While roaming Facebook the past few days, I have noticed an uptick in requests for information about the interurbans, especially around Indianapolis. Today, I have decided to do a recap of all the posts that I have done to cover anything interurban related.

I will admit, up front, that I didn’t know much about the interurbans when I started my journey into Indiana Transportation History. All I could tell you was that there were roads on the south side of Indianapolis named after the “trolley,” as it was told to me. More research into this led me to two things: one, the “trolley” was different than what I had always thought of as trolleys, aka street cars, and two, not just the “Stop” roads are named because of the interurban. The road I live off of on the east side of the city is also named after an interurban stop, named after the landmark on the corner…German Church.

But I did the research, and come up with (what I thought might be) interesting information about a lot of them. Below are descriptions of the 17 (!!!!) articles that I have written that cover this very fascinating, yet very short, period in history where electric locomotion existed in Indiana. Of course, this was much to the chagrin of the steam railroads, which, too, would lose in the end.

The interurban line that I ended up covering first was also the last into Indianapolis. In the article “The First and Last Interurban Out of Indianapolis,” I wrote about the first electric traction into the Hoosier capitol…and the accident that ended it 41 years later.

At one point, every interurban line in Indianapolis came under the operation of a single company, the Indiana Railroad of 1930. Most of the lines came under the ownership of one man. That didn’t last long as the Indiana Railroad started shedding lines as fast as it could.

In “Indianapolis and the Interurban,” I covered a question that comes up quite a bit when discussing electric traction: where does the interurban begin? I covered where stop 1 was on the traction lines, and a few others.

One of the first lines to be removed was the Greenfield Line, connecting Indianapolis to Richmond, and through connections at Richmond, to almost all of the state of Ohio through Dayton. “End of the (Traction) Line in Greenfield” covers the end of that line and the reroute that was planned to keep the dying service running.

And that reroute was to take place on the “Indianapolis-New Castle Traction,” or Honey Bee line. The line was part of discussions about becoming a new state road directly to the Henry County seat. But, legal issues got in the way. Today, the right of way is abandoned by both the interurban and the steam railroad with which it shared space.

Even today, almost 70 years after the last interurban ran in Indianapolis, there are still spots on maps where one can see traces of the electric traction companies and routes that are so long gone. I covered this in “Marion County Interurbans, and Their Remaining Property Lines.”

Not out of Indianapolis, but an interurban nonetheless, the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad is the last vestige of electric traction in Indiana. Although it is considered a “regular” railroad today, it started life as an electric railway in the interurban era of the early 1900’s.

I circled around to the “Interstate Public Service” company, known as the Greenwood line. This time, instead of what killed the line, I covered how it started in more detail. And the part of that line that still exists as an operating company today.

Running an interurban wasn’t as easy as laying tracks and running trains. Especially in cities like Indianapolis that wanted to ensure that the streets would remain in good shape, and the city could make a little bit of cash from the deal. “Street Car and Electric Traction Franchises” describes how that worked and why.

I wrote a series of articles that covered some of the traction lines individually: Martinsville Traction; Danville Traction; Lebanon Traction; and Beech Grove Traction.

Most everyone that has done any research at all on interurbans in Indianapolis knows about the world’s largest interurban station, the Indianapolis Traction Terminal on Market Street. But before it was built, the interurbans stopped on street corners, as covered in my article “1904: Interurbans before the Traction Terminal.”

I also spent a day writing about “Fort Wayne Electric Traction Options.” Five companies in Indiana’s second largest city, and one connected to Indianapolis.

A general history of the interurbans, especially from a Terre Haute perspective. “Interurbans, Part 1” and “Interurbans, Part 2” cover this history. You ask why Terre Haute? Technically, in the end, most of the lines in and out of Indianapolis, and the city street car company, were actually owned by the Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern Traction Company.

What a very strange world we live in when it comes to railroad companies. The title of this entry may seem, to those that know railroad ownership, to be almost a no brainer. After all, through several ownership changes, the Monon and the B&O are the same company. Technically. At least they are under the same umbrella as CSX. But that is not the point of this blog entry.

