1920-1960: Allen County Roads

Today is the second of the series covering state roads in Indiana’s counties in alphabetical order. Today, I will cover, as the title states, Allen County. And, just like the last post of this series, it will be done with a lot of maps, and start with the history of the formation of the county.

The creation of Allen County happened on 17 December 1823, when the Indiana General Assembly issued the following news: “Formation by statute, effective April 1, 1824. The formation affected Randolph and Delaware counties.”

“Beginning at a point on the line dividing this state and the state of Ohio, where the township line dividing townships twenty-eight and twenty-nine north, intersects the same; thence north with said state line twenty-four miles; thence west to the line dividing ranges ten and eleven east; thence south to the line dividing townships twenty-eight and twenty-nine north, thence east to the place of beginning.” (Revised Laws of Indiana, 1823-1824, pp 109)

One month after the creation of the county, Fort Wayne was made the seat of the county’s government.

Allen County is one of those few counties that actually acquired its first modern state road with the original creation of the Indiana State Highway Commission in 1917. One of the five Main Market Roads, as they were called at first, connected Fort Wayne to near Chicago. Of course, it was built as the Lincoln Highway. That Auto-Trail would be given the number Main Market Road 2.

In 1919, Main Market Road 2 would become State Road 2. By 1920, four more state highways would be added to Allen County’s landscape: OSR 11; OSR 13; OSR 21; and OSR 44. OSR 11 would connect Fort Wayne to Huntington, ultimately ending in Greenfield at the National Road. OSR 13 would be the road from Fort Wayne to Bluffton, again ending at the National Road, this time at Lewisville. As mentioned in the Adams County entry, OSR 21 travelled from Fort Wayne, through Decatur, Portland, Winchester and Richmond to end at Liberty in Union County.

*1923 Kenyon Map of Allen County, Indiana*

Due to location, and the fact that Fort Wayne had, for decades, been one of the largest cities in the Hoosier State, the city, and Allen County, would find itself along quite a few Auto Trails during that era. In 1923, as shown on the map to the left, the following Auto Trails crossed Allen County: Hoosier Highway [B]; Yellowstone Trail [N]; Wabash Way [O]; Ohio, Indiana, Michigan Way [S]; Lincoln Highway [X]; and the Custer Trail [BB].

The Hoosier Highway has been covered numerous times in this blog. It started in Evansville, ultimately winding its way through the entire state to Fort Wayne on the way to Detroit, Michigan. Coming from the south, it was given the designation OSR 13 to Fort Wayne, but no state highway number was assigned to it leaving Fort Wayne to the northeast.

The Yellowstone Trail and Lincoln Highway would be intertwined, even though the only place they multiplex was east of Fort Wayne. Both of them would meet again at Valparaiso. The Lincoln Highway left to the northwest of Fort Wayne, with the Yellowstone heading more west. In 1920, as mentioned above, Lincoln Highway was OSR 2, and Yellowstone Trail was OSR 44.

The Wabash Way left Fort Wayne to the southwest, winding its way through Huntington, Wabash, Peru, Logansport, Delphi, Lafayette, and Attica, crossing the Illinois State Line to end at Danville. The ISHC gave it the number OSR 11 in 1920.

The Ohio-Indiana-Michigan Way was mentioned in the Adams County entry. It was OSR 21 into Fort Wayne from the south. Leaving to the north, it wasn’t part of the state highway system. Neither was the Custer Trail, which started in Fort Wayne, leaving to the north for Auburn and Angola on a winding trail through Steuben county to enter Michigan.

In the fall of 1923, the ISHC decided to rearrange state highway numbers to make them easier to understand and follow. This led to numerous changes in Allen County. The Lincoln Highway, which had been OSR 2 for the previous six years was now OSR 46 heading northwest out of Fort Wayne. The OSR 2 label, while maintained on the Lincoln Highway east of Fort Wayne, became attached to the Yellowstone Trail west of the city. OSR 11, the Wabash Way, was changed to OSR 7. OSR 13 and 21 remained the same south of Fort Wayne, but a new addition to SR 31 was added north of the Allen County Seat. It encompassed neither the OIM or the Custer Trail. It was a “new” road, without any special designation prior to its addition to the state highway system.

Allen County became the home of quite a few United States Highways with the Great Renumbering of 1 October 1926. The 1923 version of SR 2, leaving Fort Wayne along State Boulevard and Leesburg Road, was rerouted to connect to the new SR 2, which was the route of the original Lincoln Highway, at what is now Lincoln Highway and Washington Center Road. From that connection, SR 2 continued its journey across the county to Churubusco. East of Fort Wayne, the OSR 2 that had existed since 1917 was changed to US 30.

The OSR 11 (1920)/OSR 7 (1923) was practically abandoned in Allen County. The old State Road 7 route was moved north, and would be changed to US 24. East of Fort Wayne, a new route US 24, one that had not been part of the state highway system before, was in the process of being added. It would connect to Ohio’s US 24 after leaving east-northeast from New Haven.

OSR 13 was given two designations. South of Fort Wayne, it became SR 3. North of the city, it became, along with OSR 21 south of Fort Wayne, US 27. This left Allen County with two state roads (SR 2 and SR 3) and three US highways (US 24, 27 and 30)..

September 1930 Indiana Official State Highway Map

With the number of additions that were made to the state highway system in 1930, the September map of that year showed many changes. Not in the way of the routes that had been established in 1926. No. The old OIM Way north out of Fort Wayne was added to the state highway system as an extension of State Road 3. The old Custer Trail route was also added, becoming the northern State Road 1. There was also an authorized addition shown on the map. It would come into Allen County from the west, travel through Fort Wayne, and leave to the northeast. The western end of that authorized addition was at State Road 15 at Silver Lake. A look at the map shows it to be an extension of State Road 14.

January 1932 Indiana Official State Highway Map

When it was finally added to the state highway system in 1931, that’s what it was: an extension of SR 14 across Allen County. SR 14 connected to Ohio State Road 18 at the state line. But the early 1932 map showed two more authorized additions the ISHC wanted to make. First, a road connecting to SR 1 north of Fort Wayne, heading due east to Leo, then roughly along the St. Joseph River heading northeast.

The second left SR 3 south of Fort Wayne, heading southwest through Nine Mile and Zanesville.

Other than that, still no real changes had been made to the 1926 highways that Allen County had been originally given.

Three “new” state roads were added in 1932 for the 1933 official map. First, the authorized addition through Zanesville and Nine Mile, which turned southwest off of SR 3 from Waynedale, was officially added, and given the number SR 3. The old SR 3, which had that number since the 1926 number shuffle, became the new SR 1 south of Waynedale.

But that wasn’t the only change in SR 1. The ISHC changed their minds, instead of routing a new state road due east into Leo, it was decided to use what is now Clinton Street toward what were the separate villages of Cedarville and Leo. This was given the number State Road 1. The old SR 1, that ran north along what is now Tonkel Road, was given the number State Road 427, another daughter route to US 27. Both routes connected at Auburn, with US 27 coming in from the west, and SR 427 coming in from the south.

Travelling east across Allen County, from New Haven to Edgerton, along what is now Dawkins Road, was a daughter route to US 30, State Road 230. SR 230 connected to Ohio State Road 113 at the state line.

The period between 1932 and 1936 saw very few changes. The Indiana State Highway Commission decided to authorize the building of an extension of SR 101, north and south, through eastern Allen County. At the time, SR 101 did exist in Adams County, but ended at the Adams-Allen County Line. The new SR 101 would directly connect to State Road 1 in Dekalb County at State Road 8. Although it was an authorized addition, State Road 101 was not, at least according to the maps of 1937, located. The route shown on the map was pure conjecture…and hoping. Also, SR 14 was then connected to both Ohio State Road 18, but a new Ohio State Road 2. The multiplexed route from the Ohio State Line connected to Hicksville, before Ohio 2 and Ohio 18 went separate ways.

There were two changes made in 1937, as shown on the 1938 map to the left. First was the building of SR 101 from the Adams-Allen County line to US 30. Second, US 33 came to Indiana. From Decatur, US 27 and US 33 used the same road to connect to Fort Wayne. But leaving Fort Wayne, the road that had been State Road 2 was then called US 33. This eliminated the State Road 2 designation east of South Bend. Both Lincoln Highways were now part of the US Highway System in Allen County. The original was now US 33, the replacement (marked in the mid to late 1920’s) had been marked US 30 since 1926.

1938, as shown by the 1939 Official Map, saw the completion of SR 101 through the county.

Changes made in the 1939-1940 time frame included the extension of SR 37 to Fort Wayne and beyond. SR 37 had ended at Indianapolis to this point, coming up from southern Indiana. It replaced, in Marion and Hamilton Counties, the original Indianapolis-Fort Wayne State Road, known as Allisonville Road in that area. It entered Allen County multiplexed with US 24. The designation SR 37 then replaced the SR 14 designation northeast of Fort Wayne. At the Ohio state line, it connected to only Ohio SR 2, as Ohio SR 18 was removed from that section of road in that state. But that wasn’t the end of SR 14 east of Fort Wayne. What was formerly SR 230 became the new SR 14.

1941 added another state road to Allen County. In the extreme northwest corner of the county, SR 205, which had ended at the county line, was extended as far as the Allen-Noble county line at Ari. SR 205 would eventually be extended into Dekalb County to end at what is now SR 327, but was, at the time, US 27.

Another state road was added in 1948, and showed up on maps in 1949. Connecting US 30/US 33 northwest of Fort Wayne to SR 3, US 27, SR 1 and SR 427 to end at SR 37 northeast of Fort Wayne was State Road 324. It would appear that the route of SR 324 is what is now Coliseum Boulevard.

The next change is shown on the first available map that has it. It seems that Indiana did not issue, that I can find, Official Highway maps for the years 1954 or 1955. I can not find them if they exist. I do not have any in my personal collection, nor does the state library have them in their digital collection.

There were two changes between 1953 and 1955. One was the continuation of SR 324 as a bypass to the east of Fort Wayne. That state road ended at New Haven Avenue, which was given the designation State Road 230 from SR 324 to the junction of US 30/US 24/SR 14 less than a mile east of the junction with SR 324.

The following year, 1956, saw the end of both State Road 230 and State Road 324. SR 324 was replaced with the US 30 designation. SR 230 was completely removed from Allen County.

The 1960 map, which I can not share here, shows the beginnings of Interstate 69 under construction from SR 3 in the north to US 24 in the south. (I can not share this map, as the one on the state library site has a big section missing through Steuben, Dekalb and Allen Counties. And I can not scan my personal copy since my scanner is not working properly at this time.)

I do want to share one last map, showing the state highway situation in Allen County according to the 1961 official map (meaning 1960 changes).

Interstate 69 is officially under construction at that time from US 24 in the south to the Allen-Dekalb County line. Also, a replacement for US 30 west of Fort Wayne is under construction.

Thus are the state highway changes in Allen County from 1920 (or, actually, 1917) to 1960.

Hub Highway

One of the Auto Trails that I have been unable to find much historical information on, yet have seen on many maps, is the Hub Highway. In Indiana, the highway started in Lafayette, working itself across the state to Union City. Along the way, it travelled through Frankfort, Tipton, Muncie, and Winchester on its way to Chillicothe, Ohio.

