Steuben County's Bicentennial Salute

Steuben County’s

$1.00 Section A A two part section

Bicentennial Salute

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A special supplement to The Herald Republican Friday, July 29, 2016.

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STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

JULY 29, 2016

Two hundred years and counting

BY LEE SAUER

In 200 years of statehood, Indiana, the smallest of 12 Midwestern states,has grown accustomed to being overlooked.

From the moment its borders were drawn, Indiana’s 280-mile, northsouth axis put it in the path of American growth and progress.

But no one seemed to notice — or when they did, they did so with derision.

Old-time travelers nicknamed the state “crossroads of America.” In other words, a place to pass through, not a destination.

And yesteryear’s wags referred to the state’s residents as “Hoosiers,” a derogatory term meaning “uncouth simpleton.” (In Hoosier fashion, the state’s residents embraced the insult.) In more recent times, Indiana’s conservatism and religiosity have left it out of step with a changing and secular world.

Again, US sentiment seems to say, it’s a quaint place to visit for a Super Bowl or NCAA finals —but who would want to live there?

Today, sophisticated travelers refer to Indiana (together with its Midwest neighbors) as a “flyover state.”

But lack of notice is not the same as lack of importance. Indiana’s place in American history is second to none. *** Think the only war on U.S. soil was the American Civil War? Think again.

Residents of Indiana live on a battleground.

When U.S. expansion backed eastern woodland Indians up against the prairie — the very limit of the vast, seemingly endless forest which began

at the nation’s East Coast and essentially ended at Indiana’s western border — this land’s native people made a last desperate, violent stand. Historians commonly call these fights The Indian Wars.

Hoosiers’ modern life bustles them past places with names of incredible historical significance: Fort Wayne, Tippecanoe, Mississinewa.

And yet, the significance of these places has contracted over time.

Now they are memorialized by historical markers on busy streets or near a cornfield. Or parks for walking the dog. *** Indiana’s history since settlement by Americans survived better.

Ask any child about Indiana’s pioneers, and they will tell the story of brave, hardworking families willing to face dangers in an untamed land.

Less well known is the pattern of settlement.

Blocked by an impenetrable natural wonder known as the “Black Swamp” (which covered the northern half of Ohio), Indiana’s residents largely came from the south.

That simple fact reverberates today in our state’s religion, race relations, government and speech. *** The pioneer era led to the romantic period for which Indiana is best known: The time of the family farm.

With the arrival of trains, towns popped up all over the state. Markets across the country came within reach.

And products from eastern cities became available here.

With automobiles, isolation melted further.

Growth and prosperity came

struggled for a new identity.

Industrial farming and manufacturing now provide the economic motor.

But neither is as embraceable as singlefamily farming. Both bring environmental and social challenges.

And neither can honestly promise a secure financial future. It’s an era still in progress; its history largely unwritten.

When Indiana gets national notice today, it’s when the state passes a law, or a politician makes a statement, that swims against the national current. *** Two hundred years.

Twenty decades. That’s how we’ve arrived at Indiana’s bicentennial. What follows is a series of articles on our state’s story, decade by decade. Each 10-year period is associated with a topic connected to that time.

We’ll discuss topics introduced above, plus a few more.

With reverence for the past and hope for the future, happy birthday, Indiana!

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

A map shows the Northwest Territory before Indiana statehood.

Illustration courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society

within reach of anyone willing to work hard. This was the time of Friday night basketball games, Saturday night visits to town, 4-H and county fairs.

For over 100 years,

family farms served as the backbone of the state’s economy. It went on so long, and became so intertwined with the state’s image, it seemed impossible it should end.

And yet now all that remains of Indiana’s family farms are husks of decaying buildings. *** Since the passing of the family farm, Indiana has

ABOUT THE WRITER Formerly a teacher, commercial fisherman and journalist, Lee P. Sauer now makes his living as a freelance writer, illustrator and handyman.

He is the author of “It’s a Duesey!,” “The Many Lives of Glenn T. Rieke,” and the illustrated books for children, “Ralph’s Indiana Bicentennial Activity and Coloring Book,” and “Drawing from History: Abraham Lincoln.” Sauer plays lead banjo in the musical duo Schmaltz & Blarney . He lives in Angola with an ever-changing combination of daughters, chickens and cats.

1816: Indian removal clears the way for settlement

BY LEE SAUER

It is right to celebrate the bravery, hard work and foresight of the people who made Indiana’s statehood a reality.

It is wrong to ignore the people who got hurt in the process.

When the last history is written, two dark stains will mar America’s story. Most folks can name one: Slavery.

But the other?

It seems to have been swept from the American conscience. It, too, comes with a legacy of problems, but they seem remote and quarantined.

What is that “other” stain?

Indian removal. *** Natives and Europeans clashed from the moment Columbus arrived on the continent.

A pattern emerged: Europeans settled new land; the natives became upset; Europeans promised to stay put, but encroachment resumed. The natives responded violently. The settlers (or their proxies, soldiers) sought revenge.

A truce was called.

Promises made.

And the cycle began again.

By the time the United States declared independence from Britain, natives of the eastern woodland forest could be pushed no further.

Literally.

The Indians had been herded to the forest’s edge — now the western border of Indiana. *** To describe woodland Indians of this period as half-naked humans living a pure hunter-gatherer lifestyle would be misleading.

Natives longed for their old way of life, but they were dependent on trade. Guns, knives and tomahawks were their weapons of choice.

Native dress had turned into a stew of European and Indian style.

Racial purity, too, no longer existed. French traders took Indian wives. Tecumseh, the great Shawnee war leader, had a British forebear. And both sides took the other’s children. William Wells, a fierce Miami warrior who fought alongside Little

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

INDIAN LEADERS — Two Native Americans played vital roles in the Indian Wars. As a Miami war chief, Little Turtle, left, twice defeated American armies. After The Battle of Fallen Timbers, he led his people to assimilate with settlers. If the natives had won at Fallen

Turtle and would later leave his mark on Fort Wayne, had been abducted from a Kentucky farm.

By the early 1800’s, the woodland Indian way of life was rapidly slipping away. ***

Since 1854

The Weicht Funeral Home has been owned and operated by 6 generations of the Weicht Family. Leopold E. Weicht immigrated to the United States from Baden, Germany in 1854 and established the L.E. Weicht & Son Funeral Home, which was also known as Weicht’s Undertaking Establishment. By the end of the 19th Century Leopold’s son, Henry Weicht, had joined his father and ran the business along with the Angola Casket Company. As the years went by the name officially changed to Weicht Funeral Home.

Henry was followed in the family business by his son Paul J. Weicht. By the 1930’s Paul was joined by his son, Joseph Henry Weicht and they ran the business together.

In 1956 at the age of 16, Paul E. “Gene” Weicht along with his mother Olive E. Weicht got involved when his father, Joseph Henry, passed away.

The Weicht Family and its generations also ran an Ambulance Service for Steuben County from approximately 1915 to 1972.

The business is currently owned and operated by Paul E. “Gene” Weicht and his wife Susan, their children John J. Weicht and Beth Weicht Lee. Completing the funeral home family is Christopher J. Burton, Funeral Director.

Weicht Funeral Home, Inc.

207 N. West Street, Angola, Indiana 46703 Phone: 260-665-3111 • Fax: 260-665-3112 weicht1854@yahoo.com www.weichtfh.com

Timbers, America might have decided to leave the Northwest Territory to the Indians, and the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, right, would be honored as the father of this new nation.

To describe Indians as ignorant of American intentions would be misleading, too.

The Northwest Ordinance outlined America’s plan for carving states out of the land between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Indians knew what statehood meant — land speculators, settlers.

More land lost.

By the late 1700’s, the natives turned desperate.

They raided Kentucky settlers. Afterward, they retreated north to villages at the convergence of three rivers.

President George Washington felt he must do something. He sent Arthur St. Clair to displace the Indians at three rivers and establish a fort.

St. Clair failed. Near today’s Fort Recovery, Ohio, natives routed the Americans.

The battleground stretched for miles as braves picked off 600 retreating soldiers and camp followers.

The war chief Little Turtle commanded braves to stuff dirt into the mouths of dead and dying Americans.

The message: “Hungry for land?

“Here it is!” *** In 1792, Washington sent General “Mad” Anthony Wayne on the same mission as St. Clair. Wayne defeated the natives at Fallen Timbers (near Toledo, Ohio) and established Fort Wayne at the three rivers.

The back of the eastern woodland Indians had been broken.

Tecumseh would try one last time to unite tribes. But, in 1811, while Tecumseh was away on a recruiting trip, his erratic half-brother, The Prophet, attacked a U.S .Army force, led by William Henry Harrison, at Tippecanoe.

The Americans won.

For all practical purposes, violent Indian resistance in Indiana ended.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. A few Miami Indians — notably Little Turtles’ descendants — avoided the order. But the remaining Indiana Indians were marched out of the forest and onto reservations west of the Mississippi.

Note the irony?

Indiana means “land of the Indians.”

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

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1826: Settlement moves from south to north

BY LEE SAUER

Imagine Indiana’s north-south axis as a wick drawing moisture from the Ohio River.

That’s how early settlement took place.

Transportation through the eastern forest presented a problem. Sure, trails established by animals and natives over millennia cut through the woodlands, but obstacles lurked: Wetlands.

Lakes.

Quicksand.

Across the top half of Ohio stretched the “Black Swamp.” Until drained and turned to farmland, the swamp blocked foot traffic to northern Indiana.

The only dependable way to move people and goods in the early 1800s?

Water.

That’s why early Indiana

settlements clung to rivers and streams.

From there, pioneers attacked the forest. *** After defeating Britain in the American Revolution, the United States claimed land north and west of the Ohio River. America named it the Northwest Territory.

The new nation wanted to open this land to American settlers. The Northwest Ordinance of 1789 set ground rules: waterways would remain free and open to all U.S. citizens; once a territory achieved a population of 60,000, it could apply for statehood.

The ordinance even laid out a plan for six-milesquare townships — a provision still apparent in county maps. ***

The Northwest Ordinance set important precedents that would echo loudly in coming decades.

The free waterways clause established the sovereignty of the federal government. Although states had rights, they would bow to a greater whole — that of the nation.

The Ordinance also prohibited slavery in territories, making the Ohio River the boundary between slave and free states.

This anti-slavery clause is often pointed to as the beginning of American conscience, when the country began to live up to its ideals. But notice that the U.S. Constitution and Northwest Ordinance come from the same time period.

Why would Southern states demand slavery in one document, and prohibit it in

another?

Historians point out that the Southern states agreed to prohibit slavery in the Northwest Territory out of economic selfishness: They didn’t want competition growing tobacco.

As the Northwest Territory divided into states, political power tipped toward free states.

In response, the South began battling for the admission of more slave states.

The chess board for the Civil War was set. *** Indiana’s early settlers retained strong ties to the South. Most were poor and uneducated. Some held resentment for slaves, with whom they had competed for jobs. Typically, they moved from one unsettled area to another without title.

When a legal dispute arose, they moved on.

These were not “Yankee” farmers— thrifty, puritanical, industrious — who set up homestead with hundreds of dollars in goods and equipment. Descended from Appalachian hill farmers, early Indiana pioneers moved “jinglety bang”with possessions strapped on the backs of family members and an animal or two.

And, unlike Yankees, early Indiana pioneers did not equate leisure with sin.

They often did not make hay or plant fruit trees. In spring, if they assessed the forest’s acorn and beechnut crop to be sufficient to feed their animals, they planted little corn.

Indiana’s only tie to eastern markets depended on the Ohio River. Produce from Indiana floated down

the Ohio to the Mississippi, then to New Orleans.

The few Eastern goods to arrive in the state made the trip by steamboat. *** The quintessential American story wound its way through Indiana.

Thomas Lincoln got into a land dispute in Kentucky, so he moved his family to Indiana.

The year: 1816.

Tom’s son, Abraham, grew up with an ax in his hand, clearing land.

As a teen, Abe worked as a ferryman on the Ohio River. Then, in 1828, a neighbor hired Abe to help float cargo down to New Orleans. Abe repeated the trip in 1831.

While in New Orleans, Abraham Lincoln watched a slave sale.

He never forgot it.

1836: Pioneer life was hard and scary

BY LEE SAUER

Imagine life without electricity, grocery stores or 9-1-1.

No community.

No help.

No security.

Everything you eat, wear or use must be fashioned from what the land provides.

That’s the life early Indiana pioneers faced.

Modern conveniences and infrastructure have removed us so far from this style of existence that we’ve grown nostalgic for it.

But don’t kid yourself.

It was a hard, scary life.

We think of our pioneering ancestors as farmers. And that was their goal — to fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of independent land laborers.

But the forest got in the way. *** Our nostalgia for Indiana’s early days comes from the pioneers’ reliance on nature.

The pioneers provided their basic needs — food, shelter and clothing — three ways: Hunting.

Gathering.

And farming.

Before land was cleared and crops grown, hunting provided most of the food.

Deer and bear were the main targets. Along with meat, animals gave fat for lard, skin for clothing, fur for blankets.

A bear skin served as the cabin’s front door.

Today, hunting is considered leisure activity.

Pioneers considered it the hardest, most labor-intensive of their jobs.

Men hunted.

Women and children gathered.

In the forest, pioneers found berries, nuts and honey. *** Before dreams of farming came true, the forest needed to come down.

Cutting trees provided cropland, but it also supplied building material. Tree trunks became log cabins.

Branches became chimneys.

Wood also provided fuel for the pioneers’ main energy source. Fire cooked the pioneers’ food and gave them heat in winter.

Once land was clear, farming began. Pioneers grew crops we’d recognize today: corn, beans and squash (especially pumpkins).

A pioneer family grew only what it needed.

Why? Roads were bad. The few towns were virtually inaccessible.

Selling crops was not an option. *** In modern terms, pioneer life wasn’t sustainable.

Despite dependence on the forest, pioneers considered Nature an enemy — a foe to be brought to its knees. They saw danger in the woods. Cutting trees opened land for cultivation, certainly, but it also provided a safe zone from wild animals and any humans who were not

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

ROUGHING IT— Pioneers relied on hunting, gathering and farming to provide their basic needs. They used the building material at hand — most often wood. Although modern Hoosiers pine for the simplicity and back-tonature aspects, pioneer life was difficult and dangerous.

friends.

So pioneers kept busy with their two primary tools: ax and gun.

Under hunting pressure and loss of habitat, Indiana’s native animals could not survive. The bigger animals, which needed more space and made easier targets, especially suffered. At its founding, Indiana was home to buffalo (note the state seal), bear, panthers, wolves, elk and otters.

All are now gone.

(Although recent bear and panther sightings have been

reported.)

Even the soil, nourished for millennia by forest compost, couldn’t stand the abrupt change.

Under farming techniques of the time, by the end of the pioneer period, the soil was wearing out.

Note the contradiction: Pioneer life required forest. By clearing land, pioneers destroyed means to continue their way of life.

In any measure of time, but especially geological terms, settlers completely

transformed Indiana’s landscape in an incredibly short period.

Under relentless pressure, the virgin forest and its inhabitants — both human and animal — disappeared. *** American history is littered with stories of pioneers who moved when they could see smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. (This indicated that the neighborhood was too crowded.)

They would move further west, clear more land, hunt until the game ran out.

Then move again.

That’s because pioneering was based on a myth: That the forest would never run out.