Railroad company mergers have been happening as long as there have been railroad companies. The current behemoths of CSX and Norfolk Southern are basically collections of consolidations being made for over a century. One of my most favorite consolidations that wasn’t, and ended up being, is the whole split up of Conrail between CSX and Norfolk Southern. In the 1960’s, two major components that would become part of Conrail were trying anything they could think of to survive. It was the plan for the New York Central to merge with the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Pennsylvania to merge with the Norfolk & Western. This failed government scrutiny, and ended up with the disaster that was the Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company – or Penn Central. Along comes the split up of Conrail, and anything going to CSX (the “C” does stand for “Chessie,” from the Chesapeake & Ohio) was marked “NYC.” The Norfolk Southern’s marked equipment read “PRR.”

But back to the Monon. The Transportation Act of 1920 included a provision which allowed the United States Congress to combine railroads into a limited number of systems. The major truck lines would take over smaller roads. The Interstate Commerce Commission, controller of all that was federal government policy when it came to railroads, was looking into this plan to keep the number of railroad company failures down. Needless to say, the plan would work…but not for another 50 years.

One of the smaller roads that would be grouped into the bigger railroad trunk plan was to be the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville, known to most as the Monon. At the time, the Monon was actually controlled, through stock ownership, by the Southern Railway and the Louisville & Nashville. The Monon, however, “seems to be of little use to the Louisville & Nashville, which exchanges Chicago business primarily at Evansville.” (Source: Munster Times, 6 June 1929)

The B&O suffered from a regional problem. The Interstate Commerce Commission was looking for a way to expand its reach. “The problem with the Baltimore and Ohio, therefore, is to incorporate with it other properties which shall let it into New York and into good traffic-originating eastern territory and shall also extend its mileage to the Michigan peninsula and ferries and out across Indiana and Illinois through Chicago with trans-Mississippi systems.”

Part of this goal was accomplished when the Cincinnati, Indianapolis & Western Railroad was acquired by the Baltimore & Ohio. But the inclusion of the Monon would have made teh B&O stronger in the Indiana realm.

It should be noted that all this talk about railroad mergers at the time stems from an Interstate Commerce Commission study completed by Professor W. Z. Ripley of Harvard University. It was his recommendation that the Monon be consolidated into the Baltimore & Ohio. The ICC went along with that plan, as they did many others made in the report.

Part of the argument for the (not to happen) merger is that the Monon has for more than 30 years “maintained a joint through service with the Baltimore & Ohio between Cincinnati and Chicago, and with no other company, so far as I know, has the Monon ever maintained joint service anywhere.”

The Presidents of the railroads, Daniel Willard of the B&O and H. R. Kurrie of the Monon, were of differing opinions of the recommendation. The latter had made a speech about the plan, not coming out for the recommendation. After the latter’s speech, the former came out with a speech defending the plan. Part of the idea is that the Monon would fit better with the B&O with its location north of the Ohio River.

Mr. Willard pointed out that one of the arguments against the merger would be the “state of Indiana being injured.” That argument, Willard said, didn’t hold water in that the B&O spent $10 million a year in Indiana alone, as opposed to the $4 million spent by the Monon.

It was also mentioned that if the merger would go through, the yards at Indianapolis would most likely transfer most of the work to either Lafayette or Bloomington. The fear that traffic would be routed away from the Monon were put at ease by Mr. Willard, pointing out that the route between Cincinnati and Chicago via the Monon is 72 miles shorter than using the B&O between the two cities.

In the end, the ICC plan didn’t happen. At least not the way it was envisioned in the 1920’s. Instead of systems that were centered in the south, north, east and west of the United States, the Monon would fall under the sway of the Louisville & Nashville, ultimately making it a “southern” railroad. The Baltimore & Ohio would become part of the Chessie System, a “northern” railroad. Both would become part of CSX, a consolidation of a northern and southern railroad into an Eastern railroad.

When the railroads started being built in Indiana, it was determined that the railroad companies would be able to get a lot more done if they were just given eminent domain over the routes that the coming railroads would be built on. This is not a justification or a condemnation of the whole concept of eminent domain. This is a view at what happens in the end…and the strange effects such an end of a railroad would have almost 30 years after the railroad was ripped up.

In Indiana, if an entity pulls out the eminent domain card to purchase property for some reason, like the building of a road or railroad, the entity that used the process doesn’t own the property in perpetuity. The railroad, for instance, owns the land until the railroad doesn’t exist anymore. In the case of abandoning a railroad, the property reverts to the person or persons that would have had legal title to that land today…from deeds processed at the time of the eminent domain purchase.