In Lafayette, it share the Jackson Highway route heading to the southeast. The closest thing to the official start of the road that I can find is Second and Main Streets in downtown Lafayette. This also would be the end of the old Indianapolis-Lafayette State Road. From there, it followed Main Street and State Road 38 out of town, and to Mulberry. At Mulberry, the Jackson Highway, which has been sharing the route with the Hub, split into two. The Hub shared the northern Jackson Highway route, which turned southeast along what is now Gas Line Road. It turned east on what is now Farmers Gravel Road, entering Frankfort on what is now US 421.

The original route of the Hub Highway basically followed what is now SR 28 across Clinton and Tipton Counties to Tipton County Road 300 West. It then turned north on CR 300 W, then east on Tipton’s Jefferson Street. The old route again joins SR 28 until it reached what is now SR 19. It turned north along SR 19 for one half mile to Tipton County Road 100S. East along CR 100S to Tipton County Road 300 East, or State Road 213.

The route turned south along SR 213, crossing SR 28 again and the old Nickel Plate to Tipton County Road 150 South, or old SR 28. The route turned east, crossed the old Nickel Plate again to enter Hobbs. SR 28 becomes the original route of the Hub into Elwood. The Hub then turned south on what is now SR 13 for one mile, to Madison County Road 1100 North. The old highway followed 1100 North, Bethel Avenue, Madison County Road 925 West, and again Bethel Avenue almost all the way to Muncie. At Wheeling Avenue, the Hub turned southeast to enter downtown Muncie.

In Muncie, as best as I can tell, the Hub Highway followed Wheeling Avenue and High Street to Jackson Street. Keep in mind, if you are using this as a travel log, Jackson Street is one way east at this point. Basically, from Muncie to Winchester, the Hub Highway and State Road 32 are one and the same. To get to Union City, the route, as best as can be found, turned north on Union Street in Winchester, and followed that and Union City Pike into Union City.

I am not sure what this highway was supposed to accomplish. But, it seems it would be a great day trip/road trip for those that want to drive a 1917 Auto Trail.

Original State Roads 6-10

1919. The second law creating the Indiana State Highway Commission was passed, and passed Constitutional muster. When the original law was passed in 1917, the fledgling ISHC created five state roads, called Main Market Roads. They were covered in my post “The First Five State Roads, and the Auto Trails They Replaced.” (Indiana Transportation History Blog, 18 October 2019) But legal issues were brought up in regards to the Indiana constitution of 1851. That Constitution was created after the debacle that was the Mammoth Internal Improvements Act. (Indiana Transportation History Blog, 23 August 2019)

The second law had answered a majority of the Constitutional questions when it came to funding roads. Some people saw the ISHC necessary, not for the creating of a state road system, but for a method to get the money the federal government was spending on creating the system. The federal government would only give money to states that had a state transportation agency in place. No money was to be given directly to any government entity smaller than the state.

The Indiana State Highway Commission wasted no time in adding roads to the state highway system. It should be noted here that the ISHC could not just take roads into the system. There were financing concerns, obviously, but also the fact that the roads in question were actually owned by the county. Most had been toll roads previously, which means the counties had to buy them back from the toll road companies in the decades prior to this.

A quick look at a map of the first state roads, when compared to Auto Trails at the time, shows that the ISHC started by using roads that were already supposed to be upgraded for car transportation. (Check out these maps at the Indiana State Library: ISHC Official Highway Map of 1920; and the Standard Series Map of Indiana, 1919.) I will be mentioning those as I cover the second five original state roads. I want to note here that when I use the term “original state road,” it is in reference to the current state roads and their numbering. All of the roads that are listed here, and the ones in the first five article, were renumbered on 1 October 1926, something I have been calling “The Great Renumbering” since I started the ITH Facebook Group on 31 May 2014. Also, the old state roads, those built by the state between 1820 and 1850, had names that showed their destinations, not numbers. Numbered state roads, at least in Indiana, are a 20th Century invention.

Original State Road 6: This road connected Madison to Monticello, via Versailles, Greensburg, Shelbyville, Indianapolis, Lebanon, Frankfort, and Delphi. For those of you keeping track at home, it may sound like the southern end looks miraculously like the Michigan Road, or at least the Auto Trail of the same name. And you would be right. From Madison to Indianapolis, it followed the Michigan Road Auto Trail. The difference between the historic Michigan Road and the Auto Trail is basically the section that runs from Bryantsburg to Napoleon. Versailles is on the Auto Trail, not the historic road.

North out of Indianapolis, OSR 6 followed the old Indianapolis-Lafayette State Road to Lebanon. From there, it used the old state road to Frankfort. This was the route used by the Jackson Highway from Indianapolis to Frankfort. From Frankfort, the ISHC just charged “cross country,” using county roads, to complete the route through Delphi to Monticello.

OSR 6 would become, in 1926, SR 29 from Madison to Indianapolis, US 52 from Indianapolis to Lebanon, and SR 39 from Lebanon to Monticello.

Original State Road 7: From the Illinois-Indiana State line west of Kentland, via Kentland, Monticello, Logansport, Peru, and Wabash, to Huntington. Map geeks will instantly recognize this by its post-1926 designation: US 24. From west of Kentland to Logansport, it was part of the Illinois Corn Belt Route (Indiana Transportation History Blog, 2 December 2019). Between Remington and Wolcott, the route was shared with the Jackson Highway, which led to Lafayette and Frankfort, where it connected to OSR 6. OSR 6 ended at OSR 7 at Monticello. From Logansport to Huntington, the ISHC used the route of the Wabash Way to create OSR 7.

Original State Road 8: From Remington, north through Rensselaer and Crown Point to Gary. The route was also the Jackson Highway from Remington to Demotte, and from due south of Crown Point east of Lowell to Crown Point. When the Great Renumbering occurred, OSR 8 became part of SR 53 from Remington to SR 2, then SR 2 to where SR 55 would come later. From Crown Point to Gary, the route became SR 55 in 1926.

Original State Road 9: From Rockville north to Hillsboro, then west to Veedersburg, then north through Attica and Williamsport to Boswell. The route then travelled through Fowler to end at OSR 7 west of Goodland. This one was interesting at the time of the Great Renumbering. The original route had been moved to the west from Rockville to Veedersburg, instead of Hillsboro. The road that headed toward Hillsboro had become SR 59, but only to Grange Corner. And even then, not for long. A lot of the route became US 41. At least from Veedersburg to Boswell. Otherwise, the original route of SR 9 was mostly forgotten. Some of this had to do with the renumbering of 1923. (Indiana Transportation History Blog, 18 May 2019) The only section of this entire route that had been part of the Auto Trail system was from Attica to the Benton-Lake County line, which was part of the Adeway. (Indiana Transportation History Blog, 26 October 2020).

Original State Road 10: Evansville, through Princeton, Vincennes, Sullivan, Terre Haute, Clinton, to OSR 33 west of Covington. This long route made use of several Auto Trails. Leaving Evansville, OSR 10 follows the route of both the Dixie Bee Line and the Hoosier Highway. (Indiana Transportation History, 23 October 2019). The two routes parted ways at Princeton, with the Hoosier Highway turning east. The Dixie Bee Line was used for OSR 10 to Perrysville Station, along the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad. OSR 10 turned east to Perrysville, while the Dixie Bee Line turned west heading off to Danville, Illinois. The rest of the route of OSR 10 crossed the countryside along county roads until it ended west of Covington.

A quick glance at a map of Indiana, and the reader would think that OSR 10 became the original route of US 41 through the state. And from Evansville to east of Clinton, that would be correct. However, near Clinton, the route crossed the Wabash River. Here, in 1926, it would become SR 63 from Clinton to its end at OSR 33/SR 34.

By 1920, state road numbers would reach into the 40’s. Not many roads were added to the system by the time the first renumbering happened in October 1923. With the Great Renumbering, the state found itself dumping some roads, although it was to be temporary. These original numbered state roads would make a wonderful road trip. I plan on doing a series of that very thing soon.

1951: US 421 – A Third “Michigan Road” Route

In 1950, a series of new United States highways were voted upon by the organization that controlled such things at the time, the American Association of State Highway Officials, or AASHO. That organization is not one of the Federal government, but one that is actually the states (and Washington DC and Puerto Rico) getting together to set standards and keep track of interstate and US highway numbers. (There is a lot more to it, but I want to get to the point!)

Whenever a highway is added or removed to the interstate or US highway system, it has to have approval of AASHTO (the successor to AASHO, with the words “and Transportation” added in 1973). When US 33 was removed from Indiana and Michigan, while the two states agreed, it had to be approved by AASHTO. The same for US 460 when it was truncated at Frankfort, Kentucky, leaving the rest of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri without that highway that was basically replaced by Interstate 64.

So, in 1950, some new US highway was added to the system. These highways were “daughters” to other routes. For instance, US 136 would be the first branch off of US 36, with 136 starting in Indianapolis, and US 36 originally starting there. But today, I want to look at another road that came through Indianapolis for a time…US 421.

When the Indiana State Highway Commission was created (the second time) in 1919, the first state road added to the highway system after the first five Main Market roads was the Michigan Road Auto Trail, slightly different from the Historic Michigan Road, from Madison, through Versailles, Greensburg, and Shelbyville to Indianapolis. The original State Road 6 continued north from Indianapolis via the Lafayette Road, but that is not part of this profile.

On the northern end, original SR 15 connected Michigan City to Logansport via Laporte, Knox and Winamac. In 1923, with the first Renumbering, the Historic Michigan Road from Logansport to Indianapolis was added as an extension of OSR 15. This created a route that connected the same destinations without going the same direction. The Historic Michigan Road connected Logansport to Michigan City via Rochester, Plymouth and South Bend. The new original State Road 15 used a direct course between the two.

Meanwhile, the original State Road 6 from 1920 would come into this story by connecting Frankfort to Monticello through Rossville and Delphi. With the renumbering of 1923, that route would be given the number 44, the original number of what would become the rerouted Lincoln Highway (and US 30).

With the Great Renumbering of 1 October 1926, entire route of the old Michigan Road Auto Trail from Logansport to Madison was given the number 29, as was the original State Road 15 from Logansport to Michigan City. The old state road 6/44 that connected Frankfort and Monticello was given the number 39.

To other roads that would become part of this story were shown as authorized additions to the state highway system. First was the road that connected the Michigan Road near Boylestown to Frankfort was to be added as State Road 28, which at the time connected US 31 west of Tipton to SR 9 north of Alexandria. The other was to be added as SR 43 north from Reynolds along the new US 24 due north to Michigan City.

Meanwhile, the original Michigan Road route from Logansport to Rochester was an authorized addition to the state highway system as SR 25. The rest of the route, from Rochester to Michigan City had been part of the system since 1923, most having been part of the system since 1917. Original State Road 1 (later US 31) from Rochester to South Bend was an original Main Market Road, as was Original State Road 2 from South Bend to Rolling Prairie. The section from Rolling Prairie to Michigan City would be added as OSR 25, and the section from Rolling Prairie to South Bend would be given the number 25 as well, since the number 2 was moved to what would later become US 30.