But many pioneers stayed put and grew into family farmers — the topic of our 1876 article.

They made Jefferson’s view come true.

That’s another reason for nostalgia for Indiana’s early days: That anyone willing to work hard and take a risk can build their own version of the American Dream.

1846: Canal mania strikes America Currently, several serious companies are working out the massive problems behind traveling far into space, and — perhaps — around in time.

Why? Imagine the payback if they succeed!

Canals promised the same to early Americans. The technology was not new, but the problems of constructing water highways through vast stretches of unsettled wilderness were immense.

The amount of labor needed— incredible.

But the payback!

People and products would be able to move freely over this vast, “new” continent.

Midwest farm produce could reach eastern cities, and manufactured products from the cities could reach the farm.

New cities would spring up.

Land that had previously been inaccessible would open to settlement.

The list of possibilities went on and on …

Canal mania struck America.

It hit Indiana particularly hard. Canals seemed the answer to each of our young state’s problems. All that was needed: bulldog determination and lots and lots of work.

Oh, yeah.

And money. *** To appreciate advantages of a canal, take a short mind

journey: imagine your living room furniture piled onto a trailer.

Now imagine pulling that loaded trailer down a road.

Tough to get started, but not too bad.

Now pull the trailer off road.

Yikes. Not so easy.

Next, imagine that same furniture loaded onto a flat-bottomed boat. In your mind, pull that boat along the shore of a calm lake.

Wow. BIG difference!

Canals promised to replace pack animals, carts and wagons. The difference in economy could be incredible.

Consider this: to move one ton of material over early American roads required eight mules, plus a team of human workers to care for the animals.

By canal, one mule and one person could move one ton … . along with an additional 29 tons! *** In equal measure with their advantages, canals presented problems.

The first of which was getting the $#@*&^% things built.

At first blush, a trench in the ground wouldn’t seem to require engineering.

But think again.

How do you account for changes in elevation?

How do you maintain a consistent water supply?

And, for crying out loud, what do you do when the canal needs to cross a river?

But none of this daunted Indiana.

The state jumped into canal building with both feet. In early 1827, Indiana accepted a federal grant and made plans to build the Wabash and Erie

Canal.

In 1832, construction began. *** Then the Panic of 1837 struck.

Indiana had overextended itself with internal improvement projects — like building canals. It couldn’t pay its

bills. In 1851, the state would rewrite its constitution and require that the state conduct its business within a balanced budget.

It was a traumatic lesson — and echoes of 1837 can still be heard today. *** The remaining timeline of

canals would be unsettlingly short.

In 1843, even though construction wasn’t completed, operation began.

That same year, the canal reached LaFayette.

In 1848, it opened to Terre Haute.

SEE 1846 PAGE A4

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STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

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1846 FROM PAGE A3

In 1853, it reached Evansville.

In 1874, the canal closed.

Problems were simply too great. Even when boats operated at slow speeds, water washed over banks, causing erosion. Muskrats bore holes in the banks; when water seeped through, the holes grew.

Repair work went on continuously.

And everyone who came in contact with canals mentioned mosquitoes.

But the death knell for canals came elsewhere — from a new technology. It promised everything the canals had, and MORE! In several ways, canals provided a path for railroads to follow.

BASS PHOTO CO. COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

LEAKY INFRASTRUCTURE — Canals leaked water, time, money and manpower. When railroads arrived, the canal era ended.

1856: Railroads tie the nation together In the pioneer era, each Indiana town kept its own time.

Clocks set by position of the sun might say 1 p.m. in one town, 1:34 p.m. in the next; 1:18 p.m. in the next.

Without instant communication or fast travel, who would know?

But when trains arrived, everything changed.

When people could travel at unbelievable speeds of 50 mph and more, time mattered.

Distances shrunk.

Possibilities grew.

In a broad sense, trains connected Indiana to itself.

And to the nation. *** Railroads fulfilled the promise of canals: they connected Indiana farmers with Eastern markets.

In return, railroads made Eastern merchandise available in Indiana.

A level of comfort and convenience unimaginable scant years before suddenly came within reach of Hoosiers.

Trains brought this change by stimulating economic activity. Pioneer farmers began to grow more food than their families could consume. They took produce to town and sold it.

With money in their pocket

and a day off work, farmers found themselves in the market for goods, services and entertainment.

Merchants obliged.

Farms grew larger.

More wooded land was cleared.

Trains brought more people and previously unsettled land became settled.

More farms created demand for new towns, new roads, new schools, more merchants. *** Railroads gained steam slowly in Indiana.

In 1838, the state’s first steampowered train carried a contingent of dignitaries 15 miles at 8 mph.

With the state’s commitment to canals and subsequent money problems, public backing for railroads remained meager. By the late 1840s, only 100 miles of track existed within the state.

Then, an explosion!

Private companies took over railroad financing. In early 1851, 245 miles of rail had been laid and investors expected 500 miles to be in operation before the end of the year.

Indiana’s rail lines led to northern cities. The North built networks that tied regions together.

Southern states, meanwhile, remained content with building short, unconnected lines for getting cotton to water transportation. The difference in these two approaches would become apparent in the coming war.

The shift to eastern markets tied Indiana more closely to the North — and distanced it from the South. *** Tensions between free and slave states rose.

Southerners contended that blacks were content with subservient lives. Or, even if they weren’t, were incapable of self-determination.

In other words, blacks needed white masters to care for them like animals.

Yet evidence said otherwise.

Thousands of slaves risked their lives in an ultimate act of self-determination, escaping across the Ohio River into free territory.

Because the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act mandated that northerners help capture and return runaways, the slaves headed for where they would truly be free — Canada.

And they did so in secret.

Indiana provided a path (in reality, many paths) and

enough sympathetic citizens to help fugitives along their way.

So many slaves escaped that these covert operations across northern states earned a nickname based on a new technology of the time: Folks called it the Underground Railroad. *** In 1809, the year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, no train tracks existed in America.

In 1830, the year Lincoln’s family moved to Illinois, only a few, short sections of track appeared near the East Coast.

In 1850, the year of the Fugitive Slave Act, 9,021 miles of track crisscrossed the Eastern United States.

In 1860, the year Lincoln was elected president, miles of track jumped to 30,626.

In 1864, Lincoln signed an executive order to create the first rail line to the West Coast.

Railroads wouldn’t institute standard time until 1883 — in other words, setting schedules by one master time standard for all towns (whether or not the towns themselves followed suit).

But by then, the work of tying the nation together had largely been done.

PIG-TURNED-PORK INSPIRES POEMS Although Indiana farmers and railroads depended on each other, tensions existed. Farmers often lost valuable livestock when it wandered onto the tracks. Grieving a hog, a farmer turned to verse to make his case to the railroad.

He wrote: My razorback strolled down your track, A week ago today.

Your #29 came down the line, And snuffed his life away.

You can’t blame me; the hog you see, Slipped through a cattle gate; So kindly pen a check for ten, The debt to liquidate.

The farmer received this response: Old #29 came down the line, And killed your hog, we know; But razorbacks on railroad tracks, Quite often meet with woe.

Therefore, my friend, we cannot send, The check for which you pine, Just plant the dead; place o’er his head; “Here lies a foolish swine.”

From A history of Eugene Township (Indiana)

by Harold L. O’Donnell, 1963

1866: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War If Indiana’s only contribution to history was as incubator of Abraham Lincoln, it would be enough.

Lincoln didn’t create the ideas on which the nation fought the Civil War, but his role proved pivotal. In his famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln helped frame the arguments.

As president, he guided the nation successfully through its most turbulent period.

Next, he skillfully anticipated the nation’s willingness to change and adeptly channeled that will.

Finally, he phrased the nation’s new adherence to its founding ideals in a way that has inspired free people ever since.

Most leaders melt under the glare of hindsight.

Lincoln, the most scrutinized of all, glows. *** The nation known as United States of America came into existence through compromise.

Along with enlightened ideas about individual rights, the new nation had to bow in certain cases to the status quo. Only by allowing slavery would Southern states approve the Constitution.

Even the founders acknowledged the irony: that a nation built on individual liberty, and the idea that all men are created equal, would allow one man to own another.

Most Southerners saw no contradiction. They did not consider slaves human. To them, the legality of slavery boiled down to property rights — and the federal government had no right to tell free men what they could or could not own.

The South ostensively went to war over states rights — it contended that if a state decided to allow slavery or drop out of the union, it had that right.

Lincoln went to war with the idea of overarching authority: that of a nation over its constituent parts, and — in the final phase of the war — of freedom applying in equal measure to all people. ***

Indiana stood for Union.

In other words, it denied states the right to secede and fought to keep the nation intact.

But after Lincoln deftly changed the role of the war with the Emancipation Proclamation, Indiana’s Southern roots were exposed.

Suddenly, the war hinged on abolishing slavery and freedom for all.

While New England states roared approval, Indiana murmured.

Many of the state’s soldiers felt they had enlisted to save the Union, not free slaves. In contrast to Hoosier abolitionists who helped runaways, Indiana’s Democratic representatives

Since 1892

in Congress bitterly opposed any movement toward equality for former slaves— including allowing blacks to deliver mail.

The attitude became apparent in the aftermath of the war. As free blacks moved north, many Hoosiers, in word and action, encouraged them to keep moving. *** Lincoln built his lasting legacy on these ideas: that the Union was inviolable.

If states could come and go, the United States no longer existed. The experiment in representational government would have failed. The nation must succeed — or fail —as a whole; that, while all people may not be equal in ability or means, all people were equal in rights — the most important being liberty; and, finally, Lincoln insisted that one man’s freedom could not be extended so far as to

impinge on the freedom of another man. *** The Lincoln family moved from Indiana when Abe was 21.

He returned just a few times afterward, most often when traveling by train through the crossroad state to somewhere else.

But Lincoln did not overlook his boyhood home.

In 1859, in a speech in Indianapolis, Lincoln opened with the line: “Fellow citizens of the State of Indiana …” then noted that he had grown to his “present enormous height on our own good soil.”

Lincoln’s last pass through the state took place on April 30, 1865 — two weeks after his assassination.

Lincoln didn’t survive the Civil War. But through his role in saving American democracy, his ideas live on.

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INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

UNION — Before Abraham Lincoln, the nation considered itself a plurality: United States of America. After Lincoln, the nation thought of itself in the singular: THE United States of America.

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1876: Politics and presidents

BY LEE SAUER

In 1876, as the United States celebrated its Centennial, Indiana was in the midst of its Golden Age of influence on national politics.

Thirty five years earlier, in 1841, the Hoosier state watched its former territorial governor, “Old Tippecanoe” William Henry Harrison, elected president.

Just three years earlier, Schuyler Colfax Jr. finished his stint as Ulysses S. Grant’s vice president.

And, in this year (1876), Thomas A. Hendricks was placed on the Democratic ticket with Samuel Tilden.

(They lost.)

Yet to come from the Hoosier state: Hendricks would win his next vice presidential bid; another president named Harrison would be elected, and Indiana would provide the nation with even more vice presidents. *** William Henry Harrison got his nickname leading U.S. forces to victory over

The Prophet at Tippecanoe in 1811.

It was just one notch in an action-packed life.

Son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, William built his early reputation in the Indian Wars. He fought alongside Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers. After Tippecanoe, in 1813, he led forces in the Battle of the Thames, near Chatham, Ontario, Canada. (In this battle, Harrison’s old rival, Tecumseh, lost his life.)

While still a soldier, William entered politics.

After being Indiana’s territorial governor — and after moving to Ohio — Harrison served his new state in Congress, both as a representative and senator.

Running for president in 1840 alongside vice presidential candidate John Tyler, Harrison inspired the election cry, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!”

The team won handily.

Harrison’s influence on national politics, however, would be brief. Trying to

prove the old soldier could still withstand physical discomfort, 67-year-old Harrison gave a two-hour speech at his 1841 inaugural in cold, wet weather — all without benefit of coat or hat.

He died of pneumonia 32 days later. *** It takes a fairly informed student of history, or an Indiana trivia buff, to know that William Henry Harrison’s grandson, Benjamin Harrison, served as the 23rd U.S. president.

Benjamin had an impressive resume, if less spectacular than his grandfather. He practiced law in Indianapolis and served in the Union army.

Benjamin owns the dubious honor of being one of four U.S. presidential candidates to lose the popular vote, but win the presidency by electoral count. Harrison gave credit to “Providence” for his victory; critics credited Republican Party shenanigans.

Harrison gets praise for his support of African-American voting rights and education. And no man more conscientiously sought to do his duty.

But phrases like “coldly dignified” and “colorless” described his demeanor.

Out of the 43 men who have served as president, Benjamin Harrison usually ranks around 30th and his grandfather around 40th in the estimation of historians. *** Here’s a brief rundown of Indiana’s five vice presidents: Although a leading anti-slavery voice and founder of the Republican party, Colfax misstepped when he announced his own presidential bid (on the wrong assumption that Grant would not run again).

His alleged involvement in the Credit Mobilier Scandal didn’t help.

In 1885, Hendricks virtually repeated William Henry Harrison’s short tenure in office. Elected

XXXX

FIGHTER — William Henry Harrison lived a dashing, soldier’s life. He fought at Fallen Timbers and Tippecanoe. But his term as U.S. president would be the shortest in history — 32 days.

vice president with President Grover Cleveland, Hendricks served eight months. He died unexpectedly on a trip home to

Indianapolis.

In 1904, Charles W. Fairbanks was elected vice president on Theodore Roosevelt’s ticket. Because of differing political philosophies, Roosevelt limited Fairbank’s role.

Thomas R. Marshall served under Woodrow Wilson for two terms, 1913-1921. Like Fairbanks, Marshall didn’t get along with his boss. After a stroke limited Wilson, the president’s inner circle schemed to prevent Marshall from seizing power. Known for humor, Marshall originated the phrase, “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

Dan Quayle served with George H.W. Bush from 1989-1993. Youthfully exuberant, Quayle prompted humor, but mostly at his own expense. On his popular night-time talk show, Quayle’s fellow Hoosier, David Letterman, regularly used the vice president as a punchline before a national audience.

1886: Family farms grow up in a hurry

BY LEE SAUER

It would be folly to try to pinpoint when Indiana pioneer homesteads turned into family farms.

Pioneering would continue, in one form or another, into the 20th century. But the transition was well underway by the 1880s.

What made a family farm different from a pioneer farm?

Family farms grew crops and animals specifically for sale; they depended on towns in which to sell their produce; they needed access to transportation to get that produce to market; they conducted business largely with money, rather than barter; and they were themselves consumers of manufactured goods that came from afar. *** Look at the great, old farmhouses that grace the Indiana countryside. Many of them date from the midto late 1800s.

The size, complexity and style of the homes tell a story.

First of all, the homes say that Midwest farming could be profitable.

Certainly farmers of 140 years ago faced the same pitfalls that confront

farmers today — and without crop insurance — but other financial factors lined up in their favor.

Ironically, chief among them was the movement of population off farms and into cities.

In other words, the urban throng provided a huge, growing market.

Secondly, the complexity of these old homes indicate that farmers, like their city cousins, enjoyed access to manufactured goods.

Look at the decorative brackets supporting the eaves. Think those were carved on site? Think again.

Most likely they came from a factory in Chicago or some other big city.

