Tag: history
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Inside John’s Modern Cabins Canon PowerShot S95 2013
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Old McDonald’s sign on the National Road in Richmond, Indiana
My friend Dawn and I recently took our annual road trip. Our 2009 trip along the old National Road, aka US 40, from Ohio to Indianapolis several years ago, was cut short by a family emergency. So we tried again. And we both love the National Road, so it was no hardship to see some of the same…
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Revealing the bricks on the National Road in Indianapolis
Work on an old road sometimes reveals old surfaces. A project in Downtown Indianapolis along Washington Street, the city’s east-west main drag, cut this groove into the center of the road and revealed a former brick surface, and perhaps an even older surface beneath it. Washington Street has quite a history. It was part of Indianapolis’s…
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Strolling through Lockerbie Square on Kodak Ektar 100
Lockerbie Square is the oldest surviving residential district in Indianapolis, and it’s wonderfully restored and preserved. I found myself there on a Downtown stroll with my Pentax ES II and a 55/1.8 SMC Takumar, Kodak Ektar 100 aboard. What a perfect time to photograph Lockerbie’s homes: the trees had just started to leaf, lending color and…
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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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Michigan Road sign update
You’ll now find guide signs along almost all of the Michigan Road, Indiana’s oldest highway. Signs started appearing on the route in 2013 and the work picked up steam in 2014. Signs went up in Indianapolis in October, leaving South Bend as the last place on the 270-mile route that is not yet signed. I was…
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The last department store? Minear’s, on the Michigan Road in Greensburg, Indiana
I was looking through my photographs from my 2008 tour of the Michigan Road when I came upon photos of Minear’s Department Store on the square in Greensburg. I was surprised to find an old-style department store still operating anywhere, let alone in small-town Indiana. It had been in business since 1865. My favorite detail…
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Brick Lincoln Highway near Ligonier, Indiana
The Lincoln Highway is on my old-road bucket list. The 1913 coast-to-coast highway cuts two major alignments across Indiana. I’ve driven parts of it, especially the entire portion from South Bend to the Illinois line, but have never stopped to photograph anything along it. This Lincoln Highway visit was a minor exception. Margaret and I had…
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Goodbye, Whitehouse Restaurant
Logansport’s Whitehouse Restaurant closed its doors for good on Saturday after 73 years. Little family-run diners used to be typical; every town had at least one. They began disappearing in the late 1970s, by my estimation, as fast-food and diner-style chain restaurants really caught on. I think that the wide availability of places like McDonald’s…
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South Bend in the 1980s
I’ve written a lot about my hometown of South Bend this year. It’s because my parents have sold the house I grew up in and are retiring in Indianapolis, where both of their children and all of their grandchildren are. This is moving week! I’m excited to have them much closer by and am looking…
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Captured: Senate chambers
Abraham Lincoln began his political career where the old National Road ends, in Vandalia, in Illinois. He was elected to the state legislature in 1834, which was before the state capital moved north to Springfield. Actually, Lincoln was instrumental in getting the capital moved, which made him unpopular among Vandalians. This is the Senate chamber in…
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Captured: Peacock Road
Indiana definitely has some cool old alignments of the National Road and US 40, all of which I shared on Monday. But if there were an old-alignment contest on the National Road, Ohio would win. When the road was new in the early 1800s, especially in the rough, hilly terrain east of Zanesville, it had…