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NOBLE/LAGRANGE BICENTENNIAL
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016
Traveling the historic Lima Plank Road (Editor’s note: This is from The News Sun files of the late columnist and Noble County historian Bob Gagen.) Lack of adequate transportation for pioneer settlers and their supplies and produce was a significant handicap to the advance of the American frontier in the first half of the 19th century. To none was that more apparent than to the trickle of new arrivals that made their homes in northeastern Indiana during that time. In 1836, at the urging of then-Gov. Noah Noble and other enterprising types at the forefront of new settlement and development, the state passed a ‘‘mammoth’’ internal improvements bill. It was intended to stimulate trade by construction of a network of canals and new and improved roads. Transportation routes in those early times included trails, both of Indians and early settlers, wagon roads, stage lines, plank roads and,
finally, railroads. Among the most ambitious of these prior to the first railroad entering Fort Wayne in 1854 was the Lima Plank Road. In 1843, Judge Samuel Hanna, enterprising Fort Wayne capitalist and judicial figure, chaired a meeting at which interest was shown in constructing new roads to connect Fort Wayne, the area’s center of commerce, to such promising outlying towns as Lima, Goshen, Yellow River, Kendallville, Piqua and Van Wert, Ohio, Winchester and Huntington. As a result, an improved road of sorts was put through from Fort Wayne to Kendallville and then straight north to Milford and Union Mills (Mongo) in LaGrange County, and then west to Ontario — so called because many of its early settlers were from Ontario County in western New York. About 1847, another group of entrepreneurs, including John Mitchell of Kendallville, organized the Fort Wayne & Lima
Turnpike Road that would transform the old road into a plank road. It would consist of 3-year-old oak planks laid down on sills at right angles to the road. This work was done in 1847-49 with toll gates established six to 10 miles apart along the route. A few small dividends were paid, but income did not meet maintenance and operating costs and the route was turned over to the Noble County Commissioners, who abandoned it. As Samuel Alvord, later Noble County historian and officeholder, wondered while trudging from Fort Wayne to Northport (Rome City) in 1849, ‘‘how such a road through such a region could be profitable.’’ Passing through Huntertown, LaOtto, Swan, Avilla and Lisbon, some of its signposts still reading Lima Road, it ends at U.S. 6 in Kendallville. There it becomes Angling Road and its 16-mile northward route winds along the same right of way, as
did the Lima Plank Road of some 158 years ago. It should be noted that Lima was designated as the road’s northern terminus because from 1832 to 1844 it was the LaGrange County seat. While that capital was later moved to LaGrange, the plank road never went any further than Ontario, three miles east of Lima (now Howe). In any event, wondering how time has dealt with the 16-mile stretch of the former Lima Plank, my daughter Sarah and I followed its course one recent cloudy day. Making way around and through the road construction disarray at U.S. 6 and S.R. 3, we turned onto Angling Road at the site of the former C.P. Waterhouse mansion. From there it follows modest curves through gently rolling hills — the most prominent of which is just east of Latta Lake — to the Northport Road turnoff for those taking the back way to Rome City. From there the next few
miles, crops far outnumber dwellings and at the county line the road bends slightly around what once were marshy areas at Nauvoo Lake (where two Mormon families were said to reside before moving westward) and Tamarack Lake. In the 1850s, its swampy shores harbored the blacklegs and counterfeiters who plagued the area before being brought to justice by the Regulators. Upon entering LaGrange County the road became rougher. We found ourselves in a light fog while continuing through Woodruff, formerly Wright’s Corners, and along the east shore of Adams Lake, lined with many substantial new cottages, although that term hardly seems to fit their opulence. U.S. 20 is crossed at Plato, whose name replaced Hill’s Corners for some reason unknown to us. In the final few miles before reaching Ontario, a number of mostly tidy Amish homesteads and
farms are evident. The best was saved for last — Ontario, the plank road’s final destination. At its center are still discernible vestiges of a village green with a weatherbeaten wooden sign reading ‘‘Welcome to Ontario Park — Founded in 1837.’’ And the opposite corner of the park’s open space looms the 153-year-old classic Greek revival frame church with three 36-pane windows on either side and a modest steeple. On the park’s south side is a two-story well-maintained 1885 brick schoolhouse converted to apartments. To the north the surging Pigeon River flows over a dam where once races were diverted to power flourishing woolen and flower mills. A 1937 plat of Lima Township shows Calumet Gas & Electric as owner of riverside property above the dam, indicating that perhaps hydroelectric power in modest amounts was generated there.
