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. 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

Brown County, Indiana 1836-1990 that had a chapter about postal services in the county.

Early on, if you wanted to get your mail, you had to travel to the Post Office in Nashville. Then, after a few years, township Post Offices were established, one for each of the five townships.

By the end of the nineteenth century Post Offices were set up in most villages and communities. So, folks living back in the hills only had to travel a few miles at most to pick up their mail or post a letter. This made the mail service much more viable.

I discovered that the Post Office at Youno was established in 1903 and closed in 1921. This information explained why I couldn’t locate it on any maps or find mention in early history books. Without a Post Office, the village of Youno did not officially exist.

It is also interesting to note that Youno was situated in Johnson Township but Johnson Township was absorbed into Washington Township in 1966 and itself ceased to exist.

Reading, what little there was written, about Youno only intensified my itch to know more and so, one warm morning I jumped in my trusty pickup and set off for southern Brown County.

As best I could figure, the way to get to Youno was a route that started on T. C. Steele Road and continued down Crooked Creek Road and eventually to the area I was looking for, so I set out that way. After traveling south and east for quite a while I noticed that the sun had changed position and was now on my left side.

It was about this time that I realized that I was headed north and not much longer after that I came to the junction of Highway 46. It was one of those situations where you discover that you can’t get there from here.

I headed on into Nashville to recalculate the route. I came to the conclusion that somebody had sited a large lake directly in my path. The only alternate route that I could think of went south down Highway 135 and through Story.

Getting to Story is no big deal but once you’re through Story, well, that’s different story. The road was still paved but it was paved with potholes. After a few miles I got to where a sign announced “Gravel Creek,” and a little further on the road turned to gravel. It was an improvement.

I kept on traveling and came to the “Nebo Ridge Trailhead” after which the road took an abrupt right-hand-vertical hairpin turn up a steep hill. The road had been graveled but appeared to have been smoothed down with a Sherman tank.

When I got to the top of the hill there was no place to go but down. The road smoothed out in the valley and I came across a memorial marker for the families who were displaced from Elkinsville when Lake Monroe was created. That reminded me that Youno was situated just a few miles from Elkinsville.

Heartened by what I believed to be the near proximity of my goal, I continued on for a few more miles. And there it was, the dead end of the road. So, even though I was close, I did not find the lost community that I was seeking.

But then again, it’s hard to find a place that doesn’t exist—if Youno what I mean.