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Northern Indiana

If all you know about northern Indiana is the toll from East Chicago to Angola, perhaps you should slow down. And while you’re at it, show a little respect. First of all, if it wasn’t for this admittedly flat and corn-covered region, your vacation might be a whole lot less enjoyable—these folks practically invented the Great American Road Trip. The Prairie Schooner wagon, probably the first long-distance “family car,” was manufactured for pioneers by the Studebaker family of South Bend. Road technology was perfected on the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway that still bisects the region. And today, most of this nation’s recreational vehicles and motor homes are manufactured in and around Elkhart. When you’re touring the back roads of Shipshewana, Winamac, and Napanee, you’re driving on hallowed ground.

And not just hallowed ground but strange ground. Look around. Where else can you find a 3,000-pound egg, a skinny-dipping ghost, a collection of historic outhouses, and Oscar the Monster Turtle? Where will you find the birthplaces of Alka-Seltzer, heavier-than-air flight, and Michael Jackson? And where can you find the remains of Johnny Appleseed and the World’s First Ferris Wheel? Nowhere in the world but the top third of the Hoosier State, that’s where.

Angola

Lottery Bowl

Hold on, compulsive gamblers! The Lottery Bowl isn’t a new scratch-andwin game from the Indiana legislature. No, in this lottery you play for your life.

Resting in a simple cabinet on the top floor of Trine University’s athletic facility is one of the Selective Service System’s most recognizable artifacts: the Lottery Bowl. This two-foot-tall goldfish tank was purchased by the government from a Washington, DC, pet store at the outset of World War I. It was used to select numbers that translated into draft notices to thousands of young American men from 1917 to 1918. Following the Armistice, the draft ended and the glass bowl was mothballed in Philadelphia.

But just before the United States’ entry into World War II, FDR sent a limousine to pick up the Lottery Bowl and escort it back to the nation’s capital. The Selective Service was reactivated in 1940 and continued drafting young men through 1970. For all but one of those years it operated under the direction of General Lewis B. Hershey, Tri-State University graduate and namesake of this college’s gym.

Several of Hershey’s personal effects are also on display at Hershey Hall, such as his ceremonial saber, as are other items from the history of the Selective Service—but it’s the Lottery Bowl that draws the visitors.

Hershey Hall, Trine University (formerly Tri-State University), Angola, IN 46703

Phone: (260) 665-4141

Hours: Most days; call ahead

Cost: Free

Website: www.trinethunder.com/facilities/hershey

Directions: South off Rte. 20 (Maumee St.) on Kinney St., west on Park St. until it comes to an end.

Auburn

Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum

When you first step into this impressive museum, you’ll know you’ve found “a duesy,” and not just one but more than a hundred.

The life of the Auburn Cord Duesenberg company was short but brilliant. Started by the Eckhart family in 1902, it closed operations in 1937. Its most remarkable models were created after E. L. Cord was hired as the president in 1924. The top-of-the-line Duesenbergs he designed embodied the spirit of the Roaring Twenties with Art Deco interiors and powerful engines—why else would they be named Speedsters? These babies could max out at 130 mph and were the cars of choice for the rich and famous—Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Frank Lloyd Wright, and later Elvis, John Lennon, and Michael Jordan.

You’ll see more of these classic autos here, in the company’s restored 1930 corporate headquarters, than anywhere else. All are in mint condition, yet few would think of driving them at 130 mph anymore. The Model J, introduced in 1929, was the make’s most popular high-end model; each vehicle had a unique body and was driven 500 miles on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before delivery. At the time, the Model J had double the horsepower of every other car on the road.

The museum’s six galleries feature the entire Auburn Cord Duesenberg line, as well as other Indiana-manufactured autos, like the homely 1952 Crosley. Each Labor Day the town throws an Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival, with a Parade of Classics capped off by a car auction. This isn’t a repo sale at the auto pound—some of the 5,000+ cars sold here each year are worth more than $1 million.

1600 S. Wayne St., Auburn, IN 46706

Phone: (260) 925-1400

Hours: Monday–Friday 10 AM–7 PM, Saturday–Sunday 10 AM–5 PM

Cost: Adults $12.50, Kids (6–17) $7.50

Website: www.automobilemuseum.org and www.acdfestival.org

Directions: South on Main St. from Seventh St. (Rte. 8) until it ends at Wayne St., then two blocks southwest.

Beverly Shores

The House of Tomorrow

At the end of Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, organizers sold off most of the exhibits to the highest bidders. More than a dozen of the futuristic model homes ended up across Lake Michigan in Beverly Shores, where folks were anxious for progress.

