There’s a song of the open road in Indiana — part rasping crickets, part country music; steamboat whistles, jingling horse reins, thumping basketballs, and calls of insistent blue jays. You can hear those rhythms and a lot more on drives through the Hoosier state. Let’s explore a couple of possibilities.
PRAIRIE BOUND
South of Lafayette, U.S. Highway 231 courses like an arrow across the grand prairie. It’s a drive of sweeping vistas and big skies, punctuated by three picturesque college towns — Lafayette, Crawfordsville and Greencastle.
Crossing the Indiana state line on Interstate 80/90, proceed east to Interstate 65 South at Gary. Drive south 100 miles on Interstate Highway 65 to West Lafayette. But consider a short detour before reaching West Lafayette and Lafayette, its neighbor across the Wabash River. The detour is a trip to Tippecanoe Battlefield, about 10 miles north of West Lafayette. Exit 178 and head south on Indiana Highway 43.
In 1811, 600 Indian warriors, seeking to protect nearby Prophetstown, the capital of Shawnee leader Tecumseh’s Indian Confederacy, attacked Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison’s invading army. A 92-foot obelisk at the Tippecanoe Battlefield honors the inconclusive battle. There’s also a museum. Prophetstown State Park is nearby.
After visiting the battlefield, continue south on Indiana 43 into West Lafayette, home of Purdue University. Founded in 1869 as an agricultural college, it has evolved into a world-class institution, with a strength in engineering. In 1937, Purdue faculty member Amelia Earhart took off from the Purdue Airport in a Purdue-financed Lockheed Electra for her fateful round-the-world trip.
NASA has selected more than two dozen Purdue graduates for space flight, Gus Grissom being the first. So, to many, the university is known as the “Mother of Astronauts.” The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, was a Boilermaker, as was the last, Eugene Cernan.
Proceed south on U.S. 231 from Lafayette’s handsome courthouse square. The small railroad town of Linden is 15 miles across the prairie. Sitting beside the mainline of the old Monon and Nickel Plate line, a 1907 depot houses the Linden Railroad Museum and a collection of railroadiana, including a gleaming red Nickel Plate Caboose.
Five miles west of Linden, the small town of New Richmond gained fame as “Hickory,” the set for the movie “Hoosiers,” which celebrated Indiana’s early 1950s basketball obsession. Today, a faded sign on an old brick building still promises a fine selection of buggies and harnesses, and a blue watertower overlooks the grain elevator.
Return to U.S. 231 and drive south nine miles to Crawfordsville. The deeply incised Sugar Creek valley runs just north of the town.
Crawfordsville’s Wabash College is a New England-flavored liberal arts college founded in the 1830s. While only 850 men attend the school, it ranks 16th in the nation for graduates going on to earn Ph.D. degrees. Major Gen. Lew Wallace, war hero, diplomat and author of Ben Hur, America’s best-selling 19th-Century novel, was a renowned local. The Lew Wallace Library and Ben Hur Museum is a unique 1896 brick cube incorporating, in no particular order, Byzantine, Greek, Roman, Turkish and Art Nouveau motifs and styles. The library is located in the Elston Grove National Register of Historic Places neighborhood with architecture dating to the 1830s.
The Old Jail Museum features a remarkable 1882 rotary jail, a pie-shaped double-decker cell block that rotates to a single opening on each floor. The jail is the nation’s only operable spinning hoosegow.
Worth a detour about 25 miles southwest of Crawfordsville on Indiana Highway 47 is picturesque Turkey Run State Park, where cabins can be rented. You’re in Parke County, known for its covered bridges. The annual Covered Bridge Festival is Oct. 8-17.
From Turkey Run, take Indiana 47 west to U.S. 41 for a visit to turn-of-the-century Billie Creek Village. Go south on 41 to U.S. Highway 36, then east to 231 and into Greencastle, home of Depauw University. The liberal arts school, founded by Methodists in 1837, is south of the square. Among its alumni is former Vice President Dan Quayle.
To return to Chicago, proceed 7 miles south on U.S. 231 to Interstate Highway 70 East. Drive 30 miles to Interstate Highway 465 North and proceed to Interstate 65 North which returns to Interstate 80/90 at Gary.
For more information:
Greater Lafayette Convention and Visitors Bureau, 301 Frontage Rd., Lafayette, IN 47905; 800-872-6648.
Crawfordsville: Montgomery County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 412 E. Main St., Crawfordsville, IN 47933; 800-866-3973.
Turkey Run: Parke County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 401 E. Ohio St., Rockville, IN 47872, 765-569-5226.
Greencastle: Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 2 S. Jackson St., Greencastle, IN 46135, 800-82W-INDY.