Finally, if time hasn’t worn them away, notice the porches, the orchards and gardens. These indicate Indiana farmers’ awareness of writers such as Andrew J. Downing and his thoughtful, nature-centered, organized approach to country living. Downing felt farms could benefit from knowledge. He called for creation of state agriculture schools.

Perhaps that should be mentioned as another difference between pioneers and family farmers: Education.

*** Pioneer farming methods depleted soil. In Indiana’s southern, hilly land, pioneers even referred to some areas as “10-yearland” — meaning a farmer could expect to use the land for only a decade.

If family farms would be worked by generations, they needed a different approach.

In 1862, Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act. It provided land for state colleges that taught agriculture and mechanical arts.

Purdue University in West Lafayette held its first classes in 1874. Indiana farming soon went far beyond climbing a tree to assess the year’s acorn crop.

It became science.

Farmers began to rotate crops and apply fertilizers to save soil. And farmers began to rely on technology. First came the reaper, then the thresher, then the steam engine, then the combine (both reaper and thresher), then the auto truck (forerunner of the pickup), then the tractor.

Ways to showcase and share knowledge and technology developed.

Individual counties began holding fairs. The Indiana State Fair began in 1852; 4-H came along in the early

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

MECHANIZATION — New inventions, such as the reaper, allowed Hoosier farmers to produce more food than their families could consume. Farmers began to grow crops specifically for sale. This marked the end of the pioneer farm and the beginning of the family farm.

1900s.

From their pioneer infancy, Hoosier family farms grew up in a hurry. *** Single-family farming fit Indiana.

The pace.

The hard work.

The self-determination.

The state became a U.S.

leader in corn and pork, and later soybeans.

For 100 years, Indiana based its identity on the family farm.

To pinpoint the era’s passing is also a fool’s errand.

Yet look around.

Monuments remain.

Take a drive in the

Indiana countryside.

Notice the vacant houses, the sagging barns, the overgrown orchards. They provide a glimpse into the era’s vitality and former glory.

But hurry.

With each big storm, fewer of these monuments survive.

1896: Boom, then bust in the economy

BY LEE SAUER

“Free silver!” became William Jennings Bryan’s battle cry in 1896, his first of three failed attempts for the presidency.

The U.S. based its currency on gold. Wealthy Americans and big money businesses — such as railroads — favored gold.

They wished for deflation.

Advocates of silver believed a less-valuable money standard would help less-wealthy Americans.

They wished for inflation.

Their theory: inflation would increase crop prices and allow indebted farmers to pay back loans.

President Benjamin

Harrison took a middle road in 1890, giving silver advocates some of what they wanted. But wealthy investors ignored silver.

Silver prices dropped.

Panic ensued. *** Before financial regulation and federally insured

savings accounts, a pattern emerged in the United States: Boom! went the economy as investment flowed into companies that profited from opening new land to settlement.

Bust! went the economy when the companies

overbuilt into areas that would not provide enough customers (settlers) to pay back the investment.

Usually some event triggered the bust: fiddling with the silver or gold standard, a big fire, or bankruptcy of a large company. Since losing their

lives’ savings would be catastrophic, common folk withdrew their money from banks at the slightest whiff of trouble.

Then the spiral began: Without capital, banks had no money to lend.

Projects stopped.

See 1986 page A6

Since 1926

Cameron Memorial Community Hospital had its roots in two Angola hospitals. Cameron Memorial Hospital was founded in 1926 by Dr. Don F. Cameron. Elmhurst Hospital was established by Dr. Lester L. Eberhart in 1945. In 1972 the two hospitals were merged as one hospital, with the combined facility located at its present site at 416 East Maumee Street in Angola, Indiana.

Through the years we have helped generation after generation enjoy better health and live comfortably. Our hospital continues to serve the medical needs of our community. Over the years we have continually enhanced the way we deliver healthcare.

The physicians and staff of Cameron Hospital care for and about our community, and will continue to strive for excellence in healthcare.

Cameron Hospital is a 25-bed Critical Access general community hospital. It is not governmental, and there is no tax support.

Cameron is a not-for-profit facility.

XXXXXX

BRICK WALL — The grandson of William Henry Harrison — Benjamin Harrison — accomplished little as president. Harrison gained a reputation for a brick-like demeanor, which hurt his dealings with other politicians. But he also ran up against a wall-like Congress.

Historians have dubbed the time “The Period of No Decision.”

We make quality healthcare a reality for Steuben County and the surrounding area. Being part of the community has been an important goal throughout the years, and with continued support and loyalty we can continue to provide dependable, quality health care services.

Cameron Memorial Community Hospital is proud to celebrate 90 years of being your community healthcare partner.

416 E. Maumee Street, Angola, IN 46703 (260) 665-2141 • cameronmch.com

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

A6

1896 From page A5

Unemployment rose.

Demand for goods disappeared. Finally, banks collapsed and businesses failed.

The nation suffered through financial “panics” in 1819, 1837, 1873, 1893 and 1896. *** Bryan is the best-remembered leader of revolt against the gold standard, but he was not the first.

In Indiana, disgruntled

farmers formed a third national political party.

In 1874, they asked all “greenback men” to meet in Indianapolis. The nickname “Greenbacks” referred to paper money not backed by any metal. Greenbacks had been first issued during the Civil War. Like silver, paper money promised to inflate prices and help farmers make loan payments.

The group became known as the Greenback Party. *** In the innocence of

the age, folks considered economic fluctuations to be a message from God, as inevitable as weather.

Nothing could be done to stop a panic, they thought.

But some very important lessons were being taught — if anyone cared to listen.

The wealthy and lawmakers viewed downturns as warnings against speculation — investing in enterprises that carried the risk of loss. These people made adjustments and carried on, barely inconvenienced by the downturn. They felt the

panic indirectly.

Meanwhile, farmers, industrial employees and railroad workers confronted lower wages, job loss, declining produce prices.

These people felt the panic directly.

Problems we might call “modern” began to appear: opium use; folks losing their land or homes; dislocated, homeless people (then called “tramps”) causing disruptions.

The growing crisis pointed to a basic fact: benefits and misery meted out by the economy were

JULY 29, 2016

distributed unevenly, most often in favor of the wealthy.

Policy makers did not recognize that for the long-term health of the economy, inequalities in the American financial system needed to be corrected. *** Political leadership of the late 1800’s failed to rise to the occasion.

Or, perhaps, a case could be made that the voting public didn’t rise to the occasion.

Americans generally believed that it didn’t matter who was in office, and that all

politicians were corrupt. As a result, some voters put their ballots up for sale. Historians generally believe that Harrison won his home state of Indiana because Republicans paid for votes.

Political parties, too, played a role. They focused on winning and staying in power, not on solving problems.

Leadership suffered.

Deadlock ensued.

Problems remained unsolved.

Some historians refer to this time as “The Period of No Decision.”

1906: Industrialization brings changes

BY LEE SAUER

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, P0290

UP IN SMOKE — During Indiana’s gas boom, well operators set natural gas that seeped out of the earth on fire — a process known as flaring. Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of the resource was wasted, and the gas boom was soon extinguished.

In 1906, 25 miles southeast of Chicago, the United States Steel Corp. founded the city of Gary, Indiana, and began work on its gigantic Gary Works industrial complex.

Workers poured in.

Just two years later, in 1908, when the mill began operation, the sleepy sand dunes on the south end of Lake Michigan had been completely transformed.

Although immense, Gary Works serves as a microcosm of changes in the United States and in Indiana in the first part of the 20th Century.

The underlying cause of this sea change?

Industrialization. *** Indiana’s industrialization fed on the state’s location and natural resources.

Railroads came first.

The Crossroad State lay in the path to elsewhere.

This created a market for anything connected to trains.

Between 1867 and 1917, Fort Wayne’s Pennsylvania Railroad shop built more than 12,000 freight cars.

Trains spurred population growth, which created more markets. In the pioneer era, Hoosiers made their own food, clothing, shoes and soap. After railroads arrived, families bought these items in town or from mail-order catalogs, such as Sears &

Since 1927

The Potawatomi Inn at Pokagon State Park was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1927. The original inn had 20 rooms. In 1968 more than 20 rooms were added to create the Hoosier wing. In 1994, 59 rooms were added along with a full service conference center.

Today, the Potawatomi Inn is a popular hospitality and conference center offering full catering service. There are more than 120 full and part time employees.

The Inn features an indoor swimming pool, hot tub, sauna, game room, craft/activity room, gift shop, beach, sundeck, two restaurants, seven banquet rooms, free WIFI, boat rentals and bike rentals.

6 Lane 100 A Lake James, Angola, IN 46703

260-833-1077/877-768-2928

Email: Potawatomiinnsales@dnr.in.gov

Roebuck.

Both steel and trains needed coal, which southern Hoosier mines provided.

Hoosiers also acted entrepreneurially. In 1870, William Wooten of Indianapolis created the Wooten Desk for growing throngs of office workers.

And in 1899, Hoosier Manufacturing Co. gave housewives a kitchen helper, the Hoosier Cabinet.

But both the Wooten Desk and the Hoosier Cabinet would be short-lived about 20 years each. They pre-saged the greatest boom/bust Indiana industry of all: Natural gas. *** Cracks in the earth in central Indiana sometimes let loose a foul smell and caught on fire.

Native Americans believed the land haunted with spirits.

The first settlers similarly misunderstood.

In 1876, while drilling for coal, workers heard a rushing sound and smelled something awful. Their conclusion: they had broken through the ceiling of hell.

They plugged the hole.

When Ohio discovered natural gas in 1884, Indiana residents realized what they had. They redrilled the hell hole. When gas erupted, they lit it on fire.

Flames jumped 12 feet into the air.

The gas craze was on!

With the promise of inexpensive energy, Hoosiers lured out-of-state companies to set up shop.

Ball Brothers Co., which would become the world’s largest fruit-jar producer, answered the call.

But bounty invites abuse.

Continually burning flames — known as flambeaus — marked thousands of wells.

Towns showed off energy wealth by burning street lamps day and night.

Geologists warned the

gas would run out. The state tried to ban open burning.

But local leaders opposed state intervention. They denied gas would run out.

By the early 1900’s, the natural gas supply dwindled.

Gas boom companies converted to coal, closed or moved away.

Experts estimate that 90 percent of Indiana’s natural gas had been wasted. *** In 1908, photos by Lewis Hines put faces on this fact: Indiana ranked third among states in proportion of children in the workforce.

Hines’ photos caused a sensation.

One Indiana glass factory owner proclaimed he would fight legislation banning children under 16 from working at night. “(Work) was better for them than running in the streets and did not hurt them anyway,” he said.

Workers of all ages faced long hours and low pay.

Indiana lawmakers, ever conservative and reluctant to interfere with business, did not act.

Workers’ unions stepped into the void.

Eugene Debs of Terre Haute knew the workers’ plight. He began work on the railroad at age 14.

In 1893, at age 38, Debs started the American Railway Union.

When train workers in Chicago were forced to take a 25 percent pay cut, Debs organized a strike of 50,000 workers and shut down the city’s railroads.

Debs received national attention — and a jail sentence.

The crusader who promised a revolution ran for president five times.

Although Debs’ ideas seemed outlandish at the time, many have been realized: Pension plans, medical benefits, sick leave and women’s suffrage.

Since 1927 In 1927, three men from Fort Wayne Bible College came to Angola to hold tent meeting revival services.

The tent meeting was held on a vacant lot of what is now Auto Zone on North Wayne Street. The results of the meetings were so encouraging, one of the men, Rev. Joseph Klopfenstein, organized a group to start a new church.

This young congregation was able to obtain the use of the abandoned Fairview Church of Christ on East Mechanic Street on the lot of what is now C.A. Nedele & Sons. That area of town was then known as the Fairview Subdivision.

The congregation changed the name of the church to Fairview Missionary Church, and the name still holds.

In 1955, the congregation built a new church and parsonage at the corner of Williams and Randolph Streets in Angola. The church was completely remodeled and redecorated in 1980.

In 1985, 14.5 acres at the corner of County Road 200 N and State Road 827 were purchased on which to construct a new church.

In 1986, the staff and congregation moved into the new church and the properties at Randolph and Williams Streets were sold. That church is now the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In 1994, a Children’s Education wing was added to the church.

In the fall of 2000, the new sanctuary and classrooms were completed.

Informal worship service in the gym 10:31 a.m. beginning August 7.

Helping people take their next step toward Jesus…

Fairview Missionary Church

Services 9 and 10:30 a.m. • Visitors Welcome!

525 E 200 N, Angola, IN • www.fairviewangola.com • 665-8402

Subscribe to

Be sure to check our Bicentennial section at

THE HERALD REPUBLICAN

for information.

1-800-717-4679

lakes101.org

Steuben County Tourism Bureau

430 N. Wayne Street, Suite 1B, Angola, IN Call (800) LAKE-101 or (260) 665-5386

Your 7-day-a-week hometown morning newspaper

Phone customer service hours: 6 am-5 pm Mon.-Fri.; 7-10 am Sat. & Sun. Special home-delivery and online-only rates available!

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Steuben County’s

$1.00 Section B A two part section

Bicentennial Salute

B1

1916: Artists capture heart and soul of Indiana

BY LOU ANN HOMAN

On the cusp of the Indiana prairie, James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) once wrote, “Speaking o’ art, I know a feller over t’ Terry Haute ‘kin spit clean over a box car.” This statement in 1883 sums up the arts community in Indiana, but things would soon change. Partly due to the arts community in Cincinnati becoming such a strong influence at the turn of the century and the beauty of Indiana, it wasn’t long before Indiana began looking toward the arts.

Owing his early interest in art to a traveling huckster, T.C. Steele (1847-1926) bought his first art supplies in the 1860’s and an artist was born.

Gene Stratton Porter (1863-1924) began documenting the swamps around Geneva through drawings and photographs with an early edge of preservation.

We are indebted to all three of these Indiana artists

Other notable early Indiana writers: Booth Tarkington Theodore Dreiser George Ade Lew Wallace

Porter

Riley

Steele

for capturing the heart and soul of Indiana at the turn of the century and beyond.

Riley became known as the “Hoosier Poet” as he began writing poetry from the heart of his own childhood and observations of early Indiana life. He captured the dialect that is all but gone from our landscape today. Folks were drawn to his wit and style as he toured other Eastern cities in the United States taking these Hoosier poems with him.

Steele began as a portrait painter and soon joined up with a group of men (William Forsyth, Otto Stark, John Ottis Adams and Richard Gruelle) who became known as “The Hoosier Group.” These men traveled to Munich, Germany, to study portrait painting, but became interested in impressionism while in Germany. Steele came home to carry out his obligations to paint portraits in order to pay back those who supported him financially while he

was gone, yet felt compelled to paint “plein air” and bring home impressionism to Indiana. His landscape paintings began to filter out to cities such as Cincinnati, and as far away as New York. During the state’s centennial year, he became known as the Brown County painter.

Stratton-Porter faced opposition as a writer and photographer as a woman.

Her first writings were sent back to her, but she became known in the region and

eventually in the United States and beyond with her book, “Freckles.” In the first year, the book sold 90,000 copies. She was approached by Doubleday, who asked her for a book a year. She would not agree until Doubleday accepted her proposal. She firmly spoke up saying she would write a novel every other year and the in-between years they were to publish her nature books. They took up her offer, which left us years later with detailed descriptions, drawings and photographs of an earlier Indiana.

These three artists still hold our attention with home sites open to the public: The T.C. Steele State Historic Site is in Nashville, Indiana. The James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home and Visitor Center is in Indianapolis.

The Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site is in Rome City and the Limberlost State Historic Site is in Geneva, Indiana.

As T.C. Steele once said in the Indianapolis News, “Indiana has beauties which are just as worthy of study as landscapes elsewhere.”

1926: Ethnicity creates social tensions

BY LEE SAUER

Gary Works attracted workers like a magnet. Its pull extended across the United States, as well as overseas.

According to the 1920 census, 60 percent of Gary’s population had either been born overseas, or had at least one parent born overseas.

But northern industry needed more workers than immigration could supply.

Facing discrimination in their native states, and drawn by jobs, southern blacks moved north into big cities. They moved in such numbers that historians gave it a name: The Great Migration.

Blacks’ travels took them through the Crossroads State. Many took jobs or settled along the way.

The face of Indiana was changing. *** Seeking commerce with Native Americans (Indiana’s first ethnic group), French traders migrated south from the Great Lakes.

Cities such as Terre Haute and Vincennes still exhibit their influence.

After statehood, the majority of Indiana settlers came north from the South.

Poor and uneducated, they descended from ScotchIrish, Protestant, Appalachian hill folk.

In smaller numbers, settlers from New England (mainly of British descent) came to Indiana by way of

PHOTO CREDIT: INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

INTIMIDATION — In response to overseas immigrants and southern Blacks moving to Indiana for industrial jobs, the Ku Klux Klan grew strong roots in the state. At one point, one-third of the state’s white men belonged to the organization.

Fort Dearborn (Chicago), or along the Maumee-Wabash river system, through Fort Wayne.

As transportation improved, the number of settlers grew. *** In the early 1800’s, political and economic conditions forced many western Germans to emigrate to America.

With agricultural opportunity aplenty in the west, the Ohio river port

Since 1930

of Cincinnati became a popular destination for new arrivals.

From Cincinnati, agrarian Germans spread into Indiana.

In 1848, after a failed revolution, another wave of west Germans came to America. These educated, liberal, middle class people became known as Forty-Eighters.

This class of Germans held tightly to their culture and language. Many cities

still retain reminders of German heritage — most especially Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

Between 1870 and 1890, a flood of eastern Germans washed into America. Mainly poor and uneducated, they looked for jobs in factories.

To help these newcomers, Germans already settled in Indiana pushed for manual-labor training schools, and advocated for labor reform.

*** At the end of the Civil War, fewer than 10 percent of the United States’ African-Americans lived north of the Ohio River.

With the Great Migration, that number quickly grew.

Indiana remained conflicted about freedmen.

Its soldiers fought for the Union, not to free the slaves. And Indiana laws made it clear that Hoosiers did not want its population of blacks to grow: after

1831, to settle in Indiana, African-Americans had to register with county authorities and post a $500 bond to guarantee good behavior.

Over the years, the state’s southern roots became apparent.

Uneducated Hoosiers with southern roots resented blacks: slaves, after all, had taken poor whites’ jobs in the south. It didn’t help that, when Indiana steelworkers See 1926 page B2

Since 1942. In Steuben County Since 1992.

Established in 1930 by Howard L. and Dorris Lucille Beams and was carried on by a son, Howard G. Beams and his wife Glenna Beams.

Jon R. Thornton Director

Beams family also formerly owned a furniture store – Beams Furniture Store in Fremont, Indiana.

We offer time of need services, and preplanning including burial and cremation services.

Jeanie Eichler Family Service Advisor

Howard G. “Jerry” Beams still serves the business as a consultant. The funeral home is locally managed by Jon Thornton, funeral director and location manager, Elizabeth “Jeanie” Eichler serves as office manager.

Beams Funeral Home was purchased by Dignity in 2011.

Howard G. Beams Director

200 W. Toledo St., Fremont, IN Monday-Friday 9 AM - 4 PM

(260) 495-2915

www.beamsfuneralhome.com jon.thornton@dignitymemorial.com

Raising all natural, highest quality and the best tasting chicken for your table has been the passion of the Miller family for 42 years. The extensive history of Miller Poultry dates back to 1942 when their parent company, Pine Manor, was established by Milo and Annas Miller. Pine Manor was the home of an upscale dairy farm.

In 1947 Pine Manor began hatching, raising and processing turkeys. It was a turning point in 1974 as Pine Manor began raising broiler chickens. The small family owned business started processing 20,000 chickens weekly. In 1992 Millers purchased Booth Poultry in Orland. Over the decades Miller Poultry has grown to process over 140,000 organic and 500,000 non-gmo chickens per week while still maintaining their hands on approach they are known for. The Miller family carefully monitiors every step, from the hatchery all the way to the processing facility. Millers is committed to continue to serve customers the highest quality, pure and natural chicken possible.

Miller Poultry is truly an “egg to table” operation. The Millers assure you that all chickens are raised in cage free, low stress environments. All chicks are hatched at their family owned hatchery. Chicks are placed within our community of more than 130 Amish farm families where they are raised on small family farms exclusively for Miller Poultry. Millers owns their own feed mill which produces the feed corn and soybean meal mixture supplemented with vitamins and minerals – no animal by products, articifial colors, hormones or additives. When it is time, the chickens are processed in our state of the art automated facility then are hand packed, weighed and shipped to your local grocery store. Always fresh. Never frozen.

The Miller family is committed to providing you and your family the very best and greatest tasting natural poultry possible. Truly our passion from family farm to family table.

On July 5, 2016 the company broke ground on an expansion to accommodate its future growth. The processing plant has added a second shift and is processing 650,000 birds weekly. One of Steuben County’s largest employers, they currently employ around 800 people. The company plans to start a breeder operation, will add approximately 52 new contract growers to the area, and will add significantly more jobs. The project is tentatively scheduled for completion in early 2018.

The Miller Poultry Brand will soon be carrying the Project Verified Non –GMO label. It is in the United States Department of Agriculture approval process at this time. At Millers raising the best tasting chicken isn’t our job. It’s our passion.

9622 W 350 N, Orland, IN 46776 • millerpoultry.com

B2

kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

1926 From page B1

or coal workers struck, companies recruited blacks to serve as strikebreakers.

Ethnic tensions often

boiled over into violence. *** In 1925, fully half of Indiana’s General Assembly, plus the governor, belonged to the Ku Klux Klan.

In all, about 30 percent

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE of the state’s nativeborn white men counted themselves as Klan members.

The Klan used intimidation to terrorize blacks, Catholics and recent immigrants.

Scandal in the late 1920’s stripped the Klan of much of its influence.

But attitudes that fueled the organization remained. *** On August 7, 1930, a mob broke into a Marion,

JULY 29, 2016

Indiana, jail and dragged three prisoners from their cell. The mob hung two of the men; the third escaped.

The men, all African Americans, had been charged with robbing and murdering a white man,

and with raping the man’s girlfriend. (The woman later recanted the rape charge.)

As a result, Indiana holds the distinction of being the last state north of the Mason-Dixon Line to be the site of a lynching.

1936: Automobiles exhibit Hoosier ingenuity

BY LEE SAUER

Imagine life without electricity, grocery stores or 9-1-1.

No community.

No help.

No security.

Everything you eat, wear or use must be fashioned from what the land provides.

That’s the life early Indiana pioneers faced.

Modern conveniences and infrastructure have removed us so far from this style of existence that we’ve grown nostalgic for it.

But don’t kid yourself.

It was a hard, scary life.

We think of our pioneering ancestors as farmers. And that was their goal — to fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of independent land laborers.

But the forest got in the way. *** Our nostalgia for Indiana’s early days comes from the pioneers’ reliance on nature.

The pioneers provided their basic needs — food, shelter and clothing — three ways: Hunting.

Gathering.

And farming.

Before land was cleared and crops grown, hunting provided most of the food.

Deer and bear were the main targets. Along with meat, animals gave fat for lard, skin for clothing, fur for blankets.

A bear skin served as the cabin’s front door.

Today, hunting is considered leisure activity.

Pioneers considered it the hardest, most labor-intensive of their jobs.

Men hunted.

Women and children gathered.

In the forest, pioneers found berries, nuts and honey. *** Before dreams of farming came true, the forest needed to come down.

Cutting trees provided cropland, but it also supplied building material.

Tree trunks became log cabins. Branches became chimneys.

Wood also provided fuel for the pioneers’ main energy source. Fire cooked the pioneers’ food and gave them heat in winter.

Once land was clear, farming began. Pioneers grew crops we’d recognize today: corn, beans and squash (especially pumpkins).

A pioneer family grew only what it needed.

Why? Roads were bad. The few towns were virtually inaccessible.

Selling crops was not an option. *** In modern terms, pioneer life wasn’t sustainable.

Despite dependence on the forest, pioneers considered Nature an enemy — a foe to be brought to its knees. They saw danger in the woods. Cutting trees opened land for cultivation, certainly, but it also provided a safe zone from wild animals and any

BASS PHOTO CO. COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

AUTO INVENTOR — Some historians give credit for the first successful gasoline-powered automobile road test to Hoosier Elwood Haynes. The test took place in 1894. This 1922 photo shows Haynes posing by a plaque commemorating the event.

humans who were not friends.

So pioneers kept busy with their two primary tools: ax and gun.

Under hunting pressure and loss of habitat, Indiana’s native animals could not survive. The bigger animals, which needed more space and made easier targets, especially suffered. At its founding, Indiana was home to buffalo (note the state seal), bear, panthers, wolves, elk and otters.

All are now gone.

(Although recent bear and

panther sightings have been reported.)

Even the soil, nourished for millennia by forest compost, couldn’t stand the abrupt change.

Under farming techniques of the time, by the end of the pioneer period, the soil was wearing out.

Note the contradiction: Pioneer life required forest. By clearing land, pioneers destroyed means to continue their way of life.

In any measure of time, but especially geological terms, settlers completely

transformed Indiana’s landscape in an incredibly short period.

Under relentless pressure, the virgin forest and its inhabitants — both human and animal — disappeared. *** American history is littered with stories of pioneers who moved when they could see smoke from a neighbor’s chimney.

(This indicated that the neighborhood was too crowded.)

They would move further west, clear more land, hunt

until the game ran out.

Then move again.

That’s because pioneering was based on a myth: That the forest would never run out.

But many pioneers stayed put and grew into family farmers — the topic of our 1876 article.

They made Jefferson’s view come true.

That’s another reason for nostalgia for Indiana’s early days: That anyone willing to work hard and take a risk can build their own version of the American Dream.

1946: Hoosiers go to war — and come home changed

BY LEE SAUER

World War II changed Indiana.

Shrugging off the Great Depression, Hoosier factories came to life.

Employment jumped.

Population movement off farms and into towns increased.

Returning soldiers created markets for housing, cars, household and baby goods.

Blacks, called to serve their country or work in war industries, felt justified in calling for equality.

Veterans took advantage of the government’s offer of education through the GI Bill. Many Hoosiers who would not have gone to college otherwise enrolled.

From traveling around the U.S. and the world, GI’s brought back tastes for different kinds of food and entertainment.

War marked the end of Indiana’s secluded innocence.

And the beginning of globalization. *** Indiana remained

indifferent when war clouds gathered in Europe.

Ever conservative, Hoosiers voted for Republican — and Indiana native son — Wendell Willkie in 1940. Although not an isolationist, Willkie more closely followed the Republican party’s view: Let Europe solve its own problems.

“Cautious” or “resistant to change” might be more accurate terms for Hoosiers’ attitude.

As photographer Lewis Hine’s colleague, Edward Clopper, was quoted as saying, “The people of Indiana are slow to take hold of any movement.” *** Pearl Harbor exploded America’s remaining isolationism Previously, Indiana watched demand for the type of household articles made in its factories — such as washing machines — drop, weakening the state’s economy. Hoosier business grew even more alarmed when war-prepara-

tion contracts went to other states.

Fearful of being left out, when America declared war, Indiana desperately sought to catch up.

With its central location, the Crossroads State proved perfect for military posts.

Over the course of the war, the number of major military installations in the state jumped from two to 31.

The Allison Corp. in Indianapolis (named for a founding member of the Indianapolis 500) manufactured 70,000 liquid-cooled aircraft engines. Studebaker began making ten B-17 engines a month. It eventually increased production to 2,300 engines a month.

When the Army asked Kaufman T. Keller if an Evansville plant could produce billions of .45 cartridges, Keller replied: “I still can’t imagine what a billion is like, so I’d like to make billions of something and find out.”

Over the war, the plant See 1946 page B3

PHOTO CREDIT: INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

MIDDLE OF THE ACTION — Hoosier-born Ernie Pyle reported on World War II by sharing its deprivations and danger with soldiers. In this photo, he poses with a bombing crew. Pyle died at the very end of the conflict — shot while on a patrol.

Since 1945

NOMINATIONS now being accepted at fwbusiness.com under events.

DEADLINE for submissions is Wednesday, August 7, 2016

Jacob Insurance has been a Steuben County Tradition for 71 years. It was founded

by Loyd Jacob. Loyd’s son Wendell Jacob joined the company in 1946 and soon after Loyd’s son-in-law Ray Tubergen joined the team. Ray’s son Kim Tubergen joined in 1971 and longtime agent Dick Hickman joined in 1979. Both Tubergen and Hickman have recently retired.

Current owner Susan Ralston knows the business inside and out, having worked her way up through the ranks at Jacob Insurance. She began working as a file clerk through a co op program in high school in 1977. After graduation she began working full time; became a licensed agent; progressed to Office Manager, and eventually an owner in 2013.

Jacob Insurance provides Auto, Home, Business, Life, Farm, Umbrella, Personal and Commercial Lines and Disability Insurance. Their main carriers are Auto Owners, Allstate, Westfield, Pekin and Frankenmuth. They write in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and in Florida.

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will be recognized at a reception in September and in Business Weekly.

For many years Jacob Insurance was located downtown on the Public Square before moving to their current location south of town in 1995.

The Jacob Insurance Difference? The five team members have a combined 70 years of experience and excellence in customer service. “We pride ourselves in our customer service and meeting our customer’s needs”, said Ralston. “We believe in community involvement and support the community in many different ways through our volunteer service. “ Ralston is proud to have been recently selected to represent Steuben County as one of the torchbearers in the Bicentennial Relay Sunday, October 2.

Jacob Insurance Service, LLC 260-665-3194

1220 S. Wayne St., Angola, IN 46703 www.jacobins.biz Hours: 8-5 Monday through Friday

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STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

JULY 29, 2016

1946 From page B2

produced over 3 billion bullets — 96 percent of .45 ammunition made for American forces. *** Ernie Pyle brought war into American homes.

Born near Dana, Indiana, in 1900, Pyle attended Indiana University, but quit a month before graduation.

Pyle built a reputation writing eclectic stories from backroads locations around the country. Later he wrote about the emergence of aviation.

When America entered

the war, Pyle headed overseas. Rather than writing from information provided by the military, Pyle traveled with the troops and spoke with regular soldiers — the beginning of what we now call embedded journalism.

Eleanor Roosevelt read from Pyle’s stories on her popular national radio show.

Then, on April 17, 1945, just as the war was ending, Pyle raised his head from the ditch where he had taken cover for a look around.

An enemy bullet killed him instantly. *** More than 363,000 Hoosiers served in the armed forces during World War II.

©KPC Media Group Inc. • kpcnews.com

When these men and women returned home (minus the 10,000 who died in service), they were changed people.