So now that we have the history of the route nailed down, let’s get to the topic of this post.

On 25 January 1951, it was announced that road markers had arrived from the renumbering of several state highways to a new number: US 421. At the time, US 421, a daughter of US 21 that connected Cleveland, Ohio, to Hunting Island, South Carolina, ended at Bristol, Tennessee. The road itself had been truncated to Bristol, as it had previously connected to the Cumberland Gap in Virginia. And once again, it would cross Virginia, on its way to Lexington and Milton, Kentucky, to cross the Ohio River into Madison, Indiana.

Once in Indiana, it would follow the Michigan Road Auto Trail route (again, not entirely the Historic Michigan Road) to just south of Boylestown. This would take the new US highway through Versailles, Greensburg, Shelbyville and Indianapolis. This was the route of SR 29.

At the point south of Boylestown, US 421 turned west for seven miles to enter Frankfort along SR 28. At Frankfort, the new highway would turn north along SR 39 to US 24. West along US 24 to SR 43, then north along SR 43 to Michigan Road.

On 13 March 1951, the new US 421 was officially marked along the route mentioned above. All official press releases for the marking of the route made sure to point out that the old route numbers would be used along the new route until 1 July 1951 to avoid confusion. Thus from Boylestown to Madison, the road would have two numbers: US 421 and SR 29. At least for a while. It would seem that the only two road numbers that would removed would be SR 29, located as above, and SR 43 from US 24 to Michigan City. SR 28 is still, to this day, labelled as such along the US 421 route. And SR 39 is multiplexed with US 421 from Frankfort to Monticello.

From Indianapolis, this new US highway would create the third route with a Michigan City end. And all three followed the Historic Michigan Road out of the city. At Boylestown, US 421 separated from the historic road to follow the route above. At Logansport, SR 29 left the historic route by travelling northwest across the old swamp land that caused the road to turn toward Rochester in the first place. Meanwhile, the original road continued along its old path, connecting to Rochester as SR 25, then to South Bend as US 31, and on to Michigan City as US 20.

The SR 29 route would be changed, as well, to a US Highway from Logansport to Michigan City…when it would become part of the US 35 route. By 1935, the number US 35 was multiplexed with SR 29 from Burlington (west of Kokomo) to Michigan City. In 1942, the section from Burlington to Logansport would go back to being just SR 29, as US 35 was rerouted along the new SR 17 connecting Kokomo to Logansport directly. The SR 29 designation would be truncated to Logansport, thus removed from the US 35 route, sometime in either late 1957 to 1958. The Indiana Official State Highway Map of 1959 shows no multiplex of US 35 and SR 29.

Over the 170 years of its existence, the Michigan Road has been an important route. The city of Michigan City was created to be a point of destination for the road. As technology improved, this important route would be replaced and shortened. Today, the US Routes of 20, 35 and 421 are the ends of the different routes connecting Indianapolis (more or less) directly to Lake Michigan at Michigan City.

Original SR 6, 9, 10, and US 41 and 52

Last year about this time, I was going through a series of articles called the “Road Trip 1926,” where I traced the routes of the roads maintained by the Indiana State Highway Commission, and their new numbers, as of 1 October 1926: the day of the Great Renumbering. It was nearly a year ago I covered the new US 52. I was always intrigued by the route that was assigned the number 52, especially at its northern end. US 52, originally, started at US 41 in Boswell, although the road was under construction to have US 52 end at US 41 northwest of Fowler, as it has been reported to have done since the beginning.

But the route to get to Boswell is what intrigued me. And in researching that, I discovered that Fowler has had a state road running through it since 1920, the first year the ISHC had added roads to its inventory after the first five were added in 1917. But then, it wasn’t what I thought, either.

Let’s just tackle this one road at a time, numerically.

1920 Indiana Official Highway Map of the subject area.

Original State Road 6: When this road was originally added to the state highway system, it started in Madison, following the old Michigan Road out of the city to Bryantsburg. At that point, it then used the old Madison-Versailles State Road to connect to Versailles. The next part of the trip connected Versailles to Napoleon, where it would follow the old Michigan Road to Indianapolis. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is still the rough route of US 421 today, and it was the route of the Michigan Road Auto Trail…although Versailles was never on the original Michigan Road.

From Indianapolis, the original SR 6 left Indianapolis via the original Lafayette State Road. At Lebanon, it turned north through Frankfort, Rossville, Delphi, ending at original SR 7 at Monticello. Now, you may be asking, “what does that have to do with the area you said you wanted to cover?” In 1923, the first state road renumbering occurred. OSR 6 turned west at Rossville onto what had been OSR 29 to end west of Oxford, south of Fowler, at OSR 9. But by 1923, OSR 9 had become OSR 10. More on that later.

1923 Indiana Official State Highway Map of the subject area.

The OSR 6 route would, on 1 October 1926, become part of US 52 and SR 22. The US 52 designation was a temporary one, as the road was already was a proposed relocation on the Great Renumbering map of October 1926.

1926 Indiana Official Highway Map of subject area

Most websites that cover the US highway system have US 52 ending northwest of Fowler in the 1926 plan. To be fair, as shown on the 1926 map above, it did…or would. The whole thing can be a bit confusing.

Original State Road 9: The only reason that OSR 9 is on this list is because that is what the road was in 1920. OSR 9 started, in 1920, in Rockville, heading north to meet the then Dixie Highway at Hillsboro. It then left Veedersburg, through Attica, Williamsport, Boswell, Fowler, ending at OSR 7 west of Goodland. In 1923, the number would change to OSR 10.

Original State Road 10: Starting, in 1920, in Evansville, travelling north through Princeton, Hazelton, Vincennes, Sullivan, Terre Haute, Clinton, Newport, and ending west of the Wabash River at OSR 33 (Dixie Highway) west of Covington. In 1923, the designation would change. OSR 10 would end at Clinton, where the old OSR 10 would be designated OSR 54 from that point north. OSR 9 would become OSR 10 starting in Rockville and heading north. Instead of ending at OSR 7, the OSR 10 designation would takeover the route that had been Original State Road 49 from Kentland north into the Chicago Metropolitan Area on the Indiana side of the state line.

OSR 10 would become the rough original route for US 41 in October 1926, with a newly constructed road heading north from Boswell to a newly constructed road halfway between Fowler and Earl Park heading into Kentland. Fowler itself would be off the state highway system for maybe two years while the new US 52 was being built through the area. Both US 41 and US 52 would be completely hard surfaced before the maps came out in late 1928 for the 1929 travel season.

1929 Indiana Official State Highway map of the subject area.

County Roads – Getting Named

County road names. Most people don’t give it much thought. A year ago, I wrote an article about the names used around the state for the county roads. Today, I want to look at some of the histories that I have found about the subject.

The subject of naming rural roads was taken up at different times in different parts of the state. Until that point, roads may or may not have had names…but not as some sort of system. Marion County, for instance, had names like Wall Street Pike (West 21st Street from Speedway west) or the name of the resident that paid to have the road maintained. There really was no pattern to any of it.

The Cambridge City Tribune, of 9 August 1900, described the rumblings like this: “In some parts of Indiana a plan is being discussed for having all the county roads named. At the road crossings the names will be placed on posts, something like the old fashioned finger boards. In addition to that each farmer will have his name displayed on a post at the road side at the entrance to his grounds. Something of the kind will be done in all rural districts with the next few years, and it is very much needed. Farmers are beginning to discuss the matter at their meetings.”

St. Joseph County, according to the South Bend Tribune of 2 April 1918, had been working on names for the county roads since the summer of 1917. A plan was accepted and adopted by the St. Joseph County commissioners on 4 March 1918. The current names were placed on the county roads then. In 1934, the South Bend Tribune made sure to point out that rural roads in St. Joseph County were all marked the same way city streets were…with signs hanging high above the road.

The reasons for naming county roads involved things like mail delivery and safety. In the days of the automobile, it made sense to name the roads for travelers to be able to find places. But it started out as an attempt to be able to speed mail delivery. With rural routes all over the state, it was not unheard of that someone’s mail would be delivered to the wrong part of the county. Giving houses numbers, and roads names made mail easier to locate. As for safety, it goes without saying that if the farmer on such and such road had a structure that was on fire, unless the emergency crews where such and such road was, and where the farmer lived, that fire was going to be completely destrucutive.

The most common method of naming county roads in Indiana was called the “Purdue Grid Coordinates.” It is a system where every place in the rural areas of the county are assigned a location based on a central point in the county. This system often involves the north-south middle of the county to be called “Meridian,” and the east-west to be called “Division.” But that is up to the particular county, actually. Some counties do use “00” for the center.

The system was created by researchers for Purdue University’s Joint Highway Research project in the School of Civil Engineering. The plan was to create a system that would allow easier directions for rural areas. For example, the Lafayette Journal and Courier of 9 Jan 1954, used the following example of Doc Smith trying to find Ben Miller’s farm: “take this highway north about five miles, and then instead of turning with the highway at the big pear orchard, continue straight ahead on the County Farm gravel road. It winds a bit, but after about two miles you’ll come to a five-point intersection. Take the road that cuts slightly to the left, follow it to the second crossroad, then turn left. It’s only about a mile from that corner to Wahoo. You’ll have to inquire at the grocery store for Ben’s farm.”

Franklin County, in 1953, was still considering a naming system for the roads of that area. It had been recommended several years earlier, but nothing was ever done.

Hamilton County decided to start looking at their road names in 1958. It started with a report by the Jaycees. That took several years to work on. It was decided that Hamilton County would not use the Purdue grid system, since most people preferred names to numbers. Numbers were assigned from Indianapolis, giving rise to street numbers above 96th to 296th. Each county road, however, that went north and south was given a secondary number to show how far east and west of Indianapolis’ Meridian Street you were. While names were decided upon in the early 1960’s, most addresses weren’t completely determined until the 1990s.

On 10 October 1961 the Rushville Republican printed the following question when it came to county road names: “Is Rush County going to be among the last in the state to get its county roads named and numbered and house numbers for its rural residences? Decatur County is the latest to join the fold. It’s not a costly procedure and it makes it so much easier to locate places in the country. All it takes is a nod, and a bit of cash, from the county commissioners to permit this community to keep up with its neighbors.”

It would be 1962 when all counties in Indiana finally had a system in place, and signs posted. Indiana had passed a law in 1961 requiring all county road intersections to have road name signs posted.

US 50 West from Aurora

Today, I want to focus on US 50 on the other side of the state. Yesterday, I covered the original US 50 from Vincennes to Wheatland. Today, the last eight miles heading into Aurora. When the Indiana State Highway Commission was created in 1917, the future US 50 was included…but not as a single road. From Mitchell north to Bedford, then east, it was original state road 4. From Mitchell west, it was original state road 5.

The other thing I want to look at it the location of the original road. Unless you have driven in that section of Indiana, it is hard to fathom the difficulty in building a road through southern Indiana. Most of the state is (relatively) flat. Along the Ohio River, not so much. As someone whose family came from Pennsylvania, I realize the sheer insanity of building a road where the land has to be followed…not plowed through.