The House of Tomorrow, a 12-sided structure with more windows than walls, still towers above its fellow fair refugees on Lakefront Drive. Across the street, clinging to the shoreline, the pink stucco Florida Tropical House looks like it would be more at home in Miami Beach. All the adjacent Cypress House needs, with its swampy cypress shingles and siding, is a fan boat and some alligator traps. Two additional buildings on the same road were intended to demonstrate the future of building technology, which is now part of the past: the Rostone House was manufactured with synthetic cast stone and the Armco-Ferro House with prefab steel.

Still, not everyone in Beverly Shores was interested in the future back in the 1930s; some liked the way things were a century and a half earlier. Another developer brought six re-created historic homes to this dunes community: Wakefield House (the birthplace of George Washington), Boston’s Old North Church, Mount Vernon, the Paul Revere House, Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, and the House of Seven Gables. Only the Old North Church remains, converted to a private residence. The rest have been torn down or burned down.

If you’d like to see the World’s Fair homes, you have one chance each autumn—the National Park Service conducts a tour of what’s left. Tickets go fast, so plan ahead.

House of Tomorrow, Lake Front Dr., Beverly Shores, IN 46301

Phone: (219) 926-7561

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Website: www.nps.gov/indu/learn/historyculture/centuryofprogress.htm

Directions: Between E. State Park Rd. and Broadway, on Lakefront Dr.

Old North Church, Eaton Ave. & Beverly Dr., Beverly Shores, IN 46301

Private phone

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Directions: One block west of Broadway on Beverly Dr.

MUSHROOM TRIP

The House of Tomorrow wasn’t the only refugee from the Century of Progress to make a trip to Indiana. The Krider World Fair Garden in Middlebury (302 W. Bristol Ave., www.middleburyin.com/departments/park_and_recreation/index.php) was once a nursery demonstration garden at the 1933 fair in Chicago. Refurbished and opened to the public in the mid-1990s, it has a windmill, waterfall, benches, fountain, reflecting pools, and several concrete mushrooms that are tall enough to hide under.

BLUFFTON

• Two interurban trains, one empty and one full, collided north of Bluffton on September 21, 1910, killing 41 passengers.

Bremen

World’s Fattest Man Death Site

Robert Earl Hughes was touring with the Gooding Brothers Amusement Company in the summer of 1958 when he came down with a case of the measles. For most people, this would have been an inconvenience, but for the World’s Fattest Man, it was serious.

Hughes’s 1,041-pound body (he once tipped the scales at 1,069) could not fit through the doors of the Bremen Community Hospital, so doctors were forced to treat Hughes in his customized trailer in the parking lot. The 32-year-old sideshow performer was just getting over the disease when he contracted uremia, and he died soon thereafter on July 10, 1958. Several days later he was laid to rest in a piano-sized coffin in his hometown, Mt. Sterling, Illinois.

Little of the Bremen Community Hospital of 1958 remains, but several of the current interior rooms are part of the same structure as Hughes was unable to fit into. A new medical facility has been expanded on the site with, presumably, wider doors.

Doctors Hospital & Neuromuscular Center, 411 S. Whitlock St., Bremen, IN 46506

Phone: (574) 546-3830

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.neuropsychiatrichospitals.net/doctors-neuropsychiatric-hospital/

Directions: Two blocks south of Plymouth St. (Rte. 106/331), five blocks east of Bowen Ave.

Chesterton

Diana of the Dunes

Indiana’s best-known ghost is also a nudist, much to the delight of folks visiting Indiana Dunes State Park. She has been nicknamed Diana of the Dunes, but in real life she was Alice Mable Gray.

Gray hailed from Chicago, the daughter of a prominent Illinois physician and a graduate of the University of Chicago. Forsaking her inheritance for a simpler life, she moved into a shack dubbed Driftwood on the shore of Lake Michigan in 1915. There she would spend long days strolling on the beach and skinny-dipping in the icy waters.

Alice met a drifter and ex-con named Paul Wilson, and the two were married in 1921. They produced a daughter, Bonita. Paul was often absent, usually running from the law. He was accused in 1922 of murdering a vagrant and burning the body near Alice’s shack, but he was never formally charged with the crime.

When the Ogden Dunes development was announced, the couple was forced to move into town. Not long after, Alice died of uremic poisoning on the night of February 8–9, 1925, following the birth of her second child. Some think her demise was brought on by injuries suffered at the hands of Paul Wilson. Once again, allegations could not be substantiated. Gray was buried in Gary in a pauper’s grave in Oak Hill Cemetery (4450 Harrison St., (219) 884-1762), but her soul remained on the shores of her beloved lake.

Rangers and visitors still see her emerge, naked, from the waters throughout the year. Before she can be detained for indecent exposure, she vanishes.

