Tag: history
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A survey of all the old National Road and US 40 alignments in Indiana
I’ve written for years here about the National Road, which was the nation’s first federally funded highway. (See everything I’ve written here). It was authorized by Thomas Jefferson in 1806 and built from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois between 1811 and 1837. Today, if you’re on US 40 between those two cities, you are on…
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Indiana courthouses
My trips along Indiana’s old roads have taken me past many of its courthouses, and I usually stop to photograph them. It seems like Indiana experienced a courthouse-building boom in the 1800s, with many counties building, razing, building, razing, and building again in those years. But with few exceptions, that boom had ended by about…
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Captured: Lady Liberty in miniature
The St. Joseph County Courthouse (full photo here) was built in South Bend in 1896. It’s the county’s third courthouse, all three of which stood on this spot. The first was a frame building, built in 1832. The second was built in 1855. When this one was built, the 1855 courthouse was moved thirty yards…