In northern and central Indiana, most roads can be built in a straightish line. Obviously, there are hills one has to skirt, and rivers to cross. But most of the land is relatively flat. That ends about 40 miles south of Indianapolis. And abruptly. I am only going to use snippets from one map (and a quick Google map) for this post…that of the 1943 USGS Topographic Map of the Aurora, Indiana, quadrangle. I have made five snippets…one a complete overview, and the other four are basically two miles at a time. I will be going from east to west in this case.

I know this is hard to see. That is why I have broken it down into smaller chunks. But this gives the overview of the whole area. Consider that each of the brown lines on this map are 10 feet changes in elevation. This gives a whole new meaning to up and down, eh?

The original US 50 entered Aurora from the north on what is now Main Street. North of Hogan Creek, Google Maps lists it as George Street. Where George Street meets US 50 north of Aurora, US 50 pretty much follows the old path, for a while, on its way to Lawrenceburg. A turn west on Third Street, and following the old road is still possible. Another turn south on Bridgeway Street, then west on Fourth Street, then original US 50 leaves the small burgh of Aurora. Google Maps shows the old road as Conwell Street. Before it connects into the current US 50, it turns south on Indiana Avenue, still staying south and east of the current US highway.

The problem with following the old road from here is that it has been cut off from the rest of the highway system. Indiana Avenue, before it would connect to current US 50 again, it curves east away from its old path. The Google map snippet to the left shows a blue line where the old road crossed the area that is now US 50, changing from what is now Indiana Avenue into Trester Hill Road.

As you can see from the topo maps of before the new road was built, the frontier path, later state road, that became US 50 originally skirted the edges of the topographical lay of the land. Without looking closer, I can not tell if it is a valley or the top of the ridge that the old road follows. A look on Google Earth shows it may be a valley that the road is keeping to.

The last four miles that I will be covering in this entry are pretty much using the old road as it was created in the early to mid 1800’s. Yes, the road is that old. The area that the road follows is called the Mount Tabor Ridge on this map. And the old road tries to keep climbs and descends as small as possible. This made sense, since getting horses, or even worse, oxen, to climb a hill was a chore in itself. Now, add a wagon, or saddlebags, and it got worse. There are stories abound that tell of someone hurt, or worse, killed trying to traverse steep hills.

This map shows the end of today’s coverage area. Not that I don’t want to keep going west from here. The next topo map available is the Dillsboro quadrangle, but it is dated 1958.

Following the original US 50 through the area gives an idea of what was required when a road was commissioned to go from point A to point B. Just looking at this route shows why the first team that went into “the wild” when it came to building a road would be the surveyors. Of course, this has always been true, for any road built in history. It wouldn’t have been good to draw a straight line on a map and just told someone to build that straight line. Especially through the landscape of southern Indiana.

US 40: Bridgeport to Plainfield

When the National Road was surveyed in the 19th century, the people that laid out the road had very little to worry about when it came to man made obstructions to its path. The road was built in the most efficient way possible. Not necessarily the straightest, but the most efficient. An example of this is just west of downtown Indianapolis with the National Road bridge. The original route crossed the White River at a 90 degree angle…typical of bridge building at the time. And although that bridge would be later supplemented, then replaced, by a straighter Washington Street bridge, the old bridge would survive until 1904…a little over 70 years.

Another section of the old National Road that would survive into the 20th century before getting the straightening treatment would be the section starting just west of Bridgeport, heading toward Plainfield. Here, for two and half miles, the National Road would first curve its way across a creek, then find its way, in 1852, across a dangerous railroad crossing near the Marion-Hendricks County line.

Let’s start with the railroad crossing. In 1850, the Terre Haute & Richmond Railroad was chartered to create a route between its two title cities through Indianapolis. Typical railroad construction involves laying out the route to be as flat as possible. Through most of Indiana, being that most of the terrain is relatively flat, this is not a problem. The routing of the the TH&R west of Plainfield found itself winding through some very hilly territory. At Plainfield, the road started on a straight path to the Hoosier capital. When construction was completed in 1852 to Indianapolis, the railroad was a very straight line from west of Plainfield to Indianapolis.

Railroad construction at the time also didn’t take into consideration the roads that were in place when they were built. One half mile west of the Marion-Hendricks County line, at a spot that would later become known as Six Points, the TH&R was built to have a very flat crossing of the National Road. A crossing of about 15 degrees. On a clock, that is about the angle from 12:00 to 12:02:30, or half way between 2 and 3 minutes. Given the little amounts of traffic, the speed of trains, and what little there was normally involved horses, this was not seen as a problem.

Fast forward to the Auto Trail era when automobiles were taking over. Train traffic was booming, locomotive speeds were much higher, and the traffic was getting clogged with cars and trucks. The crossing at Six Points became one of the most dangerous in the state. With the state takeover of the old National Road as Original State Road 3 in 1917, the Indiana State Highway Commission became responsible for the conditions of both the road and the railroad crossing at this point. As traffic increased, this dangerous situation would remain into the mid-1930’s, when the ISHC started turning what had become US 40 into a divided highway across the entire state. The routing of US 40 curved to the north of the old road, crossing the Hendricks County Road (later to become 1050 East) a little over .1 mile north of the old crossing. The railroad, by this time the Pennsylvania Railroad, was then crossed at a 30 degree angle three tenths of a mile west of the Six Points Road.

This improved the situation at the crossing…but didn’t fix it completely. There were news stories of crashes, sometimes fatal, between cars and trains at that crossing, as well. But it did improve the situation.

The other quirk in the National Road would be the crossing of the creek at the west edge of Bridgeport. Bridgeport was an old village, mainly started as a watering hole along the old National Road. It is located less than 1/2 mile east of the Marion-Hendricks County line. At the west edge of town, the National Road curved slightly north of its straight path to cross over the White Lick Creek. The road then turned to become a straight line again aiming towards Plainfield.

This Google Map snippet shows the property lines of the old National Road from a point west of Raceway Road to west of Bridgeport. The road labelled “Old Washington Street” is the original path of the National Road/US 40.

This MapIndy aerial photograph, taken in 1941, shows the construction of the new US 40 west of Bridgeport.

When the state started working on connecting the two sections of already widened US 40, the section that remained was through Bridgeport and over the White Lick Creek Bridge. The work started on this section in 1941. The first task was to eliminate the curve at the White Lick Creek, making a straight line road between the 1936 bypass of Six Points and Bridgeport. It was mentioned in the Indianapolis News of 7 July 1941 that traffic through Bridgeport had dropped quite a bit with the old National Road/US 40 being closed for this construction. By 1942, the new section of US 40 would be completed, and the old road was left to flounder in the weeds.

1917: Main Roads to Fort Benjamin Harrison Need Work

When Fort Benjamin Harrison was built in Lawrence Township, in northeastern Marion County, getting there was quite the chore. It has been built along the Big Four’s Bellefontaine, or Bee, line. This allowed steam locomotives to pass by the new Army post on a regular basis. The Big Four, with its affiliation with the New York Central, could get Army traffic to and from the fort to almost any place in the United States without much effort.

The workforce for the new fort would come on either the Bee line, or the new Indiana Union Traction line that connected Indianapolis to Anderson, Muncie and Fort Wayne. Although it didn’t last much more than three decades, this was an important way to access the fort. The station for that interurban line still exists…and is open to the public as a Mexican restaurant (as of this writing) called the Hacienda.

But automobile traffic was becoming more and more important. Even more important was the transit of Army vehicles to and from Fort Benjamin Harrison. To that end, in the spring of 1917, the commander of the station, General Edwin F. Glenn, sought to get improvements to the road system to the fort. With this in mind, he held a conference with Marion County government and business leaders to share what he had in mind.

The Indianapolis Star, 10 June 1917. Map of the north east side of Marion County, showing improvements needed to access Fort Benjamin Harrison.

First and foremost in the General’s mind was the main road to the fort – the Pendleton Pike. Technically, the Pendleton Pike started at the limits of the City of Indianapolis at Bee Line connection to the Indianapolis Belt Railway just east of Brightwood Avenue (Sherman Drive). West of that point, it was called Massachusetts Avenue. The county had taken over the Pendleton Toll Road in the late 1880s. But little was done for its improvement or maintenance. By the time the Army created the fort, the road was little more than a connection to other roads in rural Marion County and downtown Indianapolis. Many battles were fought about the improvement of the road, lasting past the end of World War I, when such improvements were vital.

The Pendleton Pike, in 1917, was being improved…slowly but surely. The plan was to concrete the road from the Indianapolis City Limits to 38th Street, just west of what is now Shadeland Avenue. From there, the first of the two sections to the fort’s main north-south entrance, would be improved with heavy stone. This would take the heavy stone from 38th Street to the old Noblesville-Franklin State Road, or Franklin Road. The next section would be graveled. This section ran from Franklin Road to the Yerger or Acre Free Gravel Road, now known as Post Road. The section of the Post Road, connecting Pendleton Pike to the interior of Fort Benjamin Harrison, was being hard surfaced with a “special preparation,” according to the Indianapolis Star of 10 June 1917.

The next road to get attention was the “54th Street Road,” connecting west from the fort to Millersville. Those of you from the area might be a little confused. The village of Millersville was along the Fall Creek, just inside the Washington Township border at what is now Emerson Way. The main drag from Fort Benjamin Harrison is now called 56th Street, not 54th. That road was built along the half-survey line starting where the Millersville and Fall Creek Free Gravel Roads come together near what is now Emerson Way at Millersville Road. The highlighted section of the following MapIndy photo, from 1952, shows the original route connecting the Millersville Road to the old Fall Creek & Mud Creek Road. (At the time, what is now Rucker Road continued south of what is now Fall Creek Road. It would be that way until sometime before 1962, when two lakes were built. The Rucker Road extension would finally be taken out sometime between 1979 and 1986.)

The Millersville Road, according to the Indianapolis Star “is by no means a direct route to the fort. It begins at Thirty-eighth street and Fall Creek and meanders northeast about eight miles to the famous Baker’s bridge and thence southeast a quarter of a mile to the fort grounds.” Baker’s Bridge is along the old Noblesville-Franklin State Road, now called Boy Scout Road, in the northwest corner of the Fort Benjamin Harrison grounds. General Glenn wanted the entirety of the Millersville Road covered with gravel…a job that, according to the General, with five wagons in two days. The first three miles of the Millersville Road had already been improved with asphalt. The next half mile being oiled gravel. The rest of the road was gravel…and work was being done at the time to repair damage done by large, heavy, loads transiting the road.

Other roads being worked on for access to the fort were the National Road from Irvington to Acre Road, Emerson Avenue, Arlington Avenue, 34th Street and the Acre Road itself.

At the time, National Road was the actual name of the Washington Street extension outside the limits of the City of Indianapolis at Sheridan Avenue in Irvington. West of Sheridan, it was Washington. East of that point, it was the National Road. The first mile of the National Road, from Sheridan Avenue, was being concreted. That would end near what is now Shortridge Road and Washington Street. The next two miles from Shortridge Road east were already concreted at that time. That would take it to a point east of Acre (Post) Road. The Acre Road, as of 10 June 1917, was closed for construction of a stone road stretching five miles north to the Pendleton Pike and into the fort.