This was one of the sticking points when it came to the Nickel Plate through Fishers and Noblesville. If the tracks were straight up abandoned, the cities of Fishers and Noblesville, as well as Hamilton County, would have to purchase the land from all of the individual landowners that have crept up along side the railroad. You might be asking “how does that work when the railroad was built through farm fields?” Well, when any property is subdivided in Indiana, the lines of that subdivision are marked very well in the description of the property. The property deeds do make an allowance for the railroad running through the property…not on the edge of it.

Fishers and Noblesville got around this by something called “railbanking.” The railroad wasn’t “abandoned,” per se. It is just being ripped up. And in case it is ever needed again, rails can just be put back onto the right-of-way and rail service can begin again. I refuse to give my opinion as to whether that would ever happen…but legally, it can.

But what happens when the railroad is flat out abandoned. That is the subject of this entry into the annuls of Indiana Transportation History. The Pennsylvania Railroad, via the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway (the “Panhandle”), owned a railroad line connecting Indianapolis to Richmond, Columbus (Ohio), and Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania). It started life as part of the Terre Haute and Richmond, a route that would technically never be built. The railroad was built parallel to the National Road, in Marion County averaging about .1 to .15 miles south of Washington Street.

But that railroad was also abandoned in 1984 by the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). As such, most of the property reverted to the landowners on either side of the right-of-way. And this, in itself, has led to some interesting land issues when it comes to the Indianapolis Department of Parks & Recreation in their mission to create the Pennsy Trail from basically Emerson Avenue east to Cumberland, which currently has a section of trail called “Pennsy Trail.”

The City of Indianapolis announced publicly, I believe it was the 23rd or 24th of April, 2020, that Indy Parks is planning on completing the Pennsy Trail in two sections – one from German Church Road west to Post Road, and the other from Post Road west to Shortridge Road. It is the first section that got me to thinking about this entry.

At German Church Road, the old Pennsy right-of-way going east is being used by the driveway going to Meijer. The Cumberland version of the Pennsy Trail runs just south of the old track area. (This is marked on German Church Road by the hump that used to be the railroad tracks that still exists.) To the west of German Church Road, it is a private driveway to a residence that exists behind the WalMart on Washington Street. When the railroad existed, the farm property had a driveway connecting to Washington Street (currently being used as the entrance to the shopping areas located between the Steak ‘n’ Shake and Little Ceasar’s/Game Stop/Sprint).

When the WalMart was built, the railroad tracks were gone. But the driveway was still there. Expansion of the WalMart caused the driveway to be truncated…and the entrance to the property was routed along the old Pennsy right-of-way. Due to construction of residential neighborhoods south of the property, one including where this blog is written, the land in question finds itself with only one method of egress…and that has been purchased by the Parks & Recreation Department of the City of Indianapolis. Where the land owner is going to get access to this property is anyone’s guess. I am sure that it has already been worked out…but it can’t be through the WalMart property, as it sits four or more feet below the level of the Pennsy trail, and the distance is very short between the two.

Another section of the Pennsy right-of-way that has become part of the Indy Parks land acquisitions is from Mitthoeffer Road east. (Mitthoeffer is one mile west of German Church…which is one mile west of the Hancock-Marion County line.) The old right-of-way was turned into a city street called “Hidden Meadow Lane.” There are four houses that only have access to the outside world via that Hidden Meadow Lane. I realize that it will be easier to build the trail, and still have access to these properties with it being a city street. But this is another one of those things that the city will have to deal with in building a multi-use trail almost 30 years after the fact.

But problems like these have been encountered, and solved, before. In Cumberland, there the Pennsy Trail exists from German Church Road to Hancock County Road 600W (roughly three miles), the trail was built around a lumber company that had come along and the old right-of-way ran, literally, right down the middle of the property. The trail was built around that property, to pick up on the old right-of-way on the east side of Muessing Road.

Another section of the old Pennsy right-of-way that had to be solved was the area just west of Greenfield. Eli Lilly owned a campus just east of Meridian Road and Main Street (National Road). The front yard of the complex was north of the old Pennsylvania Railroad. Although the old property lines of the railroad can still be seen on modern maps, the current owners of the property, Covance, would not allow Greenfield’s section of the Pennsy Trail to disect their land – so it was built along Main Street for less than half a mile before it returns to the original right-of-way.