ARCHITECTURAL TREASURES
Southern Indiana has extraordinary collections of period architecture, from the Federal and Greek Revival treasury along the Ohio River to the modernist showcase of Columbus. The drive will explore Columbus and the historic architectural jewels along the Ohio River Scenic Byway.
Proceed east from Chicago on Interstate 80/90 to Interstate 65 South at Gary. Drive south 205 miles on Interstate 65 to Columbus.
Since the 1940s, Columbus has engaged in a remarkable experiment in modern living, hiring the best international architects to design public buildings and meld them into the fabric of the 19th-Century town. In this small city of 35,000, there are more than 50 buildings that represent the honor roll of modern architects. The American Institute of Architects named Columbus as the sixth most architecturally significant city in the U. S., behind only New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington. The Visitors Center offers a great guided tour.
Proceed south 42 miles on Indiana Highway 7 through the rolling hills of southern Indiana to Madison along the old Michigan Road, the first route connecting the busy pioneer-era Ohio River with the Great Lakes.
Architectural critics call Madison “the Williamsburg of the West.” Founded in 1810, Madison was already the state’s largest town when statehood arrived in 1816.
The town blossomed as the hub of a transportation network linking the Ohio River steamships with the rapidly developing hinterland. Banks, mansions, stores and stately churches rose where only wilderness existed a few decades before. The commercial possibilities of the West drew gentry from refined Eastern Seaboard cities like Newport and Baltimore, attracting not only their business skills but also their taste for fine things and the latest styles of architecture.
The result is Madison today, a national treasury of Federal and Classical Revival architecture. The 133 blocks of the National Historic District are an extraordinary ensemble of Greek Revival, Federal, Italianate, Queen Anne.
Several historic homes are open for tours, including the 1844 James F.D. Lanier Mansion, considered the finest house on the Ohio.
Proceed east on Indiana Highway 56 following the Ohio River Scenic Route, part of the U.S. Scenic Byway program that recognizes highways having exceptional historic, cultural and scenic attributes.
Vevay, a beautiful old French-Swiss winemaking town, is 17 miles east. In 1802 French-Swiss entrepreneur John James Dufour petitioned Congress for a land grant at Vevay to grow grapes and disseminate wine knowledge.
Dufour’s 10,000 vines became the first commercially successful vineyard in the country, causing such a stir that Napoleon sent an emissary to check it out. By the mid-19th Century, more than 30,000 acres of grapes were in production on Indiana’s Ohio River shore.
Proceed east 28 miles through some of the state’s loveliest vistas to the tiny county seat of Rising Sun. Until a 1980s restoration, the 1845 Greek Revival courthouse’s outside staircase was the only route to the second-floor courtroom, forcing generations of barristers into the elements to plead their cases.
The Ohio County Historical Society Museum has a collection of quilts, farm implements, music machines, speedboats and Smith Riggs’ pride and joy. Smith Riggs was a local blacksmith who invented the first modern electric chair, improving the comfort of the chair for the intended users, though probably without much customer satisfaction.
Nine miles north on Indiana 56, Aurora is another early 19th-Century port town with rows of historic homes and buildings. The crown jewel of Aurora is the grand Hillforest House. With a semi-circular front and a rooftop cupola resembling a steamboat pilot house, Hillforest looks like an enormous steamboat that somehow ran aground high on the hillside.
Two miles east, Lawrenceburg was a favorite port of call in the steamboat era with Gamblers’ Row, a vice district famous from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Lawrenceburg is still a remarkable example of a 19th-Century mercantile center. The entire downtown district is on the National Register of Historic Places, with at least 30 significant early 19th-Century buildings.
To return to Chicago, drive east on U.S. Highway 50 to Interstate Highway 275 North and proceed to Interstate Highway 74 North to Interstate 465 at Indianapolis. Take Interstate 465 West to Interstate 65 North, which returns to Interstate 80/90 at Gary. Take Interstate 80/90 to Chicago.
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For more information:
Columbus Area Visitors Center, 5th and Franklin Streets, Columbus, IN 47202; 800-468-6564.
Ohio River Scenic Route Inc., University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville IN 47712; 800-489-4474.
Madison Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, 301 E. Main St., Madison, IN 47250; 800-559-2956.
Vevay: Switzerland County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 209 Ferry Street Vevay, IN 47043, 800-HELLO VV.
Rising Sun/Ohio County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 218 S. Walnut St., Rising Sun, IN 47040, 88-RSNG-SUN.
Lawrenceburg: Dearborn County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 790 Rudolph Way, P.O. Box 344, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025, 800-322-8198.