Emerson and Arlington Avenues were also under construction at the time. Both were being concreted from Washington Street (both are west of Sheridan Avenue) to the Pendleton Pike. Emerson Avenue met Pendleton Pike at roughly 30th Street. Emerson Avenue, at least the southern section of said, ended at the Bee Line. Neither 30th Street nor Emerson Avenue crossed the railroad tracks, and passage past those tracks was done at an underpass on 32nd Street.

Arlington Avenue meets Pendleton Pike (now Massachusetts Avenue) at 34th Street. Improvements along 34th Street included asphalt paving from the Lake Erie & Western (Nickel Plate) Railroad crossing for three miles to the east to what was the northern section of Emerson Avenue. From there to Arlington Avenue, 34th Street was a stone road. Prior to being called 34th Street, the road was the Fall Creek & Warren Township Free Gravel Road.

It would take some time until the roads were improved for to the General’s liking. With the creation of the Indiana State Highway Commission in 1917, the National Road was taken over as Main Market Road #3. It wouldn’t be until 1923 that the Pendleton Pike would find itself part of the state highway system, entering that system as Original State Road 37. By then, the war was over, and traffic to Fort Benjamin Harrison had, while not stopping completely, had slowed considerably as it normally does after the completion of a war. The fort would, eventually, get its connections to the road system other than SR 67/US 36 (Pendleton Pike). In 1941, 56th Street west out of the fort would become part of SR 534, a designation it would only hold for a few years before that state road was routed straight down Shadeland Avenue. With the building of the Interstate system, which was technically built for the defense of the United States, Fort Benjamin Harrison would find itself with two exits from I-465 (Pendleton Pike and 56th Street) and one on I-70 (Post Road). I suppose the Post Road exit on I-74 could technically be listed as part of that…but it is quite a distance from the Fort.

Dec 1917: Main Market Roads Officially Announced

When the law creating the Indiana State Highway Commission was passed in early 1917, the announcement was also made that there were would five main market highways, later known as state roads, designated by that commission. There was a general idea of which roads would be involved, bot nothing set in stone. That is, until December 1917.

The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette of 12 December 1917 announced the selection of the new main market highways. ISHC officials traveled throughout the state deciding which roads would be part of the new, and yet controversial, system. “A former election of four of the five routes was tentative, and although the general directions of the four roads announced formerly have been adhered to in the official selection, many changes have been made.”

The plan was to create a system which was typical of Indiana’s general demeanor: serve as many people as possible with as little cost and intrusion as possible. Due to the shape of the state of Indiana, it was decided that there would be three roads crossing the state, west to east, from the Illinois state line to the Ohio state line. One north-south road would be designated through the middle of the state. This was the basis of the first four main market roads. A fifth road would connect the fourth road to the Illinois state line in the southern part of the state. The December 1917 system included roughly 800 miles of roads.

The main market highways were officially described as follows: “No. 1. The highway beginning at the Indiana and Michigan state line, thence southerly through South Bend, Plymouth, Rochester, Peru, Kokomo, Westfield, Carmel, Indianapolis, Franklin, Columbus, Seymour, Scottsburg, Sellersburg, New Albany and Jeffersonville.” In the Auto Trail era, there was no one highway this route followed. It seems that it was planned very early to have a split in the highway at the south end, with one branch going to New Albany, and one going to Jeffersonville. And although the route numbers have changed, that split has existed in one form or another since that time.

Main Market Road #2: “The highway passing through the northern part of the state, beginning, at the Illinois and Indiana state line, thence easterly through Dyer, Valparaiso, Laporte, South Bend, Goshen and Fort Wayne via the Lincoln Highway to the Ohio and Indiana state line.” Depending on how one reads that, it could be that the Lincoln Highway was only used from Fort Wayne to the Ohio state line. This is far from true. It was decided that the entire original route of the Lincoln Highway through the state would be used for Road #2.

Main Market Road #3: “The highway crossing the central part of the state, commonly called the old national road trail, beginning at the corner of the Illinois and Indiana state line, thence easterly through Terre Haute, Brazil, Putnamville, Plainfield, Indianapolis, Greenfield, Knightstown, Cambridge City and Richmond to the Ohio and Indiana state line.”

Main Market Road #4: “The road crossing the southern part of the state, beginning at Evansville, thence easterly through Boonville, Huntingburg, Jasper, West Baden, Paoli, Mitchell, Bedford, Seymour, North Vernon, Versailles, Dillsboro, Aurora and Lawrenceburg to the Ohio and Indiana state line.”

Main Market Road #5: “The road connecting Vincennes and Mitchell, via Wheatland, Washington, Loogootee and Shoals.” Basically, this road was designated to connect main market road 4 to Vincennes. Again, this is due to the shape of the state. A (more or less) straight line across Indiana from Cincinnati west would, as is shown by the route of the current US 50, connect to Vincennes, leaving people south of there without a main market road. Evansville was, and still is, one of the top five largest cities in the state, population wise. So ignoring that city would not have been possible.

The article ends with the following: “The total mileage of the roads represents less than one-half of the total 2,000 miles of ‘main market highways’ which the commission may designate under the new state highway commission law prior to 1921.” The law that passed in 1917 created a state highway system so that Indiana could benefit from federal money for good roads. It wasn’t until the law was redone in 1919, with all of the 1917 law’s Constitutional questions answered, that the Indiana State Highway System was officially made part of the landscape.

Westfield Boulevard Bridge Over White River

1891. A steel bridge was built to cross the White River north of Broad Ripple on what was then called the Indianapolis & Westfield Free Gravel Road. As was typical of the time, the bridge crossed the White River at a 90 degree angle, making for the approaches, especially the southern approach, were a little tight. The bridge would be used until the city of Indianapolis would have to tear it down in 1977.

The bridge built in 1891 was a replacement for a bridge that had served for many years at the location. The road had been originally built as the Westfield State Road in the 1830’s. Later, in the late 1840’s, the road would be sold to a toll road company for maintenance and to become a turnpike. This would last until the late 1880’s, when it was purchased back by Marion County for the free use of travelers. It would still be the Free Gravel Road when the new bridge was built.

The original road would cross the river as shown in the 1972 aerial photograph above. The sudden right turn approaching the bridge from the south would later create a bottle neck that the State wanted to take care of…or just bypass altogether.

In the mid-1910’s, the old Westfield State Road would acquire a new name: the Range Line Road, an Auto-Trail that would connect Indianapolis to Kokomo and Peru through Westfield. The Range Line Road gained its name because it followed the survey line that separated Range 3 East and Range 4 East in the survey that divided Indiana into one mile square sections.

Another name was given to the road in 1917 – Main Market Road 1. This was the predecessor to State Road 1, which this became in 1919. This brought the Westfield Road, and its two lane bridge over White River into the state highway system. But it wouldn’t be long until the Indiana State Highway Commission discovered the errors in the naming of this route as a major State Road. While in Indianapolis, and up to what is now 86th Street (later SR 534/100), the road was winding and narrow.

Part of being part of the state highway system is that state roads are, with very few exceptions, automatically truck routes. And running trucks through Broad Ripple, even today, could best be described as “fun,” at least sarcastically. The old state road followed Westfield Boulevard from Meridian Street until it turned north in Broad Ripple…making the turn at Winthrop Avenue and the Monon Railroad tracks interesting. It also gets tight while hugging the White River.

The state would bypass this section of US 31 by building a new road straight north along the Meridian Street corridor. This caused a lot of protesting from the people of Carmel, fearing that their main drag, Range Line Road, would be left to rot, and travelers would be guided around the town. While US 31 bypassed this section, it would be given a replacement state road number: SR 431.

Meanwhile, the White River bridge lumbered on. By 1931, SR 431 was now using the facility. It would stay that way until the building of I-465…which would cause the state to move SR 431 from Westfield Boulevard to Keystone Avenue. The state’s maintenance of the White River bridge would end in 1968.

It didn’t take long for the bridge to fall into disrepair. By 1974, it was recommended to the city that the road and bridge be closed completely to traffic. If not immediately, at most within the next two years. The city would lower the weight limit to five tons in 1974. But this did not solve the pending problems with the bridge. In addition, around the 7300 block of Westfield, was another bridge over what is known as the “overflow channel,” a small White River cutoff north of the main channel of the river. The bridge over the overflow channel was in as bad or worse shape than the truss bridge in the 6700 block of Westfield.

1972 MapIndy aerial photograph of the Westfield Boulevard bridge over the White River Overflow Channel in the 7300 block of Westfield Boulevard.

The main bridge would be closed in 1977 for the building of a replacement of the facility. Business owners of Broad Ripple, as early as 1974, had been arguing for either fixing or replacing the bridge in place. Their discussions concerned the fact that straightening the road would allow for high speed traffic to come in through “Broad Ripple’s back door.” Keeping the tight and winding approaches to the White River bridge would slow traffic down before entering the neighborhood. Both ideas were continuously shot down by the city of Indianapolis, the owners of the facility. The City went so far as to recommending that Westfield Boulevard be closed between Broad Ripple Avenue and 75th Street, thus removing the need to replace the bridge altogether.

As it turned out, the bridge would be replaced. Or, more to the point, bypassed. The next photo, a 1978 aerial taken from MapIndy, shows the new bridge and the old bridge it replaced. The old bridge would be completely removed from aerial photos the following year.

1978 MapIndy aerial photograph showing the replacement Westfield Boulevard bridge over White River, and the location of the old bridge.

The new bridge would open on 12 June 1978. But the road wouldn’t. In an example of just fantastic government planning, the Overflow Channel bridge would be closed in either August or September of 1978 for replacement. This would cause the new bridge to be used for only local traffic until the following year, 1979, when the new overflow channel bridge would be completed.

1993 aerial MapIndy photograph showing the Westfield Boulevard bridge over the White River Overflow Channel (7300 block of Westfield Boulevard). Also shown is the abandoned Monon Railroad, prior to the creation of the Monon Trail.

With the opening of the Overflow Channel bridge, Westfield Boulevard was opened again for traffic from Broad Ripple to Nora…and hence north to the downtowns of Carmel and Westfield. While reaching downtown Westfield using the old road has become more difficult with the redesign of US 31 through Hamilton County, it still can be followed on maps – and for the most part in cars, as well.

Indianapolis and the Original ISHC State Road System

I have posted much about the creation of the Indiana State Highway Commission. As of the posting of this article, the age of the Commission is either 103 or 101 years old. The original ISHC was established in 1917…but met with a lot of problems. It was finally nailed down in 1919 and made permanent.

This also creates a dating problem when it comes to the state highways. The first five state highways, then known as Main Market Roads, were established in 1917 with the original ISHC. Two of those original Main Market Highways connected to Indianapolis. The original National Road had been given the number Main Market Road 3. The Range Line Road, connecting Indianapolis to Peru, and through further connections, to South Bend, was given the Main Market Road 1 label.

When it was finally established, the ISHC changed the name of the Main Market Road to State Road, in keeping with other states surrounding Indiana. The markers used along the roads, painted onto utility poles like the old Auto Trail markers were, resembled the image to the left…the state shape with the words “STATE ROAD” and the route number. In this case, as of 1920, State Road 2 was the original route of the Lincoln Highway through northern Indiana.