While minds greater than mine will figure all of this out, it brought to my mind what could happen in the case of muddled land deeds, historic right-of-ways, and what would happen when someone wanted to use the old right-of-way again. As an aside, the property owners west to east of the sections from Shortridge Road to Post Road are: Indy Parks (Shortridge to Franklin) and Consolidated Rail Corporation (Franklin to Post). Conrail (or actually, I guess, CSX) owns this property because it is still listed as part of the back end of Hawthorne Yards, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad tower “THORNE” stood just east of Franklin Road and the tracks separated, one heading southwest to Hawthorne Yards, and the other continuing west to downtown Indianapolis. If needed, CSX could simply put the tracks back in to access the backside of the yards. This is still available because the tracks were never legally abandoned…just removed for maintenance reasons.

When the new state road numbers were assigned on 1 October 1926, there was a road that was to be added to the state highway system that connected Rochester to the Illinois-Indiana State Line west of Enos. That road was given the number SR 16, at least on maps. It was described at the time in a news release as “State Road 16 – A two section east-west road. One section runs directly west from Rochester through Winamac to the Illinois state line. The other runs east from Huntington to the Ohio line, east of Decatur, passing through Kingsland, Tocsin, Magley and Decatur. The ultimate hope is to effect another truck line across the state by joining these two sections.”

By 1929, the eastern section of SR 16 was added to the maps of Indiana. The western section was, as well, but not as SR 16. It was given the number SR 14. Well, sort of. SR 14 was the designation given to a road that connected Enos, on US 41, to Silver Lake on SR 15. The western terminus at the Illinois State Line, where it dumped into a county road on the Illinois side of the border, to Enos was still given the number SR 16. This changed in 1930, when that small section of SR 16 became SR 14.

The 1930/1931 Official Highway map still shows SR 14 ending at Silver Lake, but the map also shows an authorized addition to the highway system from Silver Lake to Fort Wayne, then northeast from Fort Wayne to Hicksville, Ohio. At the Fort Wayne end of the section to Silver Lake, this would correspond to Illinois Road (or, as it was first called, Illinois State Road). My goal is to find information about Illinois Road, other that what I have here, but information has been very sparse and hard to come by. The western end of SR 14 had been removed completely, according to the maps. SR 14 now started at SR 43, south of Medaryville.

The eastern end of SR 14, by 1932, started at the Ohio state line, north east of Fort Wayne, after coming from Hickville, Ohio. It then went through Fort Wayne, west on Illinois Road, and ended at SR 43 south of Medaryville. The western section, starting at the Illinois state line west of Enos, ended at SR 53 south of Aix. The section between SR 53 and SR 43 would be listed as an authorized addition. A road that will be important later, SR 230, left Fort Wayne due east for the Ohio state line at Edgerton was added in 1932.

SR 14 would be potentially moved again, as it was removed from the Illinois state line to US 41 south of Enos, and from SR 55 to SR 53. However, there was an authorized addition to the highway system, connecting SR 14 to US 41 north of Enos, through Fair Oaks and Gifford, then curving southeastward to connect to SR 43 where the eastern section of the road connected south of Medaryville.

The following year, SR 14 would be returned to its 1932 alignment. Sort of. It is listed on the map as part of the state system, but not maintained by the state. But this is on the Indiana State Library copy, and it is hand drawn onto that map. I am not sure who did the drawing, or why. It is just there. It should be noted that the same map shows, hand drawn, the “proposed roads not in the dotted line system,” which included the SR 14 reroute shown on the 1933 map. Another road of import on the 1934 map should be mentioned here. The original eastern SR 16, that would be SR 16, was renumbered that year to US 224.

1935 showed SR 14 connecting ending at the state line road between Illinois and Indiana, traversing the entire state of Indiana, connecting to Ohio SR 18 at the state line on its way to Hicksville. In Fort Wayne, going west, it still used the old Illinois State Road, meaning the name was once again descriptive.

In 1940, with the expansion of SR 37 north of Indianapolis, the new state road would connect Indianapolis to Fort Wayne, and then towards Hicksville, Ohio, where it turned into Ohio SR 2 at the state line. Thus SR 14 northeast of Fort Wayne was made part of the new extended SR 37. But this is where the above mentioned SR 230 comes into the picture. SR 230 would be recommissioned as SR 14 at this point, still creating a SR 14 connecting Illinois to Ohio, but this time to Ohio state road 113 and Payne, Ohio.

