The Coolidge examiner., 1937-05-06
Prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington, d. C.-WNU Service.


r INDIANA is the sum of its parts.
Yet how they differ! Streams
of planes, trains, motorcars,
trucks, and buses whizzing
back and forth across its north and
central parts; yet how little travel,
by comparison, in the south.
In that industrial region on Lake
Michigan which is not Indiana at
all but a prolongation of Chicago.
nothing but smoke, noise, and NOV
ing crowds.
In the south, a serene, unhurried
people whose ancestors f1oated down
the Ohio in flatboats, came from the
Carolinas and Kentucky on horse
back, bringing rides, axes, spinning
wheels.
Look down, in fancy, from drift
ing blirnp; imagine that here and
there, painted on the grounds in
huge, white letters, are signboards
on which you may read about the
audacious men whose adventures
made Indiana.
Near South Bend, La Sale
campe'' in 1879. At Vincennes, a
century later, George Rogers Clark
gained for us the whole Northwest
Territory.
That tall shaft of Pigeon Roost
Memorial shows where, in 1872,
Indians slew a whole white settle
ment.
East of Evansville, at Lincoln
City, is the monument to Lincoln S
mother, Nancy Hanks, and the boy
hood home where her son Abe split
rails.
Along the Wabash-the Ouabache
of old-are strewn the sites of
French fur-trade posts, built in the
early 1700's. North of Lafayette,
the Tippecanoe battlefield, where
Harrison d e fe t e d Tecumseh'S S
brother; and, just out Of Kokomo,
a monument to Elwood Haynes, who
in 1894 launched one of Americas S
first "horseless carriages" on the
now historic "Pumpkinvine Pike"
In fact and fancy you may see
still other markers, showing the
homes of such famous Hoosiers as
James Whitcomb Riley, Benjamin
Harrison, John Hay, Lew Wallace.
Joaquin Miller, Booth Harrington,
Albert J. Beveridge, George AIDE,
Theodore Dresser. Charles Major,
John T. McCutcheon, Meredith
Nicholson, and Wilbur Wright; and,
up among the scenic lakes of north
east Indiana, in the "LimberloSt'
region, that rustic, tree-Shaded log
house home of Gene Stratton Porter.
Story Is Shown on Carter's Map.
It sounds fantastic, the idea OF
floating over a state and reading its
life story on giant signboards. Yet,
in a vicarious way, you can do it,
for there exists pictorial map,
drawn by Lee Carter and published
bv the state conservation depart
ment, which shows in graphic de-
tail much that has happened here
since Father Marquette saw north
ern Indiana in the 1600's. This map
vas our guide over some $500 miles
of Hoosier highways and byways.
"On the Banks of the Wabash is
the state song. 1t ought to be; down
the Wabash came the French, first
whites to settle in Indiana; this
stream formed part Of their long
route from Quebec to Louisiana.
At Terre Haute you see street
crowd watching a tricky machine
turn dough into doughnuts, instan-
taneously. 1t is har to believe that
in the pioneer days country folks
didn't even have matches; if they
let their fires go out, they had to
ride over to the neighbors' and bor-
row some live Goals.
The sight of girls picking long,
green, Warty cucumbers out of the
air lures you into a 35-acre steam
heated glass house. Inside it smells
and feels just like Manila in the
rainy season, hot and sticky. A
bugs paradise! Swarms of bees
are kept, purposely, to pollinate the
cucumber blossoms. Not on the
ground, but high up overhead like
grapes on a trellis hung the cucum.
bers Perspiring blonds and bru.
nettes reached up with long
tools and clipped them off.
Elks' Country Club house, facing
the Wabash, stands where Zachary
Taylor whipped the Indians in 1912.
Parallel with the river is the aban.
doned Wabash and Erie canal, its
grass-grown towpath still visible.
An Englishman-a b out 1843-
wrote of a canal trip from here to
Ohio. It was hot, he said. All day