And their influence changed Indiana.

In general, Hoosiers broadened their scope to areas beyond the state’s border. They became more

B3

educated, more sophisticated, more worldly.

They also grew more confident. American innovation soared during the war, and the country trusted scientists to tackle problems at home.

The hope: A quality of life never before imagined.

1956: Basketball makes Hoosiers hysterical

BY LEE SAUER

In the mid-1950’s, Indiana basketball reached the apex of its arc.

Despite enrollment of just 161, Milan High School won the 1954 Indiana State championship, realizing the dreams of small schools across the state.

On its way to the title, Milan beat Crispus Attucks, an all-black school in Indianapolis. Attucks’ leader: future NBA Hall-ofFamer Oscar Robertson.

In the 1956 NCAA tournament, UCLA had a winning streak of 17 games broken.

UCLA’s young coach: John Wooden.

Just over the state line, in Ohio, Bobby Knight gained a reputation as a hard-nosed high school player.

And, just before time in 1956 ran out, in a small Indiana town — West Baden — another NBA Hall-of-Famer was born: Larry Bird. *** On March 16, 1894, two YMCA teams played a recently invented sport on the second floor of a building in Crawfordsville.

The next day, the Crawfordsville JournalReview reported: “Basket ball is a new game, but if the interest taken in the contest last night is any criterion, it is bound to be popular.”

Baseball and football never caught on in Indiana.

Why? Schools were small.

They didn’t have enough players, or money for equipment.

But basketball!

All a school needed: five players, two hoops and a

ball.

As a winter sport, basketball didn’t interfere with a farm boy’s summer chores.

And even a farm boy who lived far from his schoolmates could practice on his own.

With a hoop nailed to a barn, he could shoot, and shoot, and shoot … *** In the fourth quarter of the 1954 state championship game, Milan found itself tied 30-30 with powerhouse Muncie Central.

Under Coach Marvin Woods’ direction, Bobby Plump held the ball for four minutes.

Muncie players stayed back.

Despite the lack of action, tension reached a fever pitch.

Then, with the clock running down, Plump dribbled to the right side of the basket and hit a 14-foot shot for the win.

The 1986 movie “Hoosiers” recreated the scene by having an actor shoot from the same spot, on the same floor, in the same building — Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse. *** As a player for Purdue University, John Wooden earned All-American honors three times.

But Wooden built his lasting legacy as a coach.

At UCLA, Wooden won 10 NCAA championships.

Despite Wooden’s sports success, players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton credited the coach even more for his positive influence on their

lives outside basketball. *** Hoosiers loved Indiana University coach Bobby Knight, despite his sometimes boorish behavior.

Why? He won basketball games.

Knight ranks second in NCAA Division I wins.

He won three national championships and 11 Big Ten titles during his tenure (1971-2000).

Although he didn’t like referees’ interpretation of rules, Knight ran his program within NCAA guidelines. He made sure players attended class and saw a high percentage graduate. *** For basketball purists, Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird rank high on any list of all-time greats.

Both excelled at all aspects of the game.

Both made their teammates better.

From 1957-1960, Robertson was the best college player in America.

When he ended his career at the University of Cincinnati, he held the NCAA record for points.

As a pro, Robertson won Rookie of the Year, was a league MVP and appeared in 12 consecutive All-Star games. In 1971, he led the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA championship.

Bird led tiny Indiana State to the NCAA championship game in 1979. As a pro, Bird appeared in 12 NBA All-Star games and was named MVP three times. He led the Boston Celtics to three champion-

INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

HOOPS HERO — Of all the players to come from hoops-crazy Hoosierland, Oscar Robertson of Indianapolis may be the best. In one poll, he ranks sixth on a list of all-time-great players in the National Basketball Association. Here, he cuts down a net after leading Indianapolis Crispus Attucks to a high school state championship.

ships — 1981, 1984 and 1986.

In its most recent listing, Sports Illustrated ranked Robertson No. 6 on it’s list of all-time best NBA players.

Bird ranks No. 7. *** In 1947, the Big Ten operated under a gentleman’s agreement: No black players.

But Jackie Robinson had just broken major league baseball’s color barrier.

Times were changing.

William Garrett, the consensus best high school player in Indiana, received

no college offers.

But, under heavy pressure from YMCA official Faburn DeFrantz, Indiana University allowed Garrett a chance to join its team — if he was good enough.

Garrett became IU’s best all-time player. He set school records in points and rebounds. He made the All-Big Ten team and was named an All-American. When Garrett went to the bench his final game as a senior in 1951, the IU crowd gave him a two-minute standing ovation.

INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

COLOR BARRIER BREAKER — Bill Garrett won all-around acclaim as the Big Ten’s and Indiana University’s first player of color, yet just days after his final game, a Hoosier restaurant refused to serve him.

Two days later, on the drive home from Bloomington, Garrett and two white teammates stopped at a restaurant.

The waiter declared he would only serve the white men.

During his playing days, Garrett endured taunts, opponents’ elbows and biased referees with humor and grace.

But the waiter’s snub got to him.

Back in the car, as his friends tried to console him, the man who broke the Big Ten’s color barrier wept.

1966: Highways connect Indiana to the nation

BY LEE SAUER

When Indiana became a state in 1816, founders based the Hoosier constitution almost word-for-word on the constitutions of Ohio and Kentucky.

But one clause proved unique. It provided for a “general system of education, ascending in regular gradation from township schools to a state university wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all.”

Although eventually known for conservatism, Indiana took a liberal and leading role in education. *** Caleb Mills is remembered as “Father of Indiana’s Public Schools.”

But his positive work in education was built upon a negative: Hoosier illiteracy appalled Mills.

After seminary, Mills moved to Crawfordsville in 1833 and started a school.

(Today’s Wabash College.)

Then he began a campaign to establish a statewide public school system.

Mills served as state superintendent of schools from 1852-1857. During his term, he helped create the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Mills died in 1880, but by then other educators had picked up his torch.

Today, the Caleb Mills Teaching Award remains the highest university honor a Hoosier faculty member can attain. *** In The Enabling Act, 1816 (which “enabled” Indiana to join the union), Congress stated that one township “shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning.”

In 1822 construction on the State Seminary began in Bloomington — in what is now Seminary Square Park.

In 1838, the state changed the name to Indiana University.

IU has always been a leader. In 1867, it became the fourth public university in America to enroll a female student. In 1960, IU students elected an African-American president of the student body. (Some students protested by parading with Confederate flags.)

Today, the main campus in Bloomington serves more than 40,000 students; combining all campuses, IU serves 100,000 students. *** In the mid-1800’s, America needed educated farmers, engineers, scientists and soldiers. But the abstract liberal arts approach of universities ignored practical skills.

Beginning in 1862, Congress gave federal land to states; the land was to be sold and proceeds used to establish universities that taught practical subjects.

The schools became known as land grant universities.

In 1869, Purdue University in West Lafayette started as a land grant project. It got its name from John Purdue, a Lafayette businessman and the school’s main benefactor.

Today Purdue offers degrees of all kind, but its land grant roots are still apparent. Such as in its sports teams’ nickname: The Boilermakers. *** In the late 1800’s, normal schools prepared high school graduates to become teachers. (The schools taught educational standards or “norms.”)

Since 1876, Muncie had hosted a normal school. But the school struggled and eventually failed.

In 1917, the gas-boom Ball brothers bought the school and donated it to the state. It was casually called “Ball State” or “Fruit Jar Tech.” Indiana officially changed the name to Ball Teachers College in 1922, SEE 1966 PAGE B4

(PHOTO CREDIT: INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY)

TRANSCONTINENTAL ROAD — The Lincoln Highway became the nation’s first transcontinental road in 1913. Not a completely new road, the highway stitched together stretches of existing roads. Hoosier motorists relied on markers — such as this one in Elkhart — to navigate. Today, U.S. 30 most closely follows the path of the Lincoln Highway.

Since 1957

Robert Ernsberger started the agency in 1957 and Barbara Henderson joined the agency in 1963. In 1987 they formed a partnership. In 1990, Robert Ernsberger passed away and Barbara Henderson continued as sole owner. Barb’s daughter Shelli started with the agency in 1995.

Since 1964

Bill and Imogene Benson started Circle B from the family farm in 1964. It has been family owned and operated since its inception.

Circle B is home to one of Indiana’s beautiful round barns.

The services we provide include RV and tent camping, cabin and lodge rentals, boat and bike rentals, a propane fill station and two beaches. Our pull-thrus are open year-round.

We have a good group of employees all ready to serve our customers and good insurance companies to meet your insurance needs.

Ernsberger Insurance Agency P.O. Box 215 - 9355 West S.R. 120, Orland, IN 46776

5251 US Hwy. 20 W, Angola, IN

Monday - Friday 9-5; Closed Saturday and Sunday Email - ernsbergerinsurance@frontier.com

info@circlebpark.com Mon.-Thur. 8-9; Fri.-Sat. 8-11; Sun. 8-9

(260) 829-6252

260.665.5353

B4

kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

1966 FROM PAGE B3

and Ball State University in 1965.

Currently, Ball State is a pioneer in creating an environmentally sustainable campus. *** Hoosier lawmakers chartered Indiana State

Normal School in Terre Haute in 1865.

It became Indiana State University in 1965.

Many Hoosiers connect Indiana State with Larry Bird, the basketball player. That’s good, because the school’s sports teams have struggled with identity.

At first, ISU athletes were called the Fighting Teachers.

The next nickname: The

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE Sycamores — referring to trees rooted along the Wabash River.

In 1969, the school created Chief Quabachi, intending to honor the area’s former residents. He lasted until 1989.

Frustrated, Indiana State did not use a mascot for six years.

In 1995, the school introduced Sycamore Sam, a woodland animal of indeterminate parentage. As of

publishing, Sam remains the mascot. *** Begun in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, Vincennes University existed before Indiana became a state.

For a while, Vincennes competed with Indiana University to be the “State Seminary,” but its decentralized location (south and west, along the Wabash River), hurt.

In 1989, Vincennes became a two-year school. It and Ivy Tech remain state-funded schools that provide technical training. *** The Catholic bishop of Vincennes donated land in the south bend of the St. Joseph River to be used for a school. In 1842, it offered classes in a log chapel.

Two years later, the school

JULY 29, 2016

received a state charter as a college.

Known officially as University of Notre Dame du lac (Our Lady of the Lake), Notre Dame ranks as the largest of Indiana’s 31 private universities.

Although it gets most of its attention today from football, ND enjoys a reputation for top academic programs.

1976: Manufacturing makes use of Indiana’s advantages

BY LEE SAUER

By the 1970s, a trend that had stayed in the background came to the fore: Family farms were dying.

Their replacement? Large agribusinesses that made use of new technologies — and needed far fewer workers.

From this point on, Hoosiers would rely more and more on manufacturing to provide the state’s economic thrust. *** The trend from farm to factory took shape over decades.

It started when gas boom companies set up shop in Indiana and continued when electricity reached Hoosier homes in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Indiana manufacturers began to churn out electrical appliances: washers, refrigerators, stoves and radios.

Family farms even helped create demand for more manufacturing: they boosted markets for farm equipment made in the state, and they produced fruits and vegetables used in Indiana’s expanding canning industry.

Right after World War I, Indiana reached a tipping point:

More Hoosiers now worked in manufacturing than on farms. *** With the end of World War II, America found itself with a dynamic infrastructure for innovation.

Scientists who had previously worked on military problems turned their sights on domestic challenges.

One result: farm production took off like a rocket.

Suddenly, food surpluses and wildly fluctuating markets became problems.

The federal government, building on Great Depression-era programs, responded with subsidies and food relief.

But these were short-term fixes. The long-term problem seemed clear: There were simply more farms— and farmers — than needed. Many farmers began the transition by taking a second job in a factory. *** While Indiana lost the race to become America’s automotive-making center, it emerged with several important manufacturing advantages: mechanical expertise, factory facilities,

access to major highways and close proximity to the auto-manufacturing winner — Detroit.

Beginning in the early 1900’s, the Hoosier state became home to factories for “upstream” vehicle parts and components.

Other Hoosier-made products budded off auto-related manufacturers: trailers, mobile homes and recreational vehicles.

Indiana continues to lead in auto-related products.

Plus, the manufacture of complete vehicles (at least the assembly of component parts into vehicles) has come back to the state with the Fort Wayne Assembly plant (trucks), and plants for Honda, Toyota and Subaru. *** Revra DePuy began DePuy Manufacturing in Warsaw. The company made orthopedic appliances.

Today, Warsaw is known as the “orthopedic capital of the world.”

Col. Eli Lilly, a veteran of the Union army, started Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, in 1876. Today the company is a worldwide leader in pharmaceuticals.

Both orthopedics and

pharmaceuticals belong in a soft category of Indiana manufacturing known as “life sciences.” Currently, life sciences trail automotive-related manufacturers — but not by much. *** Indiana still profits from its central location.

The state’s third-leading industry is “transportation.”

This includes trucking, warehousing, and distribution. WalMart, Dollar General, Target, SuperValu and Kroger are among the large companies with distribution centers in the state. *** Relying on manufacturing presents problems for Hoosiers.

Automotive and recreational-vehicle manufacturers ride the national economy like a bucking bronco. When money is tight, new-vehicle sales are the first to drop.

Manufacturing and large-scale farming can cause environmental challenges. As more Hoosiers become aware of health risks and quality-oflife issues, they become less willing to accept pollution, climate change and habitat destruction.

NDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

MANUFACTURING LIFE — Eli Lilly started that company that bears his name in Indianapolis in 1876. Along with DuPuy Manufacturing in Warsaw, Lilly falls into a new category of businesses — life sciences — that help make Indiana a U.S. leader in manufacturing.

Some manufacturing jobs can be low-paying. Workers who fill these positions pay less in taxes and need more social services, putting a strain on state resources.

And, finally, many manufacturing jobs are headed to other countries.

The future for Indiana manufacturing remains unclear.

1986: Pop culture flows from Hoosier artists

BY LEE SAUER

Despite its conservative nature — or, perhaps, because of it — Indiana has produced unique individuals of great impact on American pop culture.

If such people were capable of being generalized, an outside observer might say that Hoosiers tend toward acerbic wit.

Or a longing to escape through music … *** In 1982, Michael Jackson released “Thriller.” It remains the best-selling music album of all time.

Jackson was born in Gary in 1958. His father, Joe, worked at U.S. Steel.

Along with four brothers, Jackson burst onto the music scene as the youngest member of the Jackson 5. But it was as a solo artist that Jackson will be remembered. America swooned at his physics-defying dance step, the Moonwalk.

But Joe’s tough love permanently marked Michael. By any standard, the performer’s personal life seemed strange. Known as “Wacko Jacko,” he became the object of endless fascination.

In 2009, while

preparing for a comeback tour, Jackson died from an overdose of drugs prescribed by his personal physician.

Jackson’s influence will be appreciated in his other nickname: The King of Pop. *** Two Indiana songwriters hit the national scene virtually simultaneously, lived in the same time period, and shared similarities.

But their Hoosier roots couldn’t be different.

Cole Porter was born into wealth in Peru in 1891.

During World War I, Porter moved to Paris and developed a talent for living extravagantly.

Although homosexual, he married. His wife knew his sexual preference, but they both benefited from the union, and it lasted until her death in 1954.