The next change made in the road would be the removal of the section from Enos westward to the Illinois state line in 1947. It should be noted that the 1947 map also shows SR 14 on the State Line Road for one mile, where it connected to a county road in Illinois. Again, this only lasted for one year, as that section of SR 14 was removed for good from the state highway system. 1979 showed the state removing SR 14 between Interstate 69 west of Fort Wayne and New Haven, east of the city. The section from New Haven east to the Ohio State line would be removed from the state highway system in 1994

At one point, the road that is now SR 14 was planned to be a cross state highway, known as SR 16. It made the cross-state designation, but it didn’t last long and it wasn’t as SR 16. Today, the road connects US 41 at Enos to west of Fort Wayne, through Kents, Parr, Lweiston, Winamac, Rochester, Athens, Akron, Silver Lake, and South Whitley.

Often times, looking at the name of a railroad gives readers the impression that there were bigger plans when it came to the ultimate size of the company. One that comes screaming to mind is the Toledo, Wabash & Pacific. Going by just the name, the Wabash would end up being the biggest railroad in the United States. But then, there are others that have grandiose names just because they can. One such railroad is the New Jersey, Indiana & Illinois (NJI&I).

One would think that with a name that includes three states, the railroad was planned for great things. That thinking would be, well, wrong. The railroad company was set up to serve one industry, and do so on a track of 11.321 miles in length. It was incorporated on 27 October 1902 in Indiana. Construction was completed in 1904 and 1905 by the Universal Construction Company.

The NJI&I was chartered by the Singer Sewing Machine Company to allow its South Bend factory to ship products to a connection with the Wabash at Pine, Indiana, south of South Bend. The chosen name of the company was not for its ultimate destinations, but for the locations of Singer Sewing Machine plants in the United States at the time.

During its history, it expanded to serve other industries in the South Bend area. The other big one would be Studebaker.

The railroad was, at the time of its creation, a stub end track with its only connection at Pine. Pine is located along SR 4 between North Liberty and Lakeville. Railroad records show that the junction was named after the manager of the South Bend Singer plant, Leighton Pine. The connection was to the Wabash line that connected the Grand Trunk Western at Kingsbury across northern Indiana in a relatively straight line to Edon, Ohio, and beyond.

The old Singer plant was on Western Avenue in South Bend. The offices of the railroad, as well, would be located on the same street. (1508 W. Western Avenue, to be exact.) When the railroad was built, Singer was reported to have been trying to ship 7,500 sewing machine cabinets a day from a factory that was operating before the true advent of trucks. The plant had moved to its Western Avenue location from a spot east of the St. joseph River at Madison Street.

Because of its connection to the Wabash, the NJI&I would, in the beginning, run passenger trains bound for Detroit. This service lasted until 1933. Passengers would board at the NJI&I station, at the above listed 1508 W. Western, and disembark at the only building in Pine. By 1976, that building would be used only for train orders and transfer information.

The Wabash would become the sole owner of the NJI&I in the 1920s…one source states 1920, another 1926. Either way, two things would happen. One, the Wabash would come to own all of the stock in the company, and two, it would be operated as a separate company, with separate financial statements for years to come.

In 1930, the company would be compelled by the city of South Bend to elevate their tracks at Division, Walnut and Cherry Streets. In the legal announcement in the South Bend Tribune of 25 April 1930, it was mentioned that part of the elevation included raising the crossing of the New York Central’s connection track from the NJI&I to the Michigan Central Railroad near Division Street. (A quick glance at a map of South Bend shows no street named Division. A city directory search shows that West Division Street started at 400 S. Michigan, and traveled west to the city limits. 400 S. Michigan is the intersection of Michigan and Western today.)

The NJI&I, after crossing Western Avenue, would connect directly to the New York Central line that would leave South Bend to the north bound for Niles, Michigan, past the Notre Dame University campus. But that wasn’t the only direct connection with the NJI&I. The little road had a line that ran, and still runs, due east and west north of Indiana Avenue. On the west end, it was connected to the New York Central line heading off to the southwest to Walkerton and beyond. On the east end, the railroad had a direct connection into the Vandalia (Pennsylvania) Railroad’s yards between Indiana and Ewing Avenues. This meant, as proclaimed in the South Bend Tribune of 8 August 1976, that even though the railroad covered only a grand total of 13 miles, including yards, it had a nation wide, and world wide, customer base…with products coming and going from all over the world.

The New Jersey, Indiana & Illinois would remain a separate railroad company until 1982. It was in that year that the Norfolk Southern absorbed the little South Bend railroad. The NJI&I had become part of the Norfolk Southern when the Norfolk & Western, a predecessor company to the NS, leased the Wabash from its then owners, the Pennsylvania, in 1960. The Wabash would last longer as a separate company, ending its legal existence in November 1991.