Indiana Dunes State Park, 1600 N. Rte. 25 East, Chesterton, IN 46304

Phone: (219) 926-1952

Hours: Daily, dawn–dusk

Cost: In-state, $7; Out-of-state, $12

Website: www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/2980.htm and www.indianadunes.com

Directions: At the north end of Rte. 49, at Rte. 12.

Historical Society of Ogden Dunes, Hour Glass Museum, 8 Lupine Lane, Ogden Dunes, IN 46368

No phone

Hours: Third Sunday of month, 4–5:30 PM, or by appointment

Cost: Donations accepted

Website: http://odhistory.org

Directions: Two blocks south of Shore Dr. off Hillcrest Rd.

Churubusco

Oscar, the Beast of ’Busco

In 1948 ducks and fish began mysteriously disappearing from farmer Gale Harris’s small lake northwest of Churubusco. Rumors began circulating that a pickup-sized snapping turtle was to blame. Local residents organized a turtle hunt to snare the beast they called Oscar, named for the lake’s first owner, Oscar Fulk. After several fruitless days and nights searching Fulk Lake, the often-drunken posse abandoned hope of capturing the 500-pound quacker-killer.

But not Harris. Like Captain Ahab, Gale Harris never gave up the quest for his supershelled nemesis. One night he was able to wrap a chain around the creature, which he then hitched to four workhorses. An epic tug-of-war ensued, and the chain was the loser—it snapped, and Oscar dove for the lake’s bottom.

A turtle strong enough to overpower four horses? Certainly it was no average reptile, but the very Beast of ’Busco! Though the renamed monster was never seen again, there’s no guarantee it’s not still lurking in the mud, waiting for its next meal.

Today Churubusco calls itself Turtletown, USA, and has erected a statue to Oscar in Churubusco Town Park. The town celebrates Turtle Days every June—a fish fry, a parade, beer and food tents, fireworks, and yes, a turtle hunt. A lucky teen is also crowned Turtle Queen.

Fulk Lake, Madden Rd., Churubusco, IN 46723

Statue: Churubusco Town Park, 1 John Krieger Dr., Churubusco, IN 46723

No phone

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.turtledays.com

Directions: Lake, head northeast on Rte. 205 for two miles, turn left on Madden Rd., head north one mile to the pond just south of County Line Rd.; Park, at the north end of town, west of Rte. 33.

There he is!

Dunns Bridge

Remains of the World’s First Ferris Wheel

The world’s first Ferris wheel was constructed for Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition, yet parts of it have outlived everyone who ever rode it above the Midway. How? Following the suspiciously convenient fires during the closing days of the exposition, the Ferris wheel was disassembled and rebuilt on the north side of Chicago. Operating there, it thrilled riders for several years before being carted to Missouri for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

After its second appearance at a World Exposition, the wheel was sold off in pieces for iron scrap. One buyer was Indiana farmer Isaac Dunn. He wanted to connect his land that straddled the Kankakee River west of North Judson, and welded several pieces of the old ride together to accomplish the task. Exactly which pieces of the wheel he bought is up for debate, but this much is clear to the novice observer: this thing sure didn’t start out as a bridge. (Metallurgic tests on the bridge have shown the beams came from the same foundry as the Ferris wheel.)

A tiny burg eventually grew up around the unique structure, and locals dubbed their unincorporated town Dunns Bridge. Cars pass over a new bridge today, but what’s left of the Ferris wheel was restored and opened to foot traffic in 2005. There’s also a roadside park that can be accessed from the north side of the river.

Spinning wheels don’t always got to go ’round.

County Road 400E, Dunns Bridge, IN 46392

No phone

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Directions: Off Rte. 10 east of Wheatfield, north two miles on County Road 400E (Tefft Rd.) to the Kankakee River.

Dyer

The “Ideal Section” and the Ostermann Bench

If you’ve ever wondered, while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on an ugly interstate, searching desperately for a rest stop, whether anyone has ever tried to build a better highway, the answer is yes … 90 years ago!

When this nation began its love affair with the automobile, a few visionaries realized that road construction technology would have to keep pace with faster and more numerous cars. This need was made all the more clear on June 7, 1920, when Henry Ostermann, an early booster of the Lincoln Highway, hit a slippery shoulder near Tama, Iowa. His Studebaker spun out of control, overturned, and killed the auto dealer.

Ostermann’s friends used the tragedy to convince US Rubber to fund an experiment on a two-mile stretch of Route 30 in Dyer, Indiana. The initial plans for the so-called Ideal Section of the Lincoln Highway were, to say the least, impressive. Wide shoulders. Banked curves with proper drainage. Sidewalks and street lights. Landscaped rest stops and free campsites!

But the reality of the Ideal Section didn’t match up with the plan. To start with, the original 2-mile stretch was shortened to 1.3 miles after an adjacent cranky farmer named Moeller refused to sell his right-of-way, opting to hold out for more money.