Porter made his name in Broadway musicals. His best known songs include, “What is this Thing Called Love?”; “You’re the Top,” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

He died in 1964.

Howard “Hoagie” Carmichael was born in Bloomington in 1899. His

Since 1976

mother played piano during silent movies, and Hoagie absorbed her lessons.

The family struggled financially. When Hoagie’s toddler sister died, he blamed her passing on a lack of money and vowed never to be broke.

Carmichael attended Indiana University and its law school. He passed the bar and joined a law firm in 1927.

But he spent his time making music.

Along with composing tunes, Carmichael performed on radio and acted in both movies and television.

Carmichael’s best-known songs include “Stardust,” “Georgia on My Mind,” and “Heart and Soul.”

He died in 1981. *** Remember the Forty Eighters?

They were educated Germans who emigrated to America in 1848.

One Forty Eighter, Clemens Vonnegut, settled in Indianapolis and started a successful hardware business.

His grandson, Kurt Vonnegut, was born in 1922 into wealth and privilege.

But tragedy followed

(PHOTO CREDIT: INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY)

LIVING LARGE — Cole Porter, right, grew up in Peru. Born in wealth, the songwriter continued to live high after a string of hit Broadway musicals in the 1920s and 1930s. He is the author of “I’ve got you under my skin.”

Kurt like a shadow. His family lost its wealth.

Despondent, his mother took her life.

Sent overseas during World War II, Vonnegut was taken prisoner. He spent the bombardment of Dresden in a meat locker.

Since 1989

Today

1990

1980

1976

2435 N 200 W, Angola, IN 260.833.2617

The opportunity for the Carusos’ dream to become a reality arose when Doc Caccamo and his wife Londi decided to retire and sell Doc Caccamo’s Pizzeria. In 1976, Barb and Joe cashed in their life’s savings, bought the pizzeria, and moved their family from Fort Wayne to Angola.

Their story began as a two-person operation, with Joe in the kitchen, and Barb in the dining area as a hostess and waitress. Over the next few years, each of the kids grew up in the restaurant environment.

Liat, Lisa, Dan and Gina all learned the various jobs in the kitchen and eventually became the primary prep and dinner cooks. Liat, Lisa and Dan wanted to raise their families in Steuben County and made owning and operating the restaurant their careers.

The three have been equal partners in every facet of running the business. All three have made a practice of participating in continuing education, and Liat and Lisa completed their degrees in Culinary Arts.

Recently, Dan and Lori have completed an Introductory Sommelier Course and are continuing their studies for full certification.

The face of the restaurant has changed many times since 1976, when the siding was red, white, and blue, and the menu has evolved to keep current with the times. However, many of the recipes and cooking methods remain the same. Even some of the original servers remain, along with Liat, Lisa, Dan and Lori (Dan’s wife) still cooking and managing the restaurant.

Midas Auto Care is celebrating 26 years in business in Steuben County. Mike Bratton of Angola opened the Angola Store in 1989, then sold to the Gene Pratt Family of Indianapolis who sold to current owner Mike Busche in 2007. Mike is a 31 year veteran of the Auto Care Business, previously working for Tire Centers, Inc. in Fort Wayne for 22 years. When Tire Centers, Inc. sold Busche bought the Angola Midas Franchise.

Midas is a full service auto repair center and has become a well known name in the auto care business offering full service repairs, tires, alignment, brakes, diagnostics and more.

“We do it all” says Busche. Midas has four full time employees with service hours 6 days a week, 7:30-5 Monday through Friday and 7:30 – noon Saturdays.

Afterward, he was put to work pulling bodies from the rubble.

Vonnegut wrote about his experiences in “Slaughterhouse 5,” published in 1969 — in synch with America’s growing disillusionment with the Vietnam War. Vonnegut’s macabre humor and pacifism made him a hero of America’s counterculture youth.

Vonnegut’s writing style — short bursts of thought between abrupt punctuation — influenced a generation of writers.

He died in 2007 *** David Letterman was born in 1947 in Indianapolis — not far from the Motor Speedway. He graduated from Ball State University in 1969.

As an Indianapolis TV weatherman and newscaster, Letterman kept audiences on guard with his offbeat humor.

Letterman found work as a comedy writer. His sarcastic style got him

noticed.

Johnny Carson, then the king of late night comedy, invited him as a regular guest. Later, Letterman hosted the show as Carson wound down his career.

Letterman went on to host his own late shows for 33 years.

Although Letterman never matched Carson’s broad appeal, he caught on with certain demographics — especially young people.

His bits included prank phone calls, a segment titled “Stupid Pet Tricks,” and regular interviews with his mother. *** No short list of Indiana pop culture celebrities could be complete, but here are a few more notables: Teen-idol actor James Dean; “Garfield” cartoonist Jim Davis; Janet Jackson, Michael’s sister and a singing sensation herself; Guns ‘N Roses lead singer Axl Rose; and author of “The Fault in Our Stars,” John Green.

REALLY TRULY LOCAL...

2401 N. Wayne, Angola

260-665-3465

Open M-F 7:30-5; Sat. 7:30-Noon Trust the Midas Touch! ® Midasautocare@mchsi.com

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Steuben, DeKalb, Noble/LaGrange

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

JULY 29, 2016

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B5

1996: Education took root early in Indiana

BY LEE SAUER

When Indiana became a state in 1816, founders based the Hoosier constitution almost word-for-word on the constitutions of Ohio and Kentucky.

But one clause proved unique. It provided for a “general system of education, ascending in regular gradation from township schools to a state university wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all.”

Although eventually known for conservatism, Indiana took a liberal and leading role in education. *** Caleb Mills is remembered as “Father of Indiana’s Public Schools.”

But his positive work in education was built upon a negative: Hoosier illiteracy appalled Mills.

After seminary, Mills moved to Crawfordsville in 1833 and started a school.

(Today’s Wabash College.)

Then he began a campaign to establish a statewide public school system.

Mills served as state superintendent of schools from 1852-1857. During his term, he helped create the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Mills died in 1880, but

by then other educators had picked up his torch.

Today, the Caleb Mills Teaching Award remains the highest university honor a Hoosier faculty member can attain. *** In The Enabling Act, 1816 (which “enabled” Indiana to join the union), Congress stated that one township “shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning.”

In 1822 construction on the State Seminary began in Bloomington — in what is now Seminary Square Park.

In 1838, the state changed the name to Indiana University.

IU has always been a leader. In 1867, it became the fourth public university in America to enroll a female student. In 1960, IU students elected an African-American president of the student body. (Some students protested by parading with Confederate flags.)

Today, the main campus in Bloomington serves more than 40,000 students; combining all campuses, IU serves 100,000 students. *** In the mid-1800’s, America needed educated farmers, engineers, scientists and soldiers. But the abstract

liberal arts approach of universities ignored practical skills.

Beginning in 1862, Congress gave federal land to states; the land was to be sold and proceeds used to establish universities that taught practical subjects. The schools became known as land grant universities.

In 1869, Purdue University in West Lafayette started as a land grant project. It got its name from John Purdue, a Lafayette businessman and the school’s main benefactor.

Today Purdue offers degrees of all kind, but its land grant roots are still apparent. Such as in its sports teams’ nickname: The Boilermakers. *** In the late 1800’s, normal schools prepared high school graduates to become teachers. (The schools taught educational standards or “norms.”)

Since 1876, Muncie had hosted a normal school. But the school struggled and eventually failed.

In 1917, the gas-boom Ball brothers bought the school and donated it to the state. It was casually called “Ball State” or “Fruit Jar Tech.” Indiana officially changed the name to Ball Teachers College in 1922, and Ball State University in

BASS PHOTO CO COLLECTION, INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

EDUCATION FOREBEARER — Appalled by Hoosier literacy rates, the founder of Wabash College in Crawfordsville began a push for free education for all. As a result, Caleb Mills is known as the “Father of Indiana’s Public Schools.”

1965.

Currently, Ball State is a pioneer in creating an environmentally sustainable campus. *** Hoosier lawmakers chartered Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute in 1865.

It became Indiana State University in 1965.

Many Hoosiers connect Indiana State with Larry Bird, the basketball player.

That’s good, because the

school’s sports teams have struggled with identity.

At first, ISU athletes were called the Fighting Teachers.

The next nickname: The Sycamores — referring to trees rooted along the Wabash River.

In 1969, the school created Chief Quabachi, intending to honor the area’s former residents. He lasted until 1989. Frustrated, Indiana State did not use a mascot for six years.

In 1995, the school

introduced Sycamore Sam, a woodland animal of indeterminate parentage. As of publishing, Sam remains the mascot. *** Begun in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, Vincennes University existed before Indiana became a state.

For a while, Vincennes competed with Indiana University to be the “State Seminary,” but its decentralized location (south and west, along the Wabash River), hurt.

In 1989, Vincennes became a two-year school.

It and Ivy Tech remain state-funded schools that provide technical training. *** The Catholic bishop of Vincennes donated land in the south bend of the St. Joseph River to be used for a school. In 1842, it offered classes in a log chapel.

Two years later, the school received a state charter as a college.

Known officially as University of Notre Dame du lac (Our Lady of the Lake), Notre Dame ranks as the largest of Indiana’s 31 private universities.

Although it gets most of its attention today from football, ND enjoys a reputation for top academic programs.

2006: Indianapolis grows with sports at the center

BY LEE SAUER

When the Colts won Super Bowl XLI, the Indianapolis team became champions of the National Football League’s 2006 season.

Five years later, Indianapolis won kudos for its family-oriented, gracious hosting of Super Bowl LXVI. But, wait.

Isn’t basketball Indiana’s game?

Or auto racing?

Yes, but the football contests proved something: that Indianapolis had grown beyond its Hoosier roots. *** Indianapolis began as a planned city.

In other words, it was not located, nor did it grow, organically.

In 1820, state leaders looked at a map, located the center of the state, and determined to build the Hoosier capital city on the X. (If the location skews to the south, that’s due to the early importance of the Ohio River.)

Planning is apparent in the city’s design: one mile square, streets that radiate out of a central hub.

Planning paid off.

After the National Road reached the city in 1827, and when railroads arrived 20 years later, Indianapolis became a crossroads for the Midwest.

And the entire nation.

*** Events outside the mile square helped Indy grow.

When the Civil War began in 1860, railroads proclaimed Indianapolis an important center for moving troops and supplies.

In 10 years, the city’s population doubled.

With the gas boom of the late 1800’s, business in Indianapolis boomed again.

Events inside the mile spurred growth as well.

During the race to produce successful automobiles, Indianapolis boasted 60 automakers. With its transportation infrastructure, the city rivaled Detroit in auto manufacturing — until eventually falling back.

But Indianapolis kept one trophy from the contest.

The Indianapolis 500 features 33 cars going around a 2.5-mile track 200 times. With more than 300,000 on-site spectators annually, promoters bill the race as the largest sporting event in the world. *** Indianapolis could never forget basketball.

A group of Indy investors pooled resources to bring the Indiana Pacers — named for the pace car of the race — to town in 1967.

As part of the upstart American Basketball Association, the Pacers featured a red-white-andblue ball and a novelty shot:

The 3-pointer.

In 1970, the Pacers made their No. 1 draft pick Rick Mount — a high school legend and Purdue star who personified the Hoosier pure shooter.

Coached by Bob “Slick” Leonard (who had starred at IU and hit two late free throws to win the 1953 national championship), the Pacers dominated the ABA, winning championships in 1970, 1972 and 1973.

After joining the NBA in 1976, the Pacers again enjoyed success under coach Larry Bird and 3-point sharpshooter Reggie Miller.

Miller grew up in California, played for UCLA, and the Pacers drafted him ahead of IU star (and Hoosier-born) Steve Alford — all facts heavy enough to sink any player’s popularity.

But Hoosiers adopted Miller for his passionate play over 18 years — all with the Indy team. *** Speaking of adopted sports figures, no article on Indianapolis could forgo mention of Peyton Manning.

The Colts had been a mildly successful football team after moving to the city in 1984. But with Manning’s arrival in 1998, that changed.

Over his 12-year stint with the team, Manning

NDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SELECTING SITE — In this 1880s drawing, an artist envisions the work done by state officials in selecting the site of Indianapolis in 1820 in what was then virgin forest.

turned the Colts into perennial winners. He was MVP of the Colts’ Super Bowl win. By the time he left in 2011, hobbled by injury and uncertainty, Manning had become the face of Indianapolis. *** In the early 1900s, young men were dying to play college football.

Literally.

In 1905, 18 players died.

Colleges began to drop football programs. Then an important fan stepped in: Theodore Roosevelt.

The President initiated a meeting among colleges to agree to rules governing the sport. That meeting led to the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1910.

At first, the NCAA only set rules for competition. Then, in 1921 with

track and field, the NCAA conducted its first national championship.

Over the years (and not fast enough for female athletes), the NCAA expanded its reach to include women’s sports.

In 1997, touting location and excellent facilities for hosting competitions, the NCAA moved its headquarters to a vibrant, up-andcoming city: Indianapolis.

kpcnews.com 2016: Past meets present

BY LEE SAUER

Since 1989

In Steuben County for 27 years, T. Frederick Electric Motors is in business to keep your business running smoothly. Originally from Defiance, Ohio, Tom Frederick moved to Steuben County and opened his Motor Service and Repair Shop in 1989. In 2007 he was joined by son Thad Frederick. They currently have four full time employees.

T. Frederick services water and sewer pumps, electric motors, electric control wiring and machine shop repair. Their specialty is motor and pump repair, rewinds and metal work fabrication.

They have found their unique niche in the market from jobs both big and small. Jobs vary daily - from small household repair jobs to big industrial jobs - from fan motors in bathrooms to 200 horsepower motors.

AN

T. FREDERICK ELECTRIC MOTOR

SHOP

“We’re in Business to Keep Yours Running Smoothly”

701 Wohlert St., Angola • 260-665-5338

Open Monday-Friday 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM • electric.tom@hotmail.com

Two hundred years.

It’s a long time.

And, it’s a blink of an eye.

George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Wise words.

Hoosiers could learn much from their state’s past.

But first, some introductions are in order … *** Pioneers and gas boomers: meet climate change deniers.

To pioneers, the forest seemed endless. There would always be more virgin forest; game would always be plentiful.

During the gas boom, Hoosiers scoffed at experts who warned the gas would run out if not conserved.

Both the virgin forest and gas disappeared, and in much shorter time than anyone anticipated.

Today, climate change deniers ignore warnings from an overwhelming

majority of scientists who say we are doing irreparable harm to our planet. *** Canals: meet coal.

When trains arrived, Hoosiers replaced canals.

Canal workers lost jobs.

Some folks — forgetting the slow pace, the endless maintenance, the constant money outlays, and the mosquitoes — waxed nostalgic for canals.

But advantages of the new technology overwhelmed all arguments.

Today, America has largely moved on from coal as an energy source, yet some leaders shout to bring coal back. *** Bigotry: meet xenophobia.

Pioneers (or their proxies, soldiers) shoved Indians aside. The Ku Klux Klan intimidated African-Americans, Catholics and immigrants.

Today, some Hoosiers decry allowing Middle

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

PROPHETIC? — Terre Haute native Eugene Debs called for worker reforms that once seemed radical, but today are accepted as standard practice. Debs ran — unsuccessfully — for president five times. Could his SEE 2016 PAGE B6 modern-day counterpart be Bernie Sanders?

