To the north sprawls the Hotel Nashville. Toward Bloomington, there is a ski lodge, and in the bottoms toward Columbus, a new golf course. There are two country-music halls. Such areas are not immune to change, either, though the clay soil and rocky terrain are inhospitable to septic systems and dense construction, despite piped-in water. Something there is about Brown County that likes a story.
Mysteries hug the hollows like ghostly fogs at moonlight.
Investigators discovered 500 oil paintings, most by Humpal himself. He survives-as does the mystery about how he, a former engraver for the Chicago Tribune, produced such a treasure trove. It's a refuge, a place to be, without too many questions being asked. A Bloomington native, Temple first came here with his parents in the early '50s. My parents would drag me over to the Brown County Playhouse to see country melodramas.