The trackage out of South Bend lasted quite a bit longer. The junction at Pine was made a direct connection to Kingsbury when the trackage east of Pine was removed by the Wabash. With the Norfolk Southern purchase of portions of Conrail, the NJI&I track south of South Bend became pretty much pointless, as now the NS could use the old New York Central tracks it acquired in the purchase to connect to the old NJI&I and any customers along the line. Today, at least according to Google Maps, the trackage south of town ends just south of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway (US 20/US 31). The old right of way can still be followed in satellite photos all the way to Pine. The old line over the NYC toward the old offices on Western Avenue had also been removed, and the old New York Central line to Walkerton has been truncated and directly connected to what is left of the old New Jersey, Indiana & Illinois.

When I did the Road Trip 1926 series entries for SR 28 and SR 67, I mentioned that the complete route hadn’t been added to the state highway system for each of those routes. There were going to what was called “Authorized additions,” allowing expansion to the system. The addition to SR 28 would connect the two sections of that highway, since it didn’t exist between the western section at Alexandria and the eastern section at Muncie. The addition to SR 67 would carry that number from Muncie to the Indiana-Ohio State Line east of Bryant. But these authorized additions had already been planned.

The Alexandria Times-Tribune of 22 March 1926 ran a news story on page 1 of that day’s paper with the headline “Three Routes Mentioned For New State Road.” The Indiana State Highway Commission was working on a plan to connect Alexandria to Portland via an extension of what was then State Road 19. As mentioned in the headline, the state was deciding on one of three routes to accomplish this task.

The first choice for the routing would take OSR 19 due east from Alexandria along what was called the “East Washington Street Pike,” or Washington Street in Alexandria and Madison County Road 1100 N/Delaware County Road 500N due east. This road would cross what was called “Old Trail Pike” northwest of Muncie. From what I can tell, this is now known as Wheeling Pike. The report stated that the route would continue along 500N to meet OSR 13 at Royerton then continue east to connect to the Muncie-Albany Road, which would carry traffic towards Portland.

Plan two would have the OSR 19 extension leaving OSR 11 north of Alexandria two and a half miles north of the town, and traveling through Gaston. The route used for this is hard to determine, but it would be safe to assume that the state road would follow a relatively straight line between Gaston and Albany, allowing the use of the same Muncie-Albany (Portland) to get to its Portland destination.

The last plan was to have the OSR 19 extension leave OSR 11 four miles south of Alexandria, along the Jackson Street Pike between OSR 19 and Muncie. From here, the route to Portland would follow OSR 13 until the Muncie-Albany and OSR 13 parted ways at what is now Broadway and Old State Road 3 northeast of Muncie. It is pointed out in the newspaper article that Muncie would push hard for a southern route.

While the state was deciding which route would be used between Alexandria and Portland, both Madison and Delaware Counties were not spending money to improve any route that might be used…so no work was being done.

With the Great Renumbering a little over six months later, the extension of OSR 19 had been turned into Authorized Additions of both new SR 28 and new SR 67. The marking of the authorized addition to new SR 28 showed the Washington Street Pike route. By 1929, SR 28 had used the Washington Street Pike route out of Alexandria, connecting SR 28 to SR 67 northeast of Muncie, and SR 28 would turn south into Muncie to travel east to Farmland. SR 67 was designated, and mostly completed, to the Indiana-Ohio State Line.

By late 1930, SR 28 had been moved one mile north of Alexandria, continuing in a straight line along the then SR 28 corridor through Tipton and Elwood. A year later, SR 28 was truncated to its junction with SR 67, and the old new SR 28 leaving Muncie to the east would be renumbered SR 32. The truncation was temporary, as the state had an authorized addition to SR 28 connecting Albany to Union City via Ridgeville and Deerfield. This is the route that SR 28 follows today.

One common misconception of the end of the toll road era is the the toll companies that bought the roads in the 1840s bought entire routes, or at least those in one county. Nothing can be further from the truth. The National Road east of Indianapolis, for instance, was actually owned by three different companies. The names that are given to roads today for en entire route was just the name given to a specific section of that road.

Getting back to the National Road. In 1895, the Irvington Free Gravel Road started at what is now Rural Street (one block east of the city limits at the time, which was Eastern Avenue). The Indianapolis & Cumberland Toll Gravel Road took over where the Irvington Free Gravel Road ended – at what is now Audubon Road. Muessing Street, in Cumberland, marked the transition from the Indianapolis & Cumberland Toll Road to the National Road before it entered Hancock County a quarter mile later.