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kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

2016 FROM PAGE B5

Easterners and Mexicans access to the state.

And Hoosier laws that allow discrimination against gays and transgender create classes of Americans. *** Railroads and automobiles: meet computers and alternative energy.

Railroads and automobiles completely remade America — physically, socially, and economically. Indiana didn’t make the transformative

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

products, but in each case it benefitted from spinoff opportunities.

Computers and alternative energy are this generation’s wonder technology. *** Family farmers: meet organic farmers.

Family farms produced fresh, tasty food. Often farmers knew the people who bought their produce.

Industrialization of America’s food supply produces food that is often tasteless and which must travel thousands of miles to consumers.

Today, organic farms reincarnate family farms. They produce food that tastes good, is nutritious, and doesn’t need abundant fossil fuel to get it to its point of sale. *** Union: meet Brexit.

Abraham Lincoln warned that if states could leave the United States at will, then the union no longer existed.

The experiment in democratic government would have failed.

Britain’s recent exit from the European Union shocked the world.

And well it should.

Already other nations have begun to question whether they should stay in the union. *** Caleb Mills: meet online learning.

Hoosier illiteracy horrified Mills. He worked hard to eliminate it.

All a democracy holds dear — innovation, critical thinking, fairness, opportunity for all, good leaders— rely on one thing: Education. *** Eugene Debs: meet Bernie Sanders.

Debs went to jail for

JULY 29, 2016

“radical” ideas. Yet those ideas are now woven into the American fabric.

Current presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders advocates revolution. But the country appears not to be ready for his ideas. *** In researching Indiana history, one Hoosier quality pops up again and again: Reluctance to change.

People tend to wear blinders that allow them to see only their own time. They believe aspects of their life are the way things have always been.

They resist change because

of the blinders: they can’t imagine life beyond what they know.

But even a cursory study of history points out the error in that view.

Change is continual.

It’s going on now.

Lots of it.

Hoosiers don’t like change?

That’s pretty ironic.

Consider this: a mere 200 years ago, the land on which we live was virgin forest.

Special thanks to Jim Zimmerman, retired professor of history at Tri-State University (now Trine University) for his research assistance.

Steuben was conducive to life of Native Americans

BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia.com

ANGOLA — Two of the best know properties in Steuben County are a memorial to the last tribe of Native Americans to inhabit the county, the Potawatomis or Pottawattomies.

Pokagon State Park and Potawatomi Inn on Lake James stand as a tribute to the tribe that still exists in the South Bend area. Today, the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomis is working on building a casino in the South Bend

area.

The Potawatomis were the last of several tribes of Native Americans to inhabit Steuben County, which, with its woods, lakes and streams provided bountiful land for living.

“The History of Steuben County 1955” said the Iroquis and Miamis were inhabitants of Steuben County. There also has been discoveries of numerous artifacts that tell the of other inhabitants of the county that would be considered pre-history. Not

only the lay of the land was attractive to early settlement by humans, but the rock brought to Steuben County by the glaciers provided ample raw materials for making tools and weaponry.

In the 1955 history, Cameron W. Parks wrote that Steuben County was inhabited early by Indians, based on the artifacts that have been unearthed over the years.

Steuben County was under French control until 1763, at which time it came under British rule in

Steuben ecology unique

BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia.com

SNOW LAKE — Some people, perhaps, take Steuben County’s 100-plus lakes for granted.

But there was much that went on thousands of years ago to create one of the more unique areas in the Midwest and perhaps the country, as far as geology goes.

In a short way of saying it, Steuben County is a biproduct of Canada. Two lobes of two different glaciers moving south out of Canada locked horns, driving their way from the

northeast to the southwest, out of Michigan, digging holes, leaving ice deposits that melted into lakes and creating the many choppy hills for which the county is known, said the Steuben County Soil Survey published in 1981.

“The surface of the county is broken up into ‘drifts,’ ‘moraines’ and river valleys, with as large a collection of ‘kettle hole’ lakes left by the moraines as is to be found in American in a simlar area,” Prof. Minard F. Rose wrote in “The Steuben County

History 1955.”

Rose even marveled that the 100 or so lakes even stayed filled with water during dry periods. He noted that there were many other lakes that had filled in and the remaining lakes were starting to fill via soil erosion.

Of course, many of the lakes are sustained by springs. Some prime examples of Steuben County’s springs can be found in many places, like Lake George, the Spring Shelter at Pokagon State Park and at Cold Springs at Hamilton Lake.

Orland was first Steuben County town

BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com

ORLAND — Orland became the first town in Steuben County in March 1838.

Captain Samuel Barry, Alex Chapin, Cyrus Choate and John Stocker came to the area from Vermont in 1834.

Their homes and farms along Vistula Road were first called the Vermont Settlement.

Orland was incorporated in 1938 after Steuben County was officially established by the state legislature in May 1837.

The town holds tight to its roots, celebrating the Vermont Settlement Festival the last weekend of July.

Orland made a name for itself early on as a stop on the Underground Railroad bringing black slaves to freedom in Canada from the southern states. By the early 1850s, its outspoken abolitionists began to attract statewide attention. The arrest of five citizens who were caught moving slaves through Orland in 1853 thrust the community into the national spotlight.

The town was a stop on another regional railroad — the St. Joseph Valley Railway — when it was built in the early 1900s. A mural on the side of the Joyce Public Library, commissioned during Orland’s sesquicentennial in 1984, features a depiction of a train coming into the station. The depot, built in 1909, remains standing.

Joyce Public Library was also established in the early 1900s, and is one of Steuben County’s three public libraries.

Chief Simon Pokagon was an instrumental leader of the Potawatomi Indians. He was said to have attended Notre Dame University.

the Treaty of Paris.

Steuben County remained in Native American hands until two cessions, in 1821 and 1828, though they still inhabited the county in 1831 when whites started to move in. The last of the Potawatomis were removed from the county in 1838.

“Thus did a race of people come and live during a period of a thousand or more years in our County and then pass into oblivion,” Parks wrote in the 1955 history.

PHOTO COURTESY BILL EYSTER

Trine started as normal school to train teachers ANGOLA — In order to meet the demand for teachers in the town and district schools of Steuben County, Tri-State Normal College opened June 17, 1884, in Angola under the leadership of President Charles E. Kircher.

In 1885 Littleton M. Sniff became Tri-State Normal’s second president and served in that role all but one year until his death in 1922. Sniff oversaw the founding of the college’s engineering program in 1902 and the college’s reorganization as Tri-State College in 1906.

Following World War II, the college experienced an enrollment boom as veterans sought to complete their college education through

the G.I. Bill. The expansion continued into the 1960s, during which time Tri-State added seven residence halls, the Perry T. Ford Memorial Library (now Ford Hall, home to the Ketner School of Business), Best Hall and Hershey Hall.

The college became Tri-State University in 1975 and was renamed Trine University in 2008 in honor of trustees Ralph and Sheri Trine and to better define its mission and direction.

From its beginnings as Tri-State Normal College, Trine University has grown from a student body of 50 to 4,500 in 2015-2016; from a single campus with two buildings to a 450-acre main campus and eight satellite

locations serving Indiana, southern Michigan and Peoria, Arizona; and from training school teachers to offering its first doctoral program, the Doctor of Physical Therapy, beginning in 2014.

Under the leadership of its 16th president, Earl D. Brooks II, Trine has seen more than $155 million in campus enhancements and more than $200 million in funds raised, and soon will add the Thunder Ice Arena and MTI Center.

As Indiana enters its third century of history, Trine seeks to continue providing a quality education to Indiana’s students and quality graduates to serve as leaders in its industries, organizations, schools and government.

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In 1980 Larry & Patsy Dunham opened a used car dealership that differed from the typical fly by night dealerships of the time. They wanted a business that was dependable and reliable and would greet their customers with a familiar face. Dunham Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram truck has been a trusted family owned business for over 36 years. Larry and Patsy Dunham along with the staff strive to bring excellence and reliability to all their customers. The Dunhams children, LeAnn Boots (general manager), Vince Dunham (sales manager), and Ross Dunham (parts manager) have all joined the team and carry on the family tradition. With a combined total of over 350 years of automotive experience, Dunhams trained and certified service and sales staff is ready to meet your needs.

Come see why Dunham’s committed team, friendly service and family atmosphere has made them one of the best! The staff at Dunham Motor Sales, Inc. proudly offers the newest Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram cars and trucks in the Angola, IN region. We also carry an impressive selection of used cars, trucks and SUVs by the industry’s top manufacturers. Our experienced sales staff can point you in the right direction based on your individual vehicle needs. Our goal is simple. We want to be the best Chrysler dealership in Indiana.

Dunham motor SaleS 1006 S. Wayne St., Angola, IN 46703

260-665-2125 “We aim to please”

PHOTO COURTESY BILL EYSTER

Pictured are the first two buildings constructed at Tri-State Normal School in the late 1800s. The school was founded in 1884. The administration building at right is still in use today at Trine University. The school evolved to Tri-State College then Tri-State University before being renamed Trine University in 2008.

Since 1991

In 1991 a group of citizens created the Steuben County Community Foundation - a formalized way to make charitable gifts that will work to address the emerging issues and concerns of Steuben County forever. By partnering with our donors, we have helped strengthen education, support the arts, promote civic life, protect our environment, and ensure strong health and social services.

Today, the Community Foundation holds 200 funds, manages over $25 million in assets and has granted over $20 million dollars back to the community. After 25 years our mission is still “connecting people who care with needs that matter to our community.” We are here for good. Forever.

Since 1999

Bill and Barb opened this southwest specialty shop in 1999 as Bill was a master craftsman making beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry. Other items sold are Montana silversmith jewelry, knives, gifts, t-shirts, leather goods, beads, Minnetonka Moccasins and American West handbags.

3620 N. SR 327 • Orland, IN 46776 1701 N. Wayne St., Angola, IN 46703

260-665-6656

www.steubenfoundation.org

260-829-6697

Open weekdays and weekends 2-5 PM southwestremembrance@msn.com

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

JULY 29, 2016

©KPC Media Group Inc. • kpcnews.com

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Soldier’s Monument is Steuben County

BY MIKE MARTURELLO mmarturello@kpcmedia. com

ANGOLA — Columbia and the boys will be turning 100 next year.

The Steuben County Soldier’s Monument was built and dedicated in 1917. The effort came at a time when the community was sending its sons off to another war, the War to end all Wars, World War I. As histories of the community boast, Steuben County was never shy about sending its men to

war. For the Civil War, for which the monument honors, Steuben sent more men per capital than any other county in Indiana.

For years, it has been said that Columbia, a symbol of peace, has stood watch over Steuben County.

In the 1955 “The History of Steuben County,” Jeanette Pollock Holderness wrote, “On the very top stands Columbia, holding a wreath in her hands. The wreath she

extends to a troubled world.”

The erection of this monument to the Civil War came with little fanfare. Sure, there was a dedication on Decoration Day, the same day children of the community marched to the mound, later called Monument Place — it wasn’t the Public Square for nearly 75 years later — to receive their grade cards at the end of the annual ceremony.

There was a dance and a lively celebration,

Block Church first locally

BY AUBREY HUNT news@kpcmedia.com

Little is known about the Old Block Church that stood somewhere here in Steuben County. It is, however, believed to be the very first church built in the area with roots in the Methodist and Presbyterian faiths.

Erected sometime between 1841 and 1842, the church was organized by both a man addressed as Griffin and another called O. Littlefield, according to a copy of The Steuben Republican written in September of 1900.

Griffin began to organize the the Methodist church with 10 members. In August 1839, O. Littlefield brought the Presbyterian church together with 13

members. Until the church was built, both societies worshiped together in the school house. Very few groups organized their religion during this time in the county.

Once abandoned in the late 1850s, the church was sold and bought by a man referred to as J.N. Osterhout for $10.

Osterhout decided to move the church and then began living there with his family for nearly 30 years, said The Steuben Republican.

The Presbyterian society then gathered to build a new church on the former site where both communities once gathered to worship together, known as the Singing Hall. A fire burned the once worship hall to the ground in

1867 and the Methodist community erected a new building roughly a mile and a half away.

“If the walls of the old church could speak,” says The Steuben Republican, “they could tell of many incidents and scenes of joy and sorrow.”

It was not uncommon for loud shouting and singing to occur within the church, even in the wake of a member’s death.

An elderly woman interviewed by the publication described her time spent worshiping at the church as “the great days.”

“It seems to me,” she said, “the Lord does not come as near his people now as he did in the early days in Steuben County.”

though the local newspapers of the day didn’t make much notice of the event, other than to announce the upcoming dedication to the monument designed by a Mansfield, Ohio, architect and built by E.M. Hetzler, whose day job was to create grave monuments; he went on to be elected Angola’s mayor in the next election.

Small chips of barre granite used to create the base and obelisk of the monument were afixed to

small cards to commemorate the occasion.

Over the years, Columbia, who stands at the top of the monument some 70 feet above ground, and the soldiers at each corner — representing cavalry, army, navy and infantry — weathered, their pressed copper oxidizing in the elements.

In a joint effort between Steuben County and the city of Angola — the county owns the monument and the city

owns the ground upon which sits, the mound — the monument was restored in 1993.

Last year Angola refurbished the mound itself, adding new electric, sound and irrigation infrastructure, as well as a new walk around the peremeter.

The monument honors the 1,280 men from Steuben County — 280 of whom gave the ultimate sacrifice — who served in the Civil War.

Steuben needed churches

BY AUBREY HUNT news@kpcmedia.com

It could be said that the reason Steuben County has so many churches today is because at one time we desperately needed them.

The county had held a rebellious reputation as the majority of Indiana began establishing religion in the 1850s. Settled by anti-church migrants from western New York, the founders intended to keep religion as far away from their city as possible. Spiritualism, a practice that is based off of communication with the deceased, was what roughly nine-tenths of the population identified with at the time.

The idea of mediums and communicating with the dead heavily influenced Steuben County. National figures who identified as Spiritualists came from all over the country to act as mediums and perform miracles for early residents of the area.

The practice continued within the county until as late as 1865.

Becoming a Spiritualist became an occupation for many in the county.

However, a great number of residents were denied the title because of an apparent lack of intelligence. “Worthless and licentious individuals” made up Steuben County at the time, according to

“Hoosier Faiths.”

From Spiritualism, The Truth Seeker was born.

Thomas Gale, one of the founders of Angola, created TTS for “free thought and discussion.”

“Hoosier Faiths” describe the paper as one of the most “vile and viscous” waves to come through the community. However, it’s influence was extremely powerful.

Immorality and lack of religion earned the city’s title to be synonymous with “Satan’s Seat.”

Presbyterian missionary Almon Martin concluded that the only way Angola could ever find some sort of religion was if everyone just got up and left.

Powers Church still stands Modernity embodies churches

BY AUBREY HUNT news@kpcmedia.com

The death of two children and the generosity of Clark Powers are what ultimately gave inspiration to the construction of one of Steuben County’s most appreciated historical sites, Powers Church.

When scarlet fever claimed the lives of two area children back in the early 1800s, Clark Powers donated his land for a cemetery. The project was intended to make home for a new church as well.

Construction was delayed until 1876 and began when the need for a church in

the area was apparent.

The population around Steuben County was rising rapidly and the lack of any organized religion was obvious. Powers Church has now stood for roughly 141 years as it honors the values of those who created it.

The church has since been remodeled since 1876, but still keeps in touch with it’s traditional roots.