The project began in 1921, but it would be two years before it was completed. Engineers were flying blind, and the frustration showed. The head contractor for the Ideal Section’s only bridge, Fred Tapp, committed suicide on October 5, 1922, in a manner only a contractor might choose: he blew himself up with a stick of dynamite clutched against his chest. The rest stops were never built. Farmer Moeller eventually sold part of his land for campsites, but they too were never constructed. A local energy company agreed to power the streetlights for free but pulled the plug after a year. Nearby residents walked off with the landscaping, the sidewalks were eventually ripped out, and Fred Tapp’s bridge was replaced.

All that remains of the Ideal Section is a memorial bench to Henry Ostermann. To get to this humble stone monument, you have to stumble along the weed-choked shoulder, conspicuously free of sidewalks and streetlights, just feet from traffic on a less-than-ideal highway.

Rte. 30 & St. John’s Rd., Dyer, IN 46311

No phone

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/info/in/

Directions: Just west of Meyer’s Castle (1370 Joliet St.) on Rte. 30, on the south side of the highway.

East Chicago

Park on the Sidewalk, Walk in the Street

Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy? In East Chicago it has, at least in the neighborhood of Marktown. This poorly conceived company community has streets that are so narrow residents must park their cars on the sidewalks. With all the cars on the walkways, everyone must stroll in the streets. When parents in Marktown tell their children, “Go play in the street!” they mean it!

The tightly packed homes in Marktown have a European appearance. If you added a few canals you’d think you were in a Dutch village after the war. This 15-block community was designed by eccentric architect Howard Van Doren Shaw and is shoehorned between a steel plant and a refinery, well off the beaten track, yet still only minutes from Chicago.

Marktown has seen much better days, and though it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it may not be around much longer. See it while you can, preferably during daylight hours.

Riley Rd. & Dickey St., East Chicago, IN 46312

No phone

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.marktown.org/tour.html

Directions: Neighborhood bound by 129th St., Dickey St., Pine St., and Riley Rd.; exit Riley Rd. east from Cline Ave. and head northeast.

Elkhart

Birthplace of Alka-Seltzer

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is … but almost wasn’t. Were it not for an editor who fancied himself a doctor, and a businessman who fancied himself an investigator, Alka-Seltzer might not exist today.

During the late 1920s, the nation was gripped with one flu epidemic after another. But strangely enough, reporters, editors, and typesetters at the Elkhart Truth seemed to be resistant to the nasty bugs. Andrew “Hub” Beardsley, president of Elkhart’s Dr. Miles Medical Company, was paying a visit to the local paper and asked the editor in chief why everyone was at work. It was the editor’s concoction of aspirin and baking soda that did the trick—everyone on staff took it!

Beardsley recognized the medicine’s potential and asked one of his chemists, Maurice Treneer, to make it more appealing to the public. Treneer mixed the two ingredients into an effervescent tablet, and Alka-Seltzer was born. That’s right, the fizz is just a marketing gimmick.

Alka-Seltzer hit the shelves in 1931. The Dr. Miles Medical Company (now Miles Laboratories, a division of Bayer AG) is also responsible for inventing One A Day multivitamins and forming them into Flintstone and Bugs Bunny shapes.

Sunday morning in Elkhart.

421 S. Second St., Elkhart, IN 46516

Phone: (574) 294-1661

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.elkharttruth.com and www.alkaseltzer.com

Directions: At the corner of Marion St. and Second St.

Curly Top and the Toothpick Train

Railroad museums are a dime a dozen. It’s not as if you can throw a locomotive in the trash, but park it in an old switching yard—voilà—instant museum! But the National New York Central is not a typical railroad museum because of two special exhibits. The first is a collection of autographs, and the second is the Toothpick Train.

During the Depression, a local girl named Violet Schmidt had a unique hobby. Each day she would wait beside the New York Central tracks and wave to the passengers headed someplace more interesting, like Chicago or New York. Because the Twentieth Century Limited moved so fast (“960 miles in 960 minutes”), riders could only recognize Schmidt by her most prominent characteristic: her curly hair. It soon became a custom for riders to reward the loyal Curly Top by tossing autographed menus at her or, for those with a better pitching arm, notes stuffed in hollowed-out potatoes. Whether or not they were trying to bean her, Schmidt saved the best-known autographs, including Al Jolson, Shirley Temple, Spencer Tracy, and President Herbert Hoover. You can see them at the museum today.

Another amazing exhibit at this museum was a lifelong project of an obsessed New York Central fan. Terry Woodling of nearby Warsaw used 421,250 toothpicks and a lot of glue to build a replica of an early steam locomotive on the NYC line. Woodling’s elaborate model is encased in glass, lest a visitor with a popcorn kernel stuck between a couple molars try to make it a 421,249-toothpick train.