The state highway system was designed to, eventually, connect every county seat and town of over 5,000 population, to each other. Indianapolis, as the state capital and the largest city in the state, would have connections aiming in every direction. Most of those roads marked with the original numbers would still be state roads into the 1970s and early 1980s, before the Indiana Department of Highways started removing state roads inside the Interstate 465 loop…and INDOT finishing the job on 1 July 1999. These road were removed for state statutory limitation reasons, and I have discussed that in a previous blog entry. So I won’t do it here.

The original state road numbers that came to Indiana varied greatly, as did their directions. There were no set rules when it came to state road numbers. They were assigned as they came…and stayed that way until the first renumbering of 1923, or the Great Renumbering of 1926.

Let’s look at the original state roads in Marion County, some of which actually did not reach Indianapolis itself.

State Road 1: As mentioned before, State Road 1 was originally called Main Market Highway 1. North of Indianapolis, it followed the Range Line Road, a local Auto Trail, through Carmel, Westfield, to Kokomo and points north. The route north followed Meridian Street north to Westfield Boulevard, then Westfield Boulevard on out to Carmel and beyond. In Carmel, the old road is still called Range Line Road, and serves as the main north-south drag through the town, as it does in Westfield.

South of Indianapolis, State Road 1, like its Main Market Highway predecessor, followed the old Madison State Road out of the city to Southport, Greenwood, Franklin and Columbus. The original SR 1 route is still able to be driven through the south side of Indianapolis, with the exception of the section replaced in the 1950s by the Madison Avenue Expressway. But Old Madison Avenue exists, if you can find your way back there.

While the entirety of original State Road 1 became US 31 with the Great Renumbering, bypasses in Marion County were put in place very early. The northern section, through Broad Ripple, and Carmel was replaced as early as 1930. The southern section, including the Southport/Greenwood bypass, was put in place in the 1940s.

State Road 3: As mentioned above, Main Market Highway/State Road 3 followed the National Road through Marion County. One exception to this is the section of the 1830s National Road that crossed the White River downtown. That section of the old road was removed in 1904 with the demolition of the National Road covered bridge and its replacement with a new, and short lived, Washington Street bridge. With a couple of exceptions other than that (the Bridgeport straightening of the early 1930s, and the new Eagle Creek bridge built in the late 1930s), the old road was followed very accurately until the mid-1980s with the creation of White River State Park. The successor to original SR 3, US 40, was moved to make room for the park. Both US 40 and US 31 lost their designations on 1 July 1999 with the removal of those two routes inside the I-465 loop.

State Road 6: This old state road was a through route when it came to Marion County. From the north, it followed the route of the original Indianapolis-Lafayette State Road from Lebanon. After passing through downtown Indianapolis, it left the county using the original Michigan Road on its way to Shelbyville and Greensburg. The original State Road 6 followed the Michigan Road Auto Trail, not the Historic Michigan Road, meaning it still went to Madison, but it went by way of Versailles, which the historic road did not. With the Great Renumbering, the northern SR 6 became US 52, while the southern SR 6 became SR 29 – later to be renumbered again to US 421.

State Road 22: This road, as it was originally laid out, only lasted from 1920 to 1923. Out of Indianapolis, it followed the old Mooresville State Road through southwestern Marion County. It was designated the original route from Indianapolis to Martinsville, as described in this blog entry. This road will be discussed again a few paragraphs from now.

State Road 39: Another 1830s state road that was taken into the Indiana State Highway Commission’s custody in 1919. This road followed the old Brookville State Road from the National Road out of the county through New Palestine to Rushville and Brookville. The original end of that road, both the 1830s original and the 1919 state highway, is discussed here. The road would become, in October 1926, the other section of US 52 through Indianapolis. It would also eventually become the first state highway removed inside the I-465 loop in Marion County. And even then, it would be rerouted in the late 1990s to go the other way around the county.

That covers the 1919 highways. More would come to Marion County before 1923.

State Road 12: Originally, this road, north of Martinsville, was the old State Road 22 mentioned above. When a new SR 22 was created, the SR 12 number was continued from Martinsville to Indianapolis along the old Vincennes and Mooresville State Roads. This road, in October 1926, would become part of the new State Road 67.

State Road 15: While the southern route of the Michigan Road was State Road 6, the northern part, heading off to Logansport, was added later and given the number State Road 15. The entire route of the historic Michigan Road would never become a state highway, but major sections did…although late in the creation of the state highway system. With the Great Renumbering, this road became SR 29, and in 1951, redesignated, like its southern half, US 421.

State Road 22: Here we go again. State Road 22 was given to the route between Indianapolis and Paoli. In 1919, that included the route along the west bank of the White River from Martinsville to Indianapolis along the Mooresville Road. This was changed by 1923 to keep SR 22 on the east side of White River, where it followed the old Paoli State Road, and the Bluff Road, through Waverly to the south edge of downtown Indianapolis at Meridian and South Streets. This was one of the routes of the Dixie Highway through Indianapolis, and would later become part of SR 37 in 1926.

State Road 31: In 1920, when this road was originally created, it turned south to connect to the National Road west of Plainfield. It had followed the Rockville Road from Montezuma to Danville, then turned southeasterly to meet State Road 3. By 1923, the road was moved from what would later become part of what is now SR 39 to continuing on the Rockville Road into Marion County. State Road 31 would meet the National Road outside the city limits of Indianapolis at what is now the intersection of Holt Road and Washington Street. It would become US 36 before it was extended along the new section of what is now Rockville Road to the intersection at Eagle Creek with Washington Street.

State Road 37: One of two state road numbers that still served Indianapolis after the road numbers were changed in October 1926 (the other being State Road 31). The original State Road 37 left Marion County in a northeasterly direction on its way to Pendleton, Anderson and Muncie. Inside the city limits, the street name was Massachusetts Avenue. When it reached the city limits, the name of the road changed to Pendleton Pike. This still occurs today, with the name change at the old city limits at 38th Street. In October 1926, the number of this road would change to State Road 67.

There were two other major state roads in Marion County, but they weren’t part of the state highway system until after the Great Renumbering. One was the Crawfordsville State Road, part of the original Dixie Highway, connecting Indianapolis to Crawfordsville via Speedway, Clermont, Brownsburg, and half a dozen other towns. It would be added to the state highway system by 1929 as State Road 34. The number would change later to US 136.

The other road was the original Fort Wayne State Road, also known as the Noblesville State Road, but even more commonly called the Allisonville Road. It would be added to the state highway system in 1932 as State Road 13. Less than a decade later, its number would be changed to the more familiar State Road 37.

US 33 – And Plans of Such

In the 1910’s, Indiana was crossed by one of the first cross country highways ever created – the Lincoln Highway. The original route of that road took it through Fort Wayne, Goshen, Elkhart, South Bend, Laporte, Valparaiso, and finally left the state at Dyer.

When the Indiana State Highway Commission was created in 1917, the original Lincoln Highway was given one state issued name for its entire length – Main Market Road #2. This would be changed to State Road 2 when the ISHC was again created in 1919 after settling some state constitutional issues.

The state would change the number of the road in several places, as State Road 2 was applied to a more direct route between Fort Wayne and Dyer in 1923. But the original route was still kept under state maintenance. The Great Renumbering, and the section from Fort Wayne to South Bend was once again given the name State Road 2. And this would last until 1937…when a new U. S. highway came to Indiana…US 33.

But that isn’t the entire story. In 1932, officials were negotiating to get a new US highway added to the Indiana landscape. That highway would cross the state, connecting Detroit with Fort Wayne, Muncie, and Indianapolis, ending at Vincennes. The requested number for the new US highway? 33.

In the Lafayette Journal and Courier of 20 April 1932, it was reported that “delegations from a number of cities including Fort Wayne and Muncie, called on the Indiana highway commission here today to request that a new federal highway, to be known as U. S. 33, connecting Detroit, Mich., with Vincennes, Ind., by way of Fort Wayne, Muncie, and Indianapolis, be authorized.”

Such a highway could not be approved by the Indiana State Highway Commission. Approval of US highway numbers and routings were done by the American Association of State Highway Officials, and today the successor organization still does that job. But it didn’t stop people from trying.

What would such a route look like? When the Great Renumbering occurred in 1926, there was hope that a US highway connecting southern Illinois to Cleveland, Ohio, would be designated across Indiana. The number that was supposedly going to be assigned to such a route is US 67. In Indiana, US 67 would have entered at Vincennes, going through Indianapolis, Anderson, and Muncie to leave the state somewhere (probably) in Jay County. But Indiana was thinking ahead…and gave the pending US route the name State Road 67. The US route never came…but we are left with a reminder of what was (hopefully) to be.

The wanted US 33 would have, most likely, followed SR 67 from Vincennes to Muncie. From Muncie, it would have been more likely to have used SR 3 north. In 1932, when the request was made, SR 3 didn’t follow the route that it does today. It turned east at SR 18 then turned north again on what is now SR 1. The following year, SR 3 was continued due north, and did connect directly to Fort Wayne via Hartford City. This is most likely the route that would have been chosen had that US 33 been approved.

But the approved route of US 33 wasn’t done in a vacuum. The entire highway, running from Richmond, Virginia, to (now) Elkhart, Indiana, was formed in conjunction with an auto trail, called the Blue and Gray Trail, which was designed to promote a direct link from the Great Lakes to the Tidewater Region of Virginia. (Tidewater is the name given to the area that encompasses what is now Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, and other communities near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.) A motorcade, starting in Richmond, Virginia, trundled its way along the new US highway to St. Joseph, Michigan, where it ended originally.

Outside of Indiana, US 33 has the distinction of being labeled directionally wrong. Starting in Ohio, the highway is labeled as EAST US 33 and WEST US 33. This is in Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia. This is a throwback from when the route was originally labeled as “SOUTHEAST US 33” and “NORTHWEST US 33.” Indiana never labeled the road that way. Even if the road does go the wrong direction (i.e. State Road 47, which ends going east and west), the roads label would still be correct.

The Blue and Gray Trail was one of the last Auto Trails to be named. It was created at the same time as US 33, meaning that it was long after most of the other Auto Trails were winding down. To me, it seems fairly appropriate that in Indiana, at least from Fort Wayne to South Bend, it would follow the Lincoln Highway. And…the Dixie Highway from South Bend to Niles, Michigan. That has to have been planned.

Seymour

Indiana has always been proud of the fact that it is the Crossroads of America. Many cities in Indiana contribute to that nickname. And most people think of Indianapolis when the Crossroads moniker is brought up. But I want to focus on a city in south central Indiana that was not only a crossroads town, it was the crossing of the railroad that gave the city its name: Seymour.

The city itself came into being in 1852. That was the year that the Jeffersonville Railroad completed its track from its title city to Columbus through what soon would be Seymour. The Jeffersonville would be created in 1832 as the Ohio & Indianapolis Railway. In 1849, the railroad changed its name to the Jeffersonville Railroad Company.