Beautiful blue patterned wallpaper and a cast iron wood stove still find their original places in the church. To this day, the church continues to host it’s services without heat or air

conditioning.

Located nine miles east of Angola, just north of U.S. 20 on Old S.R. 1., the church originally organized as a “free church.” Powers Church began as nondenominational, but eventually adopted Methodist ideals.

Today, the church hosts three summer services and a Christmas program in honor of the pioneers who settled and created the church before them.

To learn more about the history of Powers Church or to find more information about services, visit www. powerschurch.org.

BY AUBREY HUNT news@kpcmedia.com

A new wave of modernity has embodied area churches that has inspired congregations to update how they present worship, song and their message.

Churches are beginning to give way to a modern twist on how they “do church.” With upbeat bands and multimedia effects, they have begun to make changes in efforts to promote a more modern, updated atmosphere. Life Changing Realities Fellowships seems to be at the front of this transforma-

tion, as it roots itself in the former Piggy’s Brew Pub, located at 2201 N. Wayne St. in Angola.

With a funky band and an in-house cafe where church-goers can grab a cup of coffee before the start of either the 9 or 11 a.m. services, LCRF is seen as a sort of “unchurch,” as described

by Mandy Luke of LCRF in a past interview. With a “come as you are” attitude, the atmosphere within services is light. It can be expected to find all walks of life at the church, and it’s not unusual to see

a business man sitting behind a biker in all leather, Luke said.

Along with the use of multimedia in their services, LCRF wants to be relevant within today’s culture, as described by their website. One of the church’s main goals is to speak in a modern tongue so that everyone who attends feels comfortable and at home. LCRF hopes to apply the Bible to real life challenges that real people face, their website said.

To learn more about LCRF, visit lcrfwired.org.

Olympian Phillips placed Paul Eyster brings aviation, his running roots in Angola airport to Steuben County

BY KEN FILLMORE kfillmore@kpcmedia.com

Steuben County has been the home of three Olympic athletes, and they all have or will compete in the Summer Games. You are pretty familiar with 2008 men’s volleyball gold medalist Lloy Ball of Lake James, and recently-named U.S. paracyclist Tom Davis of Fremont.

Go back to the 1920s to find the county’s first Olympian. Hermon Phillips lived in Angola long after

achieving Olympic glory. He finished in sixth place in the 400-meter run in the 1928 Amsterdam Games.

Phillips excelled on the track at Butler College.

He was an NCAA national champion in the 440-meter run during his time there from 1925 to 1927. He was an Amateur Athletic Union champion in the 440 in 1927.

In Amsterdam, Phillips won his first-round 400 heat in 49.4 seconds, then won his quarterfinal heat in 49.6

seconds. He was second in his semifinal heat in 49.1 seconds, and that was good enough to reach the final and attempt to run for a medal.

Phillips was a track coach at the collegiate level, first at Butler from 1927-37, then at Purdue from 1937-45.

He went on to establish and direct several summer camps for boys and girls.

Phillips was born in Rushville on Aug. 2, 1903, and died in Fort Wayne at the age of 82 on Feb. 16, 1986.

Since 2000

Action Realty specializes in selling land and residential, commercial and industrial properties, as well as the occasional pond or lake, according to owner and principal broker Allen Holman.

Assisting Holman in the business is Michele Mitchell.

Holman’s son Jason, and daughter-in-law Vicki have joined the business as associate brokers.

“I’ve farmed all my life and I’m acquainted with a lot of people,” Holman said. “That has given me a lot of referrals.

“Our name has helped carry us,” Holman said. “My father, Aaron, emphasized the importance of trust and honesty. Dad always said it takes a lifetime to build your name up, but only one bad experience to ruin your name.”

Action Realty

5471 S.R. 101 • St. Joe, IN

337-0337 or 909-0337 • www.actionr.net

BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com

ANGOLA — Aviation landed in Steuben County at the Tri-State Steuben County Airport, driven in most part with the efforts of Paul Eyster.

For more than 150 years combined between Eyster family members, there had always been an Eyster actively working at the airport, 5220 W. U.S. 20.

The family helped build it to what it is today.

Paul Eyster’s love of

Since 2003

aviation took him to found the airport. In late 1929, he negotiated leasing several hundred acres of land where the airport sits today at a cost of $7 per acre. The following year, the airport opened for business.

Eventually, his son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Margie Eyster, bought into the family partnership. For 40 years, they operated the 24-hour-a-day, seven-daysa-week airport, also chartering flights, selling aircraft and giving flight lessons.

In continuing family tradition, Bill Sr.’s son, Bill Eyster Jr., grew up at

the airport and continues capturing its history through his photography.

The Eysters’ busy charter business had passengers like country music legends Minnie Pearl, Roy Clark, Buck Owens and Jimmy Dean, who all likely performed at Buck Lake Ranch, not far from the airport; country band, Alabama; singer and comedian Frank Fontaine and U.S. Army Four-Star Gen. Lewis Hershey, a Steuben County native.

In 2012, a $1.6 million hanger/terminal was added to the airport to allow for year-round operations.

Jody Hill has been a Registered Nursing for 35 years. She has worked in many fields of Nursing but has always been drawn to Geriatrics. She saw the need for in home care when her Mother started to need extra help to be able to remain in her home. Jody and her siblings found caregivers to come into her home and assist her mom so that she would be able to continue living in her own home. After her Mother passed, Jody became licensed with the State of Indiana with my Person Care Attendant license so that more families would be able to keep their loved ones in their own “Home Sweet Home”.

Services provided include: hourly and live-in home care, personal care attendant, medication reminders, care management, bathing and dressing, incontinences assistance and toileting, light housekeeping and laundry, grocery shopping, meal preparation, training family members, companionship, respite care, transportation, escort and long term assistance.

Home Sweet Home has over 35 employees/caregivers including Jody Hill, owner/ founder since 2003 and Anna Allen, administrator, since 2009.

Home Sweet Home specializes in elder care. The service area includes Steuben, DeKalb, Allen and LaGrange counties.

H

SWEET H M ME Senior E Care

114 E Maumee St., Suite 101, Angola, IN Email: hill_jody@hotmail.com Phone: 260-668-7669 annahshmanager@gmail.com Cell: 260-316-7669 Hours: Open 24/7 via cell phones.

Office hours are Mon.- Fri. 10AM-5PM; Sat. and Sun., open by appointment

PHOTO COURTESY BILL EYSTER

Paul Eyster is shown in his early days as a pilot. He founded Tri-State Steuben County Municipal Airport.

B8

STEUBEN COUNTY’S BICENTENNIAL SALUTE

kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

JULY 29, 2016

Famous actress Tuttle born in Pleasant Lake

BY AMY OBERLIN aoberlin@kpcmedia.com

PLEASANT LAKE — A successful Broadway and Hollywood actress had her start in the little burg of Pleasant Lake.

Lurene Tuttle was born Aug. 29, 1907 in Steuben County and throughout her life regularly visited the area.

She moved with her family to the western United States when she was 7 years old and was an accomplished actress by the age of 20.

She married Melville Ruick in 1928, and they had their only child, Barbara, in 1932.

Tuttle became a regular on “Hollywood Hotel,” the most popular radio show of its day, in 1936. From there, she went on to do hundreds of radio shows and appeared regularly on “Sam Spade,” “The Great Gildersleeve” and Red Skelton’s radio show.

Her film career included a bit part in the 1934 “Stand Up and Cheer,” Shirley Temple’s debut, and a role in “Don’t Bother to Knock” in 1952, featuring Marilyn Monroe. Tuttle played the sheriff’s wife in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Psycho.”

Lurene Tuttle is shown in a publicity shot from the 1940s. She was once called “the first lady of radio” and also had many roles in movies and on television shows.

As she got older, Tuttle had parts in more than 100 television shows and series.

Over a span of around 30 years, starting with an appearance on “Life With Father,” she graced an impressive array of television

sets, including those of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for radio and one for screen.

Willis shaped local, national policy ANGOLA — Raymond E. Willis played a major part in Steuben County history in numerous projects in the newspaper and political fields.

He was born in Waterloo Aug. 11, 1875, said Willis Harvey Morley’s book, “The 1955 History of Steuben County, Indiana.”

He was educated at Wabash College, Crawfordsville.

Willis edited and published The Angola Magnet and was associate editor of The Steuben Republican.

He served as president of Steuben Printing Co., the company that published The Steuben Republican and The

Angola Herald.

He later served as Angola’s postmaster, Steuben County Chamber of Commerce president, chairman of the Steuben Council on Defense during World War I and director of Steuben County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

His political career started in 1919-21 as a member of the Indiana State Legislature. After a failed attempt in 1938, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1940 and served until 1947, choosing not to run for re-election in 1946 in order to quell a dispute amongst Republican officials and therefore work toward party unity.

He is credited with introducing the first resolution requiring all agreements with other nations be submitted to the Senate for approval.

Willis also introduced the first bill organizing a Woman’s Naval Reserve, later known as the Waves, offering support to the U.S. military effort during World War II. Through efforts of his office the U.S. Naval Training Station was established at Bunker Hill.

For two years, he was a Tri-State College trustee serving, two years as chairman of the board in establishing the college as a nonprofit community institution in the days following World War II. He was one of the leaders in establishing Pokagon State Park and contributed greatly to the erection of the Steuben County Soldiers Monument in Angola’s Public Square.

Willis died in March 1956 and is interred in Circle Hill Cemetery in Angola.

Ball, US strike emotional gold in 2008

BY KEN FILLMORE kfillmore@kpcmedia.com

This is the 20th anniversary of Lloy Ball’s Olympic debut in Atlanta. However, it was his swan song with the U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team that will be remembered the most.

Ball competed in his fourth and final Olympic games in 2008 in Beijing, China, and the setter finally won his first medal. It was golden.

The Americans won all eight of their matches in the Olympic tournament, including world No. 1 Brazil in four sets (20-25, 25-22, 25-21, 25-23) in the gold medal match for the country’s first gold

ILLUSTRATION CONTRIBUTED

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

in men’s volleyball in 20 years. The U.S. defeated Russia in five sets in the semifinals.

Ball is the only male volleyball player from the United States to date to play in four Olympics.

Ball and the Americans tied for ninth in Atlanta with South Korea in 1996, tied for 11th with Egypt in 2000 in Sydney, Australia; and were fourth in Athens, Greece in 2004.

The gold medal run was filled with emotion as the U.S. was playing for coach Hugh McCutcheon.

A day before the team’s first Olympic match with Venezuela, McCutcheon’s parents-in-law were

attacked by a Chinese man at Beijing’s Drum Tower.

Todd Bachman, the father of Hugh’s wife Elisabeth, was killed in the attack.

Ball retired from professional volleyball in 2011 and was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame on Oct. 24, 2015, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the birthplace of volleyball.

Ball is giving back to Northeast Indiana through the sport he loves. He is the director of the Team Pineapple Volleyball Club and will coach the Angola High School girls volleyball team for his first season beginning next month.

Cameron Memorial Community Hospital, shown in this artist’s rendering, has evolved over the years from its early days in what amounted to a converted residence to a modern hospital. The new Cameron opened its doors in December 2014. Only a few portions of the original hospital were kept as part of the new facility, namely part of the emergency department, which was greatly expanded in the new hospital.

Cameron rooted in two Angola hospitals ANGOLA — Cameron Memorial Community Hospital had its roots in two Angola hospitals.

Cameron Memorial Hospital was founded in 1926 by Dr. Don F. Cameron. Elmhurst Hospital was established by Dr. Lester L. Eberhart in 1945.

In 1972 the two hospitals were merged as one, with the combined facility located at its present site at 416 E. Maumee St. A county-wide fund drive was undertaken and $850,000 was pledged toward the $4.3 million required to finance the necessary expansion of the Cameron Hospital facility.

The building was completed in 1977.

The hospital began a

second major building project in the fall of 1990 to meet the changing needs of healthcare and maximize the utilization of hospital space.

This renovation, with a cost of nearly $1.3 million, was again financed in part by a community-wide capital campaign thath raised in excess of $450,000 in gifts and pledges.

In September 1995, due to a continued growth in outpatient service demand, the hospital broke ground for yet another major expansion, doubling the size of its emergency department, adding a roof-top air ambulance helicopter landing pad, and consolidating therapy services. In addition, the $3.5 million project includes a new intensive care

unit and expansion of the hospital pharmacy.

The result of a partnership between Cameron Hospital, Parkview Regional Cancer Center, and Radiation Oncology Associates of Fort Wayne, the Regional Cancer Center of Angola treatment facility began treating patients in January 2001.

Cameron also owns and operates Cameron Urgent Care and Cameron Woods, a senior living community.

In December 2014 Cameron open the doors to a complete $47 million replacement hospital in scenic downtown Angola.

The new facility boasts state-of-the-art technology while maintaining the patient’s comfort and safety.

Ashley boys win cross country state in 1963

BY KEN FILLMORE kfillmore@kpcmedia.com

Cross country was more than a training outlet for basketball in the early 1960s at tiny Ashley High School.

The Aces’ boys cross country team finished second in the 1962 state finals, then took it one step further the following year to be the smallest school to run for a state championship.

There were approximately 32 students in Ashley’s senior class in the 1963-64 school year.

In the 2-mile 1963 state finals, Ashley won 82-97 for second-place West Lafayette. Fred McClish led

the Aces in eighth place, with Jim Reinoehl 15th, Steve Grill 22nd, 6-foot-6 Jack Baumgardner 23rd and John Hamman 41st. Steve Hartman, Bill McClish, Fred’s twin brother, and Jon Grill, Steve’s younger brother, were also a part of the team coached by Dwight Graber.

Graber also coached basketball, track & field and baseball at Ashley. The lot of the harriers played basketball for Graber.

“He wasn’t just a coach.

He was somebody who developed people,” Reinoehl said in a column written

by KPC Media Group

executive editor Dave Kurtz in November 2013. “He was very strict on what he required his athletes to do, but he was also very fair.”

Ashley was second to Gary Roosevelt, 89-102, in the 1962 cross country state finals.

The Aces were the little engines that could on the hardwood, too.

They reached the regional final in the old one-class system in March 1964 with a pressing defense.

Ashley lost to Garrett, 62-59, in overtime. The Railroaders were led by 7-footers Jim Heitz and Chuck Bavis.

Since 2010 Since 2010 Auntie V’s has been the spot in Angola for made from scratch home cooked meals, soups and salads, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, offering both dine in and carryout.

The small grocery store inside the restaurant sells fresh pies, cookies, salads and choice entrees.

The restaurant is owned and operated

by Vickie Finch. Prior to opening Auntie V’s Finch, her mother, Nancy Vollmer, and family owned and operated the popular carryout and market Chubbies in West Unity, Ohio for 26 years. After moving to Steuben County 15 years ago Finch got tired of the commute and decided to open her restaurant in Steuben County bringing with her their world famous potato salad (which has now become a Steuben County favorite).

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They also provide on site catering to parties from 25 to up to 800 people. The restaurant has 15 employees which include Vickie and her mother who can both be found working in the kitchen daily.

The Fabulous 2010 N. Wayne St., Angola

Restaurant & Catering

(Behind Walgreens)

260-665-9922

Restaurant & Store Hours: Mon. - Sat. 8-8; Sun. 8-2

www.auntievsrestaurantandcatering.com

We’ll have your competition CRYING for their mama.