Jessica Nunemaker - Little Indiana: Small Town Destinations

This book is a publication of

Quarry Books
an imprint of

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

2016 by Jessica Nunemaker
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481992.

Manufactured in China

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nunemaker, Jessica.
Little Indiana : small town destinations / Jessica Nunemaker.
pages cm
Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-253-02061-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-253-02070-3 (ebook) 1. IndianaGuidebooks. 2. Cities and townsIndianaGuidebooks. 3. IndianaDescription and travel. 4. IndianaHistory, Local. I. Title.
F524.3.N86 2016
977.2dc23

2015034021

1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16

For Jeremiah, Joey, and Jack.
Heres to hours more car time,
my awesome parking ability,
made up songs,
Babys Butter,
and a whole lot of laughs!

For my Dad,
Richard Holobowski,
the original little Indiana.

It began with sirens. Our first December in our small town had so far been a typical Indiana winter: bleak. We were just getting ready to sit down for dinner when sirens started wailing. They sounded so close. My husband decided that he would hurry out and see what he could do to help because they droned on and on. He rushed out the door and burst almost right back in, yelling, Get your coats on! You arent going to believe this, but theres a Christmas parade down the street!

Christmas lights twinkled in storefronts. Color-guard flags rippled in time to the marching band music. Teens driving red or green tractors threw out candy, while bundled-up folks followed alongside floats passing out candy canes. Even Santa was there. All this holiday cheer was happening a mere block and a half from our homeand we had no idea. That got me thinking. If we didnt know about the parade, and we lived right in town, then how many other people didnt know?

After walking through a crumbling opera house where James Whitcomb Riley once took to the stage, somewhere I had never even heard about yet I lived less than an hour away from, I knew I had a good thing going. After a few trips, I began to see a recurring theme: every small town had something. Whether it was a winery, chocolate shop, pioneer cemetery, or other attraction, these little communities had all the appeal of the big-city stops but without the high prices, traffic, or anonymity. Customers werent just people to hurry out the door but opportunities to socially connect and pass along the latest town news. Its the kind of places where one dollar can still (amazingly) buy a cup of coffee, kids ride their bikes down Main Street, and folks sit on their front-porch swing most evenings.

It took more than a year to fine-tune the idea. The website went live in 2009, eleven days before the birth of our second son. After visiting so many towns, after speaking with so many people, and reading e-mail after e-mail from online readers or television viewers asking for help planning trips, a book seemed the next natural step. The majority of travel guides focus on cities, or when they actually include small towns, its the same small towns and same recognizable landmarks used in every other print publication. Little Indiana is different. I have traveled to each and every one of these destinations. Knowing, as I do, that some of you are trying to follow along in my travels, a handy checklist (with contact information) is included to make your travels that much easier. There is no scheduled itinerary. Part of the fun of small-town traveling is discovering the unexpected and incorporating it into your day. During our travels, some of our happiest memories were made because we ditched our schedule and embraced the accidental. Always remember to call ahead, carry some cash, and learn to go with the small-town flow.

Events, festivals, and the everyday: there are so many incredible things inside these towns. Please do not consider an omission a lack of interest. As a one-woman show (with family in tow), I have tried to seek out a healthy range of towns that are fifteen thousand people or fewer but have certainly not visited all three thousand of them... at least not yet. They are a reflection of what we have seen and done. Do not take it as a final answer but as the base of a small town, the starting point. My must travel list is brimming with plenty more Id like to tackle.

Although I originally saw Little Indiana as a sort of small-town travel guide, I learned that it has an audience reaching far more than travelers. Hoosiers, displaced Hoosiers, and even soldiers serving overseas have turned to the website to connect with home, to remember childhoods, to savor a memory, and to make new ones.

Little Indiana captures these small towns for a moment in time. Everything that a town isthe restaurants, museums, and bridgesis captured, cherished, and preserved right here. I hope this book will inspire you to venture off the interstate, explore your own backyard, see what is out there, and fall in love with Indiana all over again.

Since 2009 Little Indiana has been exploring. That kind of travel is made so much easier with the help of folks who know their stuff. From reader e-mails to social media connections and random chats on the street, thank you for sharing your small-town story with me.

With years of traveling Indiana behind me, there are a multitude of people more than deserving of a little recognition, like all of the small business owners who opened their doors to me and my camera, especially in the early days before the site had any readers. Thank you to the crew, hosts, and fabulous producer, Sarah Curtiss, of The Weekly Special for providing Little Indiana with another outlet to spread the shop-small message. Thanks to Laura Baich, electronic marketing manager at Indiana University Press, for setting things in motion, and Sarah Jacobi, my sponsoring editor, and Michelle Sybert for taking on this project. I apologize now for the barrage of questions to come.

These pieces of Indiana history are common knowledge... in the towns where it happened. Years of visiting town museums have provided plenty of fodder (when I could read my handwriting), and the historians behind the museums in this book are so incredibly capable. I am especially grateful to Jayne Beers of the Clay Township Historical Society Museum, Jerry Cole of Historic Farmland, Susan Cottingham of the Osgood Museum, Brandi Hess at the Perry County Museum, Roselyn McKittrick at the Milan 1954 Hoosiers Museum, and Mark Allen Smith, the Delphi/Carroll County historian who wears many hats. Youve instilled a love of history in our children in addition to showcasing your towns past so wonderfully.