National New York Central Railroad Museum, 721 S. Main St., Elkhart, IN 46516

Phone: (574) 294-3001

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10 AM–5 PM, Sunday Noon–4 PM

Cost: Adults $6, Seniors (61+) $5, Kids (4–12) $5

Website: www.elkhartindiana.org/department/?fDD=54-0

Directions: At the south end of downtown, where Main St. crosses the railroad tracks.

Hall of Heroes Museum

The Hall of Heroes seen in the 1970s cartoon Super Friends was just imaginary, you say? Not anymore—the Super Friends’ superest friend Allen Stewart has re-created the building as a two-story museum in the yard of his Elkhart home. Currently the Hall doesn’t hold meetings between Aquaman and Wonder Woman and the rest of the gang, but it does hold 60,000+ comic books, 10,000+ toys and action figures, and props from TV and film. Stewart has the red suit and cape from The Greatest American Hero, Captain America’s shield from Captain America: The First Avenger, and Adam West’s Batman costume.

And there’s more! Stewart has re-created the original Bat Cave, which even has a Bat Pole from the second floor to the first. And each Halloween he remakes the building into the Hall of Villains to spook trick-ortreaters. Who will save them from the Penguin and the Green Goblin? Their nerdy parents—Super Friends, unite!

58005 17th St., Elkhart, IN 46517

Phone: (574) 522-1187

Hours: Call ahead; most days, Monday–Friday 2–5 PM, Saturday 11 AM–5 PM, Sunday noon–4 PM

Cost: Adults $6, Kids (9 and under) $4

Website: http://hallofheroesmuseum.com

Directions: East from Rte. 19 on Mishawaka Rd. to Rte. 105 (17th St.), then south two blocks.

Not your average Tuff Shed.

RV/MH Hall of Fame

If road-tripping were a religion, Elkhart would be Mecca. Three-quarters of this nation’s recreational vehicles and conversion vans are built in and around this northern Indiana city and always have been. It’s also the location of the RV/MH Heritage Foundation, the repository of all manufacturing information pertaining to recreational vehicles (RVs) and motor homes (MHs) from their 1930s genesis to the present.

“You can’t take sex, booze, or weekends away from the American people.”—John K. Hanson Photo by author, courtesy of RV/MH Heritage Foundation

More than 20 restored recreational vehicles circle fake campfires in this barn-sized museum. Flat, cut-out 1950s families roast cardboard weenies and commune with nature, American-style. Most of the vehicles are open, so you can step inside to check out the amenities and period decorations. The collection includes the World’s First Winnebago, a 1967 model, and a 28-foot 1940 New Moon, the model Lucy and Desi pulled across the country in The Long, Long Trailer. Though it looked big on screen, it barely compares to another model on display, the 1954 Spartan Imperial. This 8-foot-wide, 41-foot-long behemoth has a master bedroom, a full bath, two children’s bunk beds, a kitchen with pantry, and a nice-sized living room.

The museum recently moved and expanded to accommodate the collection of David Woodworth, who specialized in pre-WWII RVs and campers. The collection includes a 1931 Chevrolet Housecar built for Mae West, complete with a back porch for her rocking chair.

For true RV/MH nuts, visit the foundation’s library to learn how to restore your Airstream, Fan Luxury Liner, or Magic Carpet Pop-Up. This wonderful resource center is doing its part to preserve part of the sentiments once expressed by Winnebago founder John K. Hanson: “You can’t take sex, booze, or weekends away from the American people.” Amen!

21565 Executive Pkwy., Elkhart, IN 46514

Phone: (800) 378-8694 or (574) 293-2344

Hours: Monday–Saturday 10 AM–4 PM

Cost: Adults $10, Seniors $8, Kids (6–18) $7

Website: www.rvmhhalloffame.org

Directions: Exit I-80 (Indiana Toll Road) at Rte. 17, just south of the interchange.

Fair Oaks

Climbing Cows and Dairy Adventure

You know you’re headed somewhere special as you travel south along I-65. First, two fiberglass cows have climbed atop a milk tanker with a sign that reads WE GOT MILK & MOOOORE! Later, another sign has a very large fork, then another with two big chairs, and finally a colossal corn cob, all announcing the tour at Fair Oak Farms.

This isn’t just another petting-zoo-and-cheese-house attraction—you can spend the entire day at Fair Oaks Farms and have plenty to keep you entertained. The high-tech Dairy Adventure takes you on a trip through the modern sustainable farm, where you’ll try your hand at prepping and tugging on a robotic cow’s teats. Learn other interesting facts from an animatronic tree, rooster, and dairy scientist. Have the kids burn off a little steam at the Mooville outdoor play area with a milk jug climbing wall, string cheese maze, and MooChoo miniature train. Then head over to the milking barn, where 72 cows slowly spin on a giant turntable; by the time they make it around in eight and a half minutes, each has been milked and can be unloaded. And don’t miss the Birthing Barn. Between 80 and 100 calves are born at the farm every day, most of which enter the world in a corral surrounded by stadium seats filled with wide-eyed tourists like you.

