Preservationist blogger Susie Trexler wrote recently about the rich variation in architectural styles among Carnegie libraries in California, Oregon,…
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1880 Paoli bridge, destroyed
This was the scene on the 1880 iron truss bridge in Paoli, Indiana, on Christmas Day. Despite the signs on both sides of this bridge declaring no trucks, a 13′ 3″ height limit, and a 6-ton weight limit, this too-tall semi loaded well beyond 6 tons with bottled water drove onto it anyway. Its trailer…
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The Huddleston Farmhouse, on the National Road in Indiana
You’ll find Quaker influence up and down the National Road across Indiana, but most prominently in Wayne and Hendricks Counties. A prominent Quaker, John Huddleston, settled on this 78-acre site and built his home here, just west of Cambridge City, near the town of New Auburn in Wayne County. He built this house in 1841. In…
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The Vinton HouseCanon TLb, 50mm f/1.8 Canon FD S.C.Kodak Gold 200 2015 Completed in 1847, this hotel in Cambridge City, Indiana, stands at the intersection of the National Road and (formerly) the Whitewater Canal.
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Suddenly, it’s 1860: Centerville, on the National Road in eastern Indiana
It feels like warping back more than 150 years in time when you drive into Centerville, on US 40 and the old National Road in east-central Indiana. The town’s cobblestone streets have long been supplanted by four lanes of asphalt. But almost everything else about Centerville takes you back. Way back. Like the Mansion House, built…
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An illustrated history of the American road bridge, part 2
This is the final part of this two-part series about bridges in the United States. See Part 1 here. As the automobile became popular, the nation’s network of unpaved, narrow roads became insufficient — and so did the narrow stone, iron, and wooden bridges on them. State and local highway departments began to be formed during…
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An illustrated history of the American road bridge, part 1
Rivers, streams, lakes, and valleys have always hindered our ability to get from here to there. That’s why bridge building has been a fundamental human engineering activity since the dawn of civilization. We humans have always been a resourceful species that doesn’t let obstacles stand in our way! But thanks to the automobile, modern times…
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Goodbye Middletown Bridge
You can’t save them all. It wouldn’t win any beauty contests, this four-span stone-arch bridge on a bypassed one-lane alignment of the Michigan Road in southeastern Shelby County. But it was built by hand, stone by stone, in 1903. That made it significant, even eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. But in 2013,…
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Whatever became of Augusta, Indiana?
A couple weeks ago, when I walked you through the old railroad town of New Augusta in northwest Indianapolis, I mentioned nearby Augusta. It came first, in 1832, built on the then-new Michigan Road. When I shared this post on Facebook, someone commented there, “Whatever became of Augusta?” It’s still there. Welcome to downtown Augusta, Indiana.…
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A walking tour of historic New Augusta, Indiana
In the 1850s, commerce and prosperity arrived by rail across the United States. Railroads boomed in these years, with thousands upon thousands of track miles being built. Wherever rails were laid, towns inevitably popped up. A rail line was built between Indianapolis and Lafayette in about 1850. It passed within a mile and a half…
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Zooming in on the Lacy Building
My second-favorite facade on Indy’s Monument Circle is the Lacy Building. (My favorite is the art-deco Circle Tower.) Even though it says LACY prominently over the arch, a lot of sources call this the Test Building. It was named for, and built by the heirs of, Charles Edward Test, who had led the National Motor Vehicle…
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Goodbye Rife’s Market
Word reached me the other day that Rife’s Market, in the Grandview neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, has closed. It was a five-aisle mom-and-pop grocery that would have been a throwback even 30 years ago. Fortunately, I photographed it in 2012 while it was still operating. I was shooting Kodak Tri-X in my Pentax ME with…