1960s: Highways connect Indiana to the nation BY LEE SAUER
Indiana’s position between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, and its crossroads location between destinations east and west, made one fact abundantly clear: Roads are important. With the advent of the automobile, that importance revved up exponentially. *** In 1811, with states rapidly joining the Union in the “West,” America began work on the first federally funded highway — the National Road. Planners intended this highway to stretch from the East Coast to the Mississippi River. By 1834, workers completed the portion of the National Road across the Hoosier state. It ran through Indianapolis and Terre Haute. The road used new technology: macadamization, named for Scottish inventor John MacAdam. Workers macadamized a road by carefully shoveling rocks of specific sizes to predetermined depths. After the Panic of 1837, Congress pulled funding for the project, so it never quite made it to the Mississippi. Today, U.S. 40 follows the path of the old National Road. *** Around 1826, Indiana began work on a north-south highway: The Michigan Road. Although mandated by the state, construction of the road fell to county governments. The state authorized counties to draft local labor. In the same way Indiana expects citizens to pay taxes today, early in its history, the state expected citizens to provide labor for public projects. Then, as now, some Hoosiers steadfastly refused any imposition by government. Because of its disjointed work force, construction of
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.
the Michigan Road went in fits and starts — and parts were never completed. Today, the path of the Michigan Road is followed by several Hoosier highways, including State Roads 29, 25 and U.S. 31. *** Carl G. Fisher of Indianapolis was a promoter. To bring attention to his and his brothers’ bicycle shop, he dropped a bike from a building. The stunt gained plenty of notice: From police. Later, to advertise his auto dealership, Fisher flew a hot-air balloon with a car dangling beneath over downtown Indianapolis. Fisher invested in auto racing. The first Indianapolis
500 at the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place in 1909. But organizers stopped the race halfway through. Why? Too many crashes. Instead of giving up, Fisher convinced his fellow investors to pave the track. From material used, the speedway gained a nickname: The Brickyard. *** Fisher next turned his skills to building a transcontinental highway. He named the road after the president who signed the order for America’s first transcontinental railway. The Lincoln Highway. At the time, paved roads ended at each town’s border. Maintenance of country 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.
fell to the folks who lived along them. Many states passed laws prohibiting use of public funds for roads. So Fisher and associates raised private funds. Each significant contribution warranted a press release: money from famous Americans, such as Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt and President Woodrow Wilson; or 14 pennies from native children in Alaska. Workers completed the first section of the highway in 1913. (The 1928 segment of the Lincoln Highway that runs through Indiana now follows U.S. 30, but a portion of the 1913 route can be traced on U.S. 33, passing through Ligonier and Elkhart.) In 1919, a U.S. Army convoy started from the White
House on a well publicized cross-country convoy to San Francisco. The trip took 56 days, at an average speed of 5.65 miles per hour. Among the nearly 300 Army convoy personnel: Brevet Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower. *** As president, Eisenhower remembered the 1919 convoy. He also remembered how Germany moved military equipment quickly on its autobahn system during World War II. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which created an interstate highway system. That same year, the Hoosier state completed the Indiana Toll Road. Today, the Toll Road is known as
Interstate 80/90 and has been incorporated into the interstate system. With renaming, renumbering and rerouting over the years, original highways have been lost. But I-80 is America’s transcontinental highway that most closely follows the route of the Lincoln Highway. *** The portion of Interstate 69 that links Indianapolis with Michigan was completed in 1971. As part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), I-69 will eventually be transcontinental — connecting Mexico and Canada. But funding has been withheld, and progress on completing I-69 remains slow.
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