In 1851, the State of Indiana chartered the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Company. The goal of the company was to build a route that connected the Ohio River at Cincinnati to the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Its path through Indiana was far from settled when a mill owner in Rockford persuaded the railroad engineer to build the line two miles south of the then commercial center of Jackson County. That location south of Rockford where the O&M would cross would, in turn, be named by the mill owner after that railroad engineer: John Seymour.

The location had already been crossed by two state roads built in the decade or so prior to the creation of Seymour. The New Albany State Road entered the area from the north from Indianapolis. The original New Albany State Road turned east on the other state road, before turning south again bound for the Ohio River. That other state road connected Lawrenceburg (and Cincinnati) to Vincennes.

In the mid-1880’s, the city would have an addition to it crossroads status with the coming of the Evansville & Richmond Railroad. This would make Seymour a rail center, with direct connections (through the three railroads) to Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago. The sixth route out of the city would connect to the Vernon, Greensburg & Rushville at Westport.

With the creation of the Auto Trails, Seymour found itself on three routes. The Jackson Highway, marked by the number 69 on Rand McNally maps of the era, entered Seymour along the old state road connecting the city to Indianapolis. It then followed the Cincinnati-Vincennes Road to the southeast towards Brownstown and Vallonia. That old state road would also be used, from west to east, through Seymour for the route of Rand McNally’s route 90, known as the French Lick Route. Rand McNally route 96 started in Seymour, and left the town going south, twisting and turning its way through Dudleytown and Crothersville to ultimately join the old New Albany State Road.

When the Indiana State Highway Commission was first formed in 1917, Seymour found itself on even footing with Indianapolis when it came to the state Main Market Road system. The state created five main market highways. Market Highway 1 followed the old New Albany State Road from Indianapolis to New Albany. Market Highway 4 would cross Indiana on the old Cincinnati to Vincennes state road from Bedford to Cincinnati.

This status quo would remain in place through the Great Renumbering on 1 October 1926. Although the official name of the Main Market Highway would change to State Road in 1919, Seymour would still be on both SR 1 and SR 4. With the renumbering, the city found itself on two cross-country highways, when SR 1 became US 31 and SR 4 became US 50.

By 1940, a US 31 bypass would be built from Columbus to Seymour, passing both cities to the east. At the south end of the bypass, the new US 31 connected to the original US 31 where it departed from the US 50. Up to this point, US 31 came in to downtown Seymour from the north, turned east along US 50, then turned south again east of Seymour. The old US 31 into Seymour would first become US 31A, then changed to SR 11.

Today, Seymour is still on US 50, but is bypassed by both US 31 and I-65, the interstate built to follow the venerable old US route. SR 11 still follows the old US 31 route into the city. After many name changes, the old Ohio & Mississippi would become part of the Baltimore & Ohio. The Jeffersonville would merge with one of its competitors, and then a bunch of other companies, to become part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. CSX and the Louisville & Indiana, respectively, are the successors to those railroads that helped form the town in the first place. Trains still rumble through on those roads. The Milwaukee Road, the ultimate successor to the Evansville & Richmond would rip out the tracks from Seymour to Westport in 1961, and from Bedford to Seymour in 1978.

Some Auto Trails and Original Indiana State Roads

In the 1910’s, organizations were being set up all over the country to support building a system of roads, called Auto Trails, to facilitate the moving of traffic across the state and across the nation. I have covered several of these of the past 11 months: Lincoln Highway, Hoosier Dixie, National Road, Michigan Road, Dandy Trail, Crawfordsville to Anderson, Hoosier Highway, Ben Hur Route, Jackson Highway, Tip Top Trail, Riley Highway, Illinois Corn Belt and the Midland Route. The purpose of these organizations was to create good, hard surface roads, allowing better, faster and safer transportation across the United States. Some organizations were successful. Others were not. And some of these were brought into the early Indiana State Road system.

Now, when I say brought into the system, it should be known that occasionally I will be talking about corridors…although many of the the roads were taken directly by the State Highway Commission.

The Yellowstone Trail: The Yellowstone Trail connected Plymouth, Massachusetts, to Seattle, Washington, and both to the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. From Valparaiso to Fort Wayne, the Yellowstone Trail became SR 44 originally. Later, in 1923, it would be changed to SR 2. That designation would be gone in 1926, when the corridor became that of US 30.

Dixie Bee Line: Designed as a more direct route to the south, as opposed to the older and more famous Dixie Highway, the Dixie Bee Highway separated from its namesake at Danville, Illinois. It entered Indiana northwest of Cuyuga, and went roughly due south through Terre Haute, Vincennes and Evansville. In 1920, the section from Cuyuga south became SR 10. It would later become SR 63 to Clinton, then US 41 to Evansville.

Range Line: This route became part of, arguably, the most important north-south route in Indiana. The Range Line Road, connecting Indianapolis to Peru via Kokomo, started life in Indianapolis as the Westfield Road. It got its Auto Trail name from the fact that it followed a survey line, called the Range Line, up to west of Peru, where it ended at the Wabash Way, mentioned later. It was so important that the route would be made a Main Market Road in 1917, given the number 1. It became SR 1 in 1919. It was changed to US 31 in 1926.

Lincoln Highway: The original version of this first transcontinental highway connected across Indiana via Valparaiso, LaPorte, South Bend, Elkhart, Goshen, Ligonier, and Fort Wayne. Again, due to its importance, it became one of the first five Main Market Roads in 1917, given the number 2. It then became SR 2. In 1923, the Fort Wayne to Elkhart became SR 46, Elkhart to South Bend became SR 25 to Rolling Prairie, and the rest of the original Lincoln Highway to Valparaiso became SR 42, while the future Lincoln Highway became SR 2 along the Yellowstone Route corridor. The two ends of the road in Indiana became US 30, while from Valpo to Rolling Prairie, and from South Bend to Fort Wayne, became SR 2 again. Later from South Bend to Fort Wayne became US 33.

National Old Trails Road: While most of the way across Indiana, this Auto Trail follows the nation’s first highway, the National Road, it is not entirely the route. While most of the NOTR became Main Market Road 3 in 1917, then SR 3 in 1919, the portion east of Richmond was left out of the state road system. At Richmond, the NOTR turned toward Eaton and Dayton, before connecting back to the original National Road at Springfield. Later, in 1926, that section of the NOTR would become SR 11…then US 35 in 1935.

Dixie Highway: Ironically, that which was the first transcontinental north-south highway would only become part of the state road system in sections. From Danville, Illinois, to Crawfordsville would become SR 33, the Indiana-Michigan state line to Rochester became SR 1, Martinsville to Bedford became SR 22, Bedford to Paoli would become SR, originally Main Market Road, 4, and from Paoli to New Albany would be SR 42. This changed in 1923. SR 42 became part of SR 5, SR 4 became an extension of SR 22, as did the route from Martinsville to Indianapolis, from Indianapolis to Logansport became SR 15. 1926, and the number of state roads the old Dixie Highway became is large: SR 25, SR 29, US 31, SR 34, SR 37, and US 150.

Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean: This road had two routes through Indiana in its history. The first route came into Indiana west of Montezuma. From Montezuma to Danville, the original route became SR 31. By 1923, instead of SR 31 connecting to SR 3 (later US 40) near Cartersburg, it connected to SR 3 west of Indianapolis at where the (original) Rockville Road connected to the National Road. The new route would cross Indiana north of Indianapolis, with the route entering Indiana from Danville, Illinois, with the Dixie Highway. From Crawfordsville to Lebanon, it would become SR 33. From Westfield to Union City, the 1920 road number was SR 37. 1923 saw SR 33 extended from Crawfordsville to Union City, with the SR 37 designation from Anderson to Muncie. In 1926, SR 33 would be changed to SR 32. This was also the route of the Crawfordsville to Anderson Auto Trail.

There are far more routes that crossed the state. I will cover more of them at a later date.

Illinois Corn Belt Route

The Auto Trail created a series of routes that some would question the purpose. Some of those start and end in Indiana. One starts in Indiana, but works its way due west out of the state toward the state that is in the name of the route: Illinois.

The original plan for the route was to start in Effner, Illinois, crossing the entire state to Burlington, Iowa. The Brook (Indiana) Reporter (23 February 1917) reprinted an article from the El Paso Journal (El Paso, Illinois) about the pending route. The plan was for the route to parallel the Toledo, Peoria & Western (TP&W) “and run from Effner to Burlington, Iowa.” Citizens from several towns “formally launched the Illinois Corn Belt Route to traverse the highway east of Peoria to the state line at Effner and west of Peoria through Farmington to the Mississippi River at Burlington The route is a straight bee line through the state east and west.”

Had it stayed in Illinois, then why would it be included on Indiana Transportation History. Because there was another route that was being put together at the time called the Peoria Detroit Air Line. That route was to traverse the Illinois Corn Belt to Effner, then connect across Indiana via Logansport and Fort Wayne.

In the end, the Peoria Detroit Air Line would not be built. A close look at a map would make one realize that the proposed Peoria Detroit Air Line would have basically followed what is now old US 24 across Indiana. The Illinois Corn Belt Route was moved to start in Logansport. From there, it worked it’s way across Cass, White, Jasper and Newton Counties for the Illinois State Line. It, too, followed the now US 24 corridor across the Hoosier State.

1920 Rand McNally Auto Trails map, with the Illinois Corn Belt Route marked by the number [30].

There isn’t much to write about this route. From Logansport, what will become the US 24 corridor to Toledo would be covered by the Wabash Way to Fort Wayne. With the exception of the road directly out of Logansport, most of Illinois Corn Belt Route, at least in Indiana, is part of US 24. And US 421. And US 231. And US 52.

Bicycling the Westfield Road

I would like to wish all of my readers, and their families, a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your celebrations…and always, be careful in all you do!

In the early days of the state of Indiana, with the creation of a series of “state roads,” a road was built out of Indianapolis to connect to Westfield, and points beyond. The road would be, in Hamilton County, built along a survey line known as a range line. When, in 1896, the Indianapolis News started publishing a series of articles about bicycling routes along old roads in Marion and surrounding counties, the Westfield Road would be the way back to the city from Noblesville.

The source article for this post comes from the Indianapolis News of 25 April 1896.

The route taken back to Indianapolis started at the square in Noblesville. I am going to cover the short trek across Hamilton County before aiming back south into Marion County. The Lebanon Pike out of downtown Noblesville would leave that city north of where SR 32 and SR 38 cross the river. The old bridge across White River, the one that was part of the old state road built to Lafayette, is now the Logan Street bridge. (This would be part of old state roads that would connect Richmond and Greenfield through Pendleton to Lafayette.)

After leaving Noblesville along the Lebanon Pike (later original SR 37, then SR 32), the road was relatively flat and straight to Westfield. From here, there were two routes back to Indianapolis. The first was west of Westfield down the Indianapolis & Williams Creek Pike, which is now Spring Mill Road and Illinois Street (south of Kessler Boulevard). The other, the focus of this article, was the Indianapolis & Westfield Road.

