Musings
The Road to Youno
~by Mark Blackwell
I
recently came into possession of a hundred or so vintage postcards. They are the kind with a picture on the front, some with a witty quip printed on them. The postage is a one cent stamp so I reckon that’s how they earned the nickname, “Penny postcard.” They date from 1909 to 1912 or so and they opened a new historical window for me. They are mostly local, within a couple of counties, namely Brown and Monroe. They appear to be sent to and from a young lady in her early teens. So, there is not a lot of earthshaking information being shared—just “Thinking of you” and “How are things out your way?” It appears that this form of correspondence was the Edwardian equivalent of today’s social networking. Some of the cards had what appears to be racy themes for the times: “In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.” And some of the cards were mailed from Youno, Indiana. That piqued my curiosity and I wanted to know where Youno was.
32 Our Brown County March/April 2022
Being a fellow of my epoch, I got out my collection of maps, from the official 2020 Indiana Highway map, all the way back to an 1876 Historical Atlas of Indiana. No Youno designated on any of them. I then consulted my collection of Indiana history books. I couldn’t find anything in Weston Goodspeed’s 1884 History of Brown County. But then I did find a short mention of Youno in a tourist guide originally published in the early 1920s, titled Picturesque Brown County Indiana General Guide to Points of Interest; featuring 6 side trips,13 outlined routes over graveled roads, and 24 representative views; published by the Indiana League of Counties. It was on page 43 that Youno gets a brief mention. “Three and a half miles south and west of Elkinsville is the little community of Youno. It is situated quite close to the County line. It was once a Post Office and possessed a store and other places of business.” When I saw the reference to a Post Office I was reminded of another Brown County history book, History And Families