Fair Oaks Dairy Adventure, 856 N. 600 E, Fair Oaks, IN 47943

Phone: (877) 536-1194 or (219) 394-2025

Hours: Monday–Saturday 9 AM–3 PM, Sunday 10 AM–3 PM; Market, bakery, and Farmhouse Restaurant open later

Cost: Adults $17, Couples $27, Seniors (62+) $12, Kids (3–12) $12

Website: http://fofarms.com

Directions: Exit I-65 at Rte. 14, then west to the entrance.

COW-A-BUNCHA!

You might have your fill of bovine beauties after a visit to Fair Oaks Farms, but if they leave you wanting more, here are six additional fiberglass cows you can find on Indiana’s byways.

Huge Howie the Hereford

Howard & Sons Quality Meats, 719 Ridge Rd., Munster, (219) 836-8000, www.howardandsons.net

The enormous Hereford bull at this Munster meatery has been here for half a century. He balances on a sign that juts out over the sidewalk.

Rooftop Steer

Piatak Meats, 6200 Broadway, Merrillville, (219) 980-3520, http://piatakmeats.com

Though puny by roadside cow standards, the Piatak steer (a Hereford) atop the entrance of this butcher shop points the way to the massive meat-filled coolers inside, and isn’t that what you really want?

Howie the Steer

Kelsey’s Steakhouse, 2300 Morthland Dr., Valparaiso, (219) 465-4022, http://kelseyssteakhouse.com

Despite his name, Valparaiso’s Howie is no relation to Munster’s Howie. Yes, he’s a Hereford, so he comes from the same breed, but he’s even larger—a solid 10 feet tall at the horns. This fancy steakhouse does not have a Howieburger on the menu—that would be too disturbing for the little ones—but they do offer a Howie-shaped chocolate cake for dessert.

Mr. Happy Burger Bull

Mr. Happy Burger, 900 W. Market St., Logansport, (574) 753-4016, www.facebook.com/Mr-Happy-Burger-55104232912/

Mr. Happy is an eight-foot-tall Black Angus who guards a hamburger joint on the west side of Logansport. He has blue eyes and appears to be cleaning out his left nostril with his bright pink tongue. (How’s your appetite?) He also wears a white bib and chef’s hat.

Digging for gold in all the wrong places.

Bareheaded Mr. Happy Burger Bull

Hap’s Old Time Ice Cream Sundae Parlor, 3131 E. Market St., Logansport, (574) 753-6418, www.facebook.com/Mr-Happy-Burger-55104232912/

A twin brother of Mr. Happy, the Black Angus on the east side of Logansport, keeps his tongue inside his mouth. He too wears a white bib, but no chef’s hat.

Mobile Home Cows

Cohron’s Manufactured Homes, 9623 Pendleton Pike, Indianapolis, (317) 897-1043, www.cohronhomes.com

Finally—a milk cow! It’s not entirely clear what this large black-and-white Holstein has to do with prefab homes, but here she is, guarding the display models from atop a brick pedestal. She also appears on the company’s logo.

Fort Wayne

“Fish Eaters and Idol Worshipers”

There was a time, not too long ago, when anti-Catholic bigotry ran fairly close to the surface in the American psyche. And the prejudice was not limited to hate-mongering groups like the KKK or the John Birch Society, as you will see if you visit a collection at the Cathedral Museum, compiled by John Francis Noll, the fifth bishop of Fort Wayne.

Take the cartoons published in Harper’s Weekly. One 1871 drawing by Thomas Nast shows bishops crawling out of the “American River Ganges,” their crocodile-toothed miters open to devour American schoolchildren. (You might know Nast as the artist who created the modern, white-bearded image of Santa and the elephant as the mascot of the GOP.) And there’s more, including books, caricatures, and modern religious tracts you might be handed on a street corner to this day.

The Cathedral Museum also has a large collection of items related to the local diocese, a full-sized statue of the very small Pope Pius X, nun dolls dressed in dozens of religious orders’ habits, and two splinters from the cross on which Jesus was crucified … or so says the plaque.

Cathedral Museum, 915 S. Clinton St., Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Phone: (260) 422-4611

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 10 AM–2 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.diocesefwsb.org/cathedral-museum

Directions: Downtown on southbound Rte. 27 (Clinton St.), three blocks south of Main St.