The original Indianapolis-Brookville State Road, now called Brookville Road, was divided into two private sections in Marion County. From the beginning of the road (which is covered in the ITH article “The Indianapolis end of the Brookville (State) Road“) at what is now Ewing and Washington Streets, to the Franklin State Road (now Franklin Road), was known as the Brookville Free Gravel Road. From Franklin Road to the County Line, it was the Grassy Creek Free Gravel Road. Before the toll roads started being purchased by the county, these were toll roads of the same names.

On the south side of the county, the town of Southport had its name on several old turnpikes. But not entirely the road that one would think would have the name. The Southport and Indianapolis Free Gravel Road, originally built as the Madison State Road, started at the Indianapolis Belt Railway and progressed south to Union Street in Southport (no longer Union Street, now called Southport Road through the town). The entire route of the Madison State Road also was known as the Madison Road from the county line north to Indianapolis Belt Railway, a name it still basically has today as Madison Avenue.

The road that is now called Southport Road through the city of Southport wasn’t actually called that anywhere near the city. On both sides of Southport, the name given to the road was “Buck Creek Free Gravel Road.” This road started at what is now Sherman Drive and County Line Road, progressed up Sherman Drive to Southport Road. There it turned west into the town of Southport itself. The Buck Creek Road picked up again on the west side of Southport, where it ended the Indianapolis & Leavenworth, or Three Notch, Road, now Meridian Street. After crossing Meridian Street, the road became known as the Southport Free Gravel Road.

A road that is, well, partially related to Southport – if only due to the name of the other town – is a section of the original Indianapolis-Mooresville State Road. From what is now Mann Road to High School Road, along what is now Mooresville Road, and what is now Thompson Road into Valley Mills (Thompson Road and the Indianapolis & Vincennes Railroad), was known as Northport & Mars Hill Free Gravel Road. The town of Valley Mills was originally called Northport, because it is two miles north of Southport.

Another part of the old Mooresville State Road ended where the Northport & Mars Mill Free Gravel Road began. Known simply as the Mars Hill Free Gravel Road, it used what is now Mann Road, Mooresville Road, and Maywood Avenue to connect to what is now Belmont Avenue near Eagle Creek (what is now the intersection of Kentucky and Belmont Avenues). The Mars Hill Road ended at Belmont Avenue and Morris Street. One would assume that the old Mooresville State Road started at the same point. Parts of both the Mars Hill Free Gravel Road and the Northport & Mars Hill Free Gravel Road would later become, again, a state road with the creation of the State Highway Commission in 1919. At first, they were part of SR 12, but would become SR 67 in 1926.

Some roads had more than one name. And when city street names were assigned, they had nothing to do with the names the roads had before. Two that come to mind are the Wall Street Free Gravel Road/Eagle Creek & Little White Lick Gravel Road, now 21st Street from the old Crawfordsville Road west, and the Osterman Free Gravel/Old Danville State Road which became 10th Street on the west side from Cossell Road west. It should be noted that I did cover the original Indianapolis-Danville State Road.

Marion County had a lot of these types of roads at the time. Keep in mind that the county does cover over 400 square miles.

All of the road information contained in this post comes from the Palmer’s Official Road Map of Marion County, Indiana, 1895, which is available online at the Indiana State Library through the link on the name. If you are interested in all of the names given to these roads, or, like me, just like to try and figure out what the street name is now, I recommend looking at that map.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act. This law created what is now known as the “Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.” The major provision in the law was that the “interstates” would be controlled access roads, connecting major points throughout the United States, and be paid for using 90% Federal money. As opposed to the 50-50 split that had been used to finance road projects to that point. The Act of 1956 was the third such Federal Aid road law passed to that point, with others in 1916 and 1921.

When the law passed, it was believed by many people that it was going to be money spent on upgrading and/or the most important highways in each state. An “interstate highway system” had been designated in 1944. This system used mainly US Highways to ensure the ability to get personnel and materials throughout the country to help in the war effort. This was the idea that started the Eisenhower Administration on its way to creating the interstate system we know today. In Eisenhower’s case, however, it was trying to traverse the United States across the Lincoln Highway in 1919.

It was, however, made quite well known that the new interstate system would be modeled after the Autobahn in Germany, a national system of controlled access and high speed highways. General Eisenhower came to appreciate that highway system when he was exposed to them as World War II in Europe was on the way to ending.