The Westfield Road was located on the west side of the town of Westfield. “It runs past a school-house and two churches. There is a bit of a hill on leaving Westfield, with a little stream crossing the road at the foot of it.” After crossing the creek, the road becomes level (relatively) on its way, due south, to the town of Carmel, four miles away. Carmel is described as “built a great deal like Westfield, and is a pretty, good-sized village.” Between Westfield and Carmel, the road is slightly downgrade, “just enough to make riding a pleasure.”

Carmel (the village at the time) is four miles north of the Hamilton-Marion County Line. Between those two points, the old Westfield Road paralleled the Monon tracks. The old road jogged a little to the east at the county line then aimed the 1.5 miles to Nora. It is mentioned that the old road crossed the Monon tracks near this area, but that part of the article is incorrect. At Nora “there is a good east-and-west road that crosses the Westfield road…and goes clear across the county.” That road is now 86th Street. It should be noted that 86th Street is actually one mile south of the county line at 96th Street.

From Nora, the old road swings to the southeast and south towards White River, following the course of the river to Broad Ripple. “The road is hard and firm and in excellent condition.” Before Broad Ripple, the route crosses the river on a large iron bridge. That bridge was located south of the current Westfield Boulevard bridge, crossing the river more due west than does the one that replaced it in the 1970’s. After crossing the canal and the Monon, the route turned west to follow the canal. Along the way, it crossed Central Avenue before turning south along what is now called Illinois Street. At the time, it was still the Westfield Road above Mapleton, at Maple Road (now 38th Street).

The trip to downtown Indianapolis could be accomplished by either taking the Central Avenue route or the Illinois Street route. The Illinois Street route was part of the above mentioned Indianapolis & Williams Creek Road that would also take the bicyclist to Westfield. The Westfield Road was so important, in the grand scheme of things, to the state of Indiana that it would become the original state road 1 in 1917. The Spring Mill route would be considered, during the time of the Indiana State Highway Commission, for a second route to Kokomo, possibly helping to cut traffic along what was, at that time, US 31. That plan never came to fruition.

*Edited by Paula Trefun Simpson 06/03/2021 to note that the ‘canal’ mentioned was the Central Canal.

Jackson Highway in Indiana

In the Auto Trail era, there were a lot of highways, for lack of a better term, cobbled together to reach distant parts of the United States. The granpap (or for those not of Pennsylvanian heritage, grandfather) of them all was the Lincoln Highway. Then came the Dixie Highway. After that, organizations were popping up creating more and more of these collections of country roads into named highways. One such road was named to honor Andrew Jackson.

Looking at it in the grand scheme of things, the Jackson Highway was, well, strange when it came to routing. It was designed to compliment the Dixie Highway. From Nashville, Tennessee, to Chicago, Illinois, the two road ran quite a bit of the time together, but usually not on the same road. At Nashville, the Dixie turned toward Florida. Confusingly, the Jackson turned southwest towards New Orleans. I say confusingly because it’s not very often that going from Chicago to New Orleans requires a long journey through Indiana.

The Jackson and the Dixie (at least one branch) both started in Chicago, and left Indiana at New Albany. As the Dixie aimed south toward Danville, Illinois, the Jackson goes straight for Hammond. From there, the Jackson Highway connected Crown Point, Rensselaer, Lafayette, Frankfort and Lebanon on its way to Indianapolis. At Indianapolis, the Jackson Highway met both branches of the Dixie Highway. The Dixie came into town on what would become SR 34 (US 136) and US 31, leaving along what became SR 37 and US 40. The Jackson came into town along what became US 52 and left via US 31.

In 1917, one year after the creation of the Jackson Highway, original state road 1 was created using the Dixie Highway north of Indianapolis and the Jackson Highway south of it. That state road designation would become official in 1919. The OSR 1 designation would separate from the Jackson at Seymour.

That would mean that from Indianapolis, the next stops on the Jackson would be Greenwood, Franklin, Columbus, Seymour, Salem and New Albany before crossing the Ohio River into Louisville.

Also in 1919, according to the Logansport Pharos-Reporter of 3 June 1919, traffic reports were issued, at least as far as Clinton County was concerned. The headline read “Michigan Road Traveled Much – County Kept During Friday and Saturday on Two Best Highways.” According to the Clinton County officials, the traffic counts along the two roads was decidedly leaning toward the Michigan. Cars were 714 to 319, Michigan. Trucks, 53 to 9, Michigan. Motorcycles 13 to 26, Jackson. And horse drawn vehicles, 165 to 1, Michigan.

A more detailed destination list of the Jackson, according to the Rand McNally Auto Trails map of 1919 is as follows: Whiting, Hammond, Chicago Heights, Highland, Schererville, Crown Point, Shelby, Thayer, Demotte, Virgie, Aix, Rensselaer, Remington, Wolcott, Montmorenci, Lafayette, Dayton, Mulberry, Frankfort, Mechanicsburg, Lebanon, Royalton, Flackville and Indianapolis.

From Indianapolis, the route connects Southport, Greenwood, Whiteland, Franklin, Amity, Edinburgh, Taylorsville, Columbus, Walesboro, Waynesville, Jonesville, Seymour, Brownstown, Vallonia, Millport, Kossuth, Salem, Pekin, Borden, Bridgeport, Bennettsville, and New Albany.

Most references in Indiana to the Jackson Highway were gone from the local newspapers by 1933. Occasionally afterwards, the name would be used in places where there was no state road designation. By 1936, even those had dried up.

Indiana State Highway Commission, and Its Delay

By the middle of the 1910’s, the Federal Government at Washington, DC, had around $85 million to help construction of roads throughout the United States. The vast majority of that, $75 million, for the construction of rural post roads, and $10 million for developing roads and trails partly or totally in national forests. The Indiana share of that money would be $2,109,00. Only if there was a state highway department to give that money to.

The Angola Herald of 19 January 1917 quoted George E. Martin, Assistant Professor of Highway Engineering at Purdue University, from the Purdue Bulletin: “Federal aid for road building is now a fact. The federal government will not treat with anything but a state. Some form of state organization is necessary to obtain that aid.” Basically, a state highway commission, or something like it, had to be created to take advantage of that federal money. That’s why there was a law working its way through the General Assembly at the time.

Unfortunately, it was going to be a hard sell in Indiana. After the disaster of the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act of 1836, and the new (Indiana) Constitution (of 1851) that came as a direct result of that Act, the state had been a model in local government responsibility. “Extreme local control” were the words used by Professor Martin. Indiana’s “laws have been drawn to give the people of the smallest subdivision of her territory the greatest latitude in the selection of the roads to be improved and the methods to be used for their improvement.” This created a very good system of local roads. “The results have been good in the past.”

One of the things hurting the road system in the state at that time was the way that roads were maintained at the time. While the roads belonged to the township and/or county (after they were purchased back from the toll road companies), maintenance was helped along by the fact that residents along the road had to help keep the road in shape at least two days a year (there were some exceptions due to health, age, etc.). The problem is that “road building is speedily advancing from rule of thumb methods to its proper place as one of the engineering sciences. It is no longer for every man to be a good road builder. To build roads, to meet present conditions r extensive training and experience. It is not possible for the small subdivisions to obtain men qualified to design and construct these modern highways.”

The problem was that the situation was changing rapidly with the coming of the automobile. The road system in the state was slowly becoming overcrowded. “Roads which were entirely satisfactory ten years ago are now inadequate to carry the traffic which comes upon them.” This, with the prospect of millions of federal dollars to help with the project, encouraged the state to finally decide to put together a state highway commission. Unfortunately, the whole bill was caught up in a Constitutionality fight like no other before in the state. (Covered here: Indiana Highway Laws, 1917 & 1919)

The Hoosier Highway

1917. The Auto Trail era is in full swing. Associations all over the United States were being formed to create a tangled web of named highways connecting places all over the country. Indiana, being the crossroads of America, was crossed by many of these roads. While a great many of these roads were long distance trails, there was one that mainly stayed in the state that became the longest in Indiana. This would be the Hoosier Highway.

The plan of the Hoosier Highway was designed to connect the Henderson ferry, south of Evansville, to Detroit. Looking at a map of the state, one can hardly find a way to cover more of Indiana with a road. Cities and towns that were included in the route were Evansville, Winslow, Petersburg, Washington, Spencer, Martinsville, Indianapolis, Anderson, Muncie, Hartford City, Bluffton and Fort Wayne.

By 1923, most of the Hoosier Highway would become part of the Indiana State Highway system. The road would follow original state road (OSR) 10 out of Evansville, connecting that city to Princeton. This section would, three years later, become US 41. Here starts the questionable section of the original Hoosier Highway. The HH Association, even as late as 1920, hadn’t decided on a route connecting Princeton to Petersburg. When the road was remarked in 1920, it would include Winslow and Oakland City. There was an alternate route that didn’t include these two towns, running more directly between Princeton and Petersburg.

At Princeton, the road would turn east along OSR 40 (now roughly SR 56) through Francisco, Oakland City and Winslow. At Winsolw, the HH turned more northwest, with OSR 40, to a point halfway between Winslow and Petersburg. Here OSR 40 turned east while the HH continued northwest along OSR 28. This section is now roughly SR 61 today.

From Washington, the Hoosier Highway was carried along OSR 28 to a the junction of OSR 4 and OSR 12 (now SR 54) between Switz City and Bloomfield. Here, the HH turned to the northeast along what would become OSR 12. The Hoosier Highway, from here, uses the original Indianapolis-Vincennes State Road, all the way to Indianapolis. This road would become SR 67 in 1926. (SR 67, and why its numbered that, is an interesting history in its own right. I covered it here.)

Once in Indianapolis, the road continued out of the city to the northeast along the old Pendleton State Road (Pendleton Pike). By the time it became part of the state highway system, as OSR 37, the road through Marion and Hancock Counties had been straightened. The old Pendleton Road crossed over the railroad right after leaving Marion County. It is currently known as Reformatory Road, and traverses the Indiana State Penitentiary at Pendleton. Again, this section became part of SR 67.

Reformatory Road ends at what is now Pendleton Avenue. In 1923, this route was also part of OSR 37 through the town on its way to Anderson through to Muncie. Ultimately, the section from Anderson to Muncie would become part of SR 32, but not in 1926.

At Muncie, the Hoosier Highway leaves the city due north. In 1923, this was OSR 13, but would become part of SR 3. The route would follow what is now SR 3 to what is now Huntington County Road 1100S, although OSR 13 would turn east on the road (now SR 18) between Montpelier and Marion. Huntington CR 1100S becomes Wells County Road 500S. At the end of CR 500S, the Hoosier Highway turned northeast bound for Bluffton on what is now called Hoosier Highway.

At Bluffton, that road between Bluffton and Fort Wayne once became OSR 13. This time, however, it would become SR 1 in the end. Although in 1926, it was numbered SR 3. Out of Fort Wayne, the Hoosier Highway followed the old Fort Wayne-Toledo Road, which would not be taken into the state highway system until much later as US 24.

While curves have been removed, and large sections of the old Hoosier Highway have been rerouted, most of the old road is able to be driven. Even in 1920, it was reported in the Herald (Jasper, Indiana) of 27 August 1920 that “with the exception of a small portion of roadway between Petersburg and Worthington, the Hoosier Highway is passable in all kinds of weather from Evansville and Detroit.”

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