Johnny Appleseed’s Grave

John Chapman was America’s first hippie. Better known as Johnny Appleseed, he was looked upon with some suspicion by many he met. Maybe it was his claim that God had commanded him in a dream to plant apple trees along the western migration. Maybe it was his devotion to the Swedenborgian faith, passing out as many bibles as tree saplings. But most likely, it was the tin pot he wore for a hat, or that he made drinking water in the winter by melting snow with his dirty feet.

During his travels, Chapman covered a region of 100,000 square miles, starting nurseries from New England to the Midwest. On a trip to Fort Wayne in March 1845, he contracted pneumonia after walking barefoot through the snow to visit an apple orchard. This would have been a stupid act for a young man, but he was 72 years old at the time. He never made it to 73—he died on March 18, 1845.

Chapman was buried in the Archer family plot, located roughly where the city’s power lines run along the river today. His exact burial spot is unknown, but there is a gravestone atop a small hill in the center of a park named after him. For all anyone knows, footings for the transmission towers could have been drilled through his remains.

Today, Fort Wayne celebrates Johnny Appleseed with a festival each September.

The last appleseed to be planted.

Johnny Appleseed Memorial Park, 4000 block of Parnell Ave., Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Phone: (260) 427-6000; Festival, (260) 427-6003

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.fortwayneparks.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=173:johnny-appleseed-park&Itemid=33 and www.johnnyappleseedfest.com

Directions: Just south of Coliseum Blvd. (Rte. 930) and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

THANKS A LOT, JOHNNY!

John Chapman spread not just apples across our new nation but also a plant called dog fennel. He thought the noxious weed cured fevers, so he scattered dog fennel seeds everywhere. Today, this botanical nuisance is sometimes referred to as “Johnnyweed.”

Karpeles Manuscript Library Museums

The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museums are some of the most underappreciated private institutions in the United States, and Fort Wayne has two. Never heard of them? They just happen to be the world’s largest private collections of historic documents, with more than a million artifacts, and they share their holdings through exhibits that rotate among 14 museums around the country. Every four months a fresh collection comes to town, so you’ll always find something new.

Recent exhibits at Fairfield Hall have included documents related to Eva Perón—love letters to her husband Juan, a draft of her autobiography, and her dental records—and items related to The Jungle Book—Kipling’s edited manuscript and Disney’s sketches of Mowgli. Piqua Hall just finished a show on ancient maps, including the first atlas map of North America, the Ruysch Map of 1507, and the first map of Iran, from 1478. What will they have when you visit?

Fairfield Hall, 2410 Fairfield Ave., Fort Wayne, IN 46807

Phone: (260) 456-6929

Piqua Hall, 3039 Piqua Ave., Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Phone: (260) 449-9551

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10 AM–4 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.rain.org/~karpeles/ftwfrm.html and www.rain.org/~karpeles/FtWcur.html

Directions: Fairfield Hall, one block south of Creighton Ave., at Pierce Ave.; Piqua Hall, one block west of Rte. 27 southbound (Clifton St.), one block north of Wildwood Ave.

Sliced Bread Sign

Back in 1957, Aunt Millie’s Bakery installed a rooftop sign on its Fort Wayne facility depicting a loaf of “Perfection Sunbeam Bread.” No big deal, right? But take a closer look and you’ll see that this is no ordinary loaf. Every 2.3 seconds another slice falls out of the open bag onto a waiting plate, one after another after another, without end.

That’s a lotta bread. Do the math: the sign has been running for 60 years—365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes an hour, and 60 seconds a minute. Divide that by 2.3 seconds and you realize roughly 822,678,261 slices have dumped out of this big plastic bag. And now 822,678,262…. Wait, now 822,678,263 …

Aunt Millie’s Bakery, 350 Pearl St., Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Phone: (206) 424-8245

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.auntmillies.com

Directions: On the south side of the river, north of Main St., between Fairfield and Harrison Sts.

822,678,261 slices and counting.

Gary

Circus Train Slaughter

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train had just left Michigan City, headed for Hammond, on June 22, 1918, when it pulled off on a siding near Ivanhoe, a now-unincorporated neighborhood on the west side of Gary. Unfortunately, four of its sleeping cars and the caboose remained on the express tracks. These four cars were rammed by an empty Michigan Central troop train driven by engineer Alonzo K. Sargent, who was drowsy with kidney pills. Sargent had fallen asleep at the switch and awoke too late to apply the brakes.

Rather than come to the victims’ aid, many of the local townsfolk fled amid wild rumors that even wilder animals had escaped from the wreckage and were hungry. This was not true; the animals were on another train. Clowns and strongmen, carnies and dancing girls were all trapped in the rubble that soon burst into flames, ignited by the train’s kerosene lamps. With few around to rescue the performers, 86 perished. Today, the site is said to be haunted, and for some strange reason (since none died in the crash), you are supposed to hear the wail of elephants on dark nights.

Cline Ave. & W. Ninth Ave., Gary, IN 46406

No phone

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Directions: Head north from I-94 on Cline Ave. (Rte. 912) until you see the train tracks near Ninth Ave.

Gary, First in Flight

Wright Brothers … bah! If you really want to see where heavier-than-air flight originated, skip the pilgrimage to the beaches of Kitty Hawk. Instead, go to Gary’s Marquette Park on the south shore of Lake Michigan. It was here at Miller’s Beach, on June 22, August 20, and September 11, 1896, that Octave Chanute flew the world’s first large biplane gliders. Locals were unimpressed and dismissed him as “the crazy man of the dunes.”

Chanute was a naturalized American, born in Paris, who retired young from a career as a civil engineer to pursue his dream of solving the riddle of human flight. Chanute was neither shy nor secretive about his findings, and seven years later he would advise the Wright Brothers on their now-famous 1903 flight in North Carolina.

Few people except aviation nuts even remember Chanute today, but a stone monument outlining his accomplishments sits in Gary’s Marquette Park, at the approximate location where his gliders lifted free of the dunes. A full-sized model of a Chanute glider hangs in the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau (7770 Corinne Dr., (219) 989-7770, www.southshorecva.com) in nearby Hammond.

Marquette Park, 1 N. Grand Blvd., Gary, IN 46403

Phone: (219) 938-7362

Hours: June–August, dawn–dusk

Cost: Free

Website: http://marquetteparkgary.org/

Directions: A boulder marker lies south of the park pavilion, at the lakefront.

Society for the Restoration of the Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium and Octave Chanute’s Place in History, 607 S. Lake St., Suite A, Gary, IN 46303

Phone: (219) 938-1986

Hours: By appointment only

Cost: Free

Website: http://aquatorium.org/

Directions: The Aquatorium is in Marquette Park, at the north end of Grand Blvd., then to the right along Oak Ave.

Jackson 5 Sites

Several years ago there was a push to commemorate Michael Jackson on a license plate available for Hoosier drivers. The legislation needed to issue the plates suffered the same fate as a 1995 plan for a Gary-based Jacksons theme park: nobody bought into the idea.

Clearly, if you want to acknowledge the Jackson 5’s contribution to this steel city, you have to do it on your own. The first place to start is the former Jackson family home located on Jackson Street, which is named for the president, not the King of Pop. It is easy to find if you look for the large granite monolith of Michael on the front lawn, surrounded by a high fence.

Between 1950 and 1966, Joe and Katherine Jackson had nine children: Reebie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Michael, Randy, and Janet. By all accounts, life in the Jackson household was no picnic. Joe was the classic stage dad, driving the kids to fulfill his own failed musical dreams. Joe played guitar for the Falcons, a band composed of workers at the Inland Steel Company, to earn extra money. But when Joe was at one of his many jobs, a few of his sons began playing with his guitar. He later heard them, realized they had talent, and the rest is history.

The Jacksons were not allowed to hang out with local kids. Joe made them practice, practice, practice—four hours a day in addition to their schoolwork. He paced in front of the band carrying a bullwhip and would assault them if they flubbed a routine. Joe also loved guns and even “fired” an empty shot from a .38 revolver at Michael when the kid laughed at his father’s dancing. At night he would terrorize the youngsters by popping out of closet wearing a Halloween mask or standing at the kids’ window holding a butcher knife.

Katherine let Joe run the family six days a week, but on Sunday, she was in charge, marching the kids off to the local Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall. Today the Jacksons’ former church houses the Grace Unity church.

Jackson Family Home, 2300 Jackson St., Gary, IN 46407

Private phone

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Website: http://meetthefamily.online.fr

Directions: Just south of 23rd St., six blocks west of Lafayette St. (Rte. 27).

Grace Unity, 3435 W. 21st Ave., Gary, IN 46408

Phone: (219) 888-9490

Hours: Always visible; Services, check website

Cost: Free

Website: http://graceunity.com

Directions: One block west of Chase St., at Hendricks St.

Though he was the youngest member of the group, Michael was a standout. He made his first public performance in 1963 at the age of five, just down the street at Garnett Elementary. He sang “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and those who heard it claimed the crowd went wild. Tears streamed down the adults’ faces. A star was born!

Images of Hope (former Garnett Elementary School), 2131 Jackson St., Gary, IN 46407

Phone: (219) 886-1362

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Directions: Two blocks north of the Jackson home.

Michael had started in the group by playing the bongos, but his Garnett Elementary performance made Joe bump Jermaine as lead singer. The band was named the Ripples and Waves Plus Michael when they won their first amateur music competition singing “My Girl” and “Barefootin’” at the Theodore Roosevelt High School gym. The school is still open today.

Theodore Roosevelt College