When the routes of the interstates, and their numbers, were released for general knowledge, the present system (with the exception of I-69 southwest of Indianapolis) was pretty much in place. One thing that wasn’t as nailed down was the route of I-65, at least according to news stories at the time. The Seymour Tribune of 19 October 1957 announced that the new highway that would traverse the are was to be called Interstate 65. But, it was also announced in the very same article that “interstate 65 is to start at South Bend and run south through Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham, Montgomery and on to Mobile, Ala. It is scheduled to run through much of the area now served by U. S. 31 and 31-W.”

Interstate 65 never made it to South Bend.

Less than a month later, the Indiana Highway Department announced their 1958 construction plans, mainly concerning the new Interstate system. On the plan was a bypass of Richmond, which would become part of I-70; a new highway through Marion and Shelby Counties that would replace US 421 and become I-74; and three sections of what would become part of I-65 – from Jeffersonville through Clark County, east of Seymour through Jackson County, and from northwestern Marion County to west of Lebanon. Another major project that year was to be the widening of the US 31 Kokomo bypass…a subject that had long been a thorn in the side of the agency running highways in Indiana over the years.

The interstate system was still in flux through the first several years of its existence. While most of the general routing was already in place, there were some questions about additions and where some of the roads would actually run.

A look at the Indianapolis News map of 26 September 1957 (shown at left) shows that Interstate 64 was to take a very more northern route across Indiana. The original plan was to take I-64 along the US 50 corridor from New Albany to Vincennes. And this make sense. Two of the other “major” east-west US Highway corridors were already being mirrored by the new interstate system. I-90 traversed roughly the same area as US 20, and I-70 plays tag with US 40 for almost its entire length across the United States. An interstate along the US 50 corridor through the state would have fit right in.

In the end, I-64 followed a minor US highway corridor. It found itself along the route of US 460, a daughter route to US 60 which runs through northern Kentucky. US 460 started in Virginia Beach, close to the beginning of the new I-64, and ended in St. Louis, the ending of the same interstate. In I-64’s case, it would basically replace US 460 across most of the states it traversed. Because the new I-64 would take a southern straighter route across Indiana, the Indiana Highway Department did throw Vincennes a bone, if you will. US 50 would have a bypass of the city built. While not part of the Interstate system, it did help with traffic flow…and would allow a bigger highway to be built later should the need arise.

A question comes up when it comes to the interstate numbering across Indiana. If US 50 was to be mirrored by I-64, why wasn’t I-64 actually to be numbered I-60? A quick glance at a map of the United States shows no Interstate 50 or Interstate 60. The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), the agency in charge of both US Highway and Interstate Highway numbers, decided that there would be too much confusion if 50 and 60 were included in the plan. Because the Interstate system was numbered exactly opposite of the US highways (higher numbers east and north, as opposed to west and south with the US highways), the possibility of US 50 and I-50 (and US 60 and I-60) being too close to one another was high…so to avoided. And avoided it was until the late 20th Century when North Carolina started building I-74…along the US 74 corridor.

One part of the Highway Bill of 1956 that had been both addressed and removed was that of the toll roads. In Indiana, the Toll Road across the northern part of the state had already been mostly built. It was mainly to then interstate highway standards. It connected Chicago with points east as it connected directly to both the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. There was some discussion about reimbursing the states that had toll roads that were acceptable into the new interstate system. But that language was removed from the final bill…with the ability to address it later when needed.

A sticking point in the early interstate highway rush for funds was Indiana’s place near the bottom of the list when it came to contracts for the new system. “Indiana Ranks 47th In Value Of Contracts In Big Federal Interstate Highway Program” read the headline in the Richmond Palladium-Item and Sun-Telegram of 20 August 1957. That article points out that there was only one contract on the Indiana list – a whopping 0.6 miles of SR 100 on the southeast side of Marion County. Of the billions to be provided to the states for the new highways, Indiana’s share, as of that time, was $365,000. And even then, the Feds were only giving Indiana 60% of that – or $219,000 – since it wasn’t, technically, part of the interstate system. The contracts list for July 1957 put Indiana in 47th place, with Utah (0.2 miles) in 48th, Delaware (0.1 miles) in 49th and West Virginia, with no contracts whatsoever, in last.

The construction of the interstate system hit full stride when contracts were let for the 1959 construction season. More information about the entire interstate system in Indiana can be found in the post “The Interstate System In Indiana,” published on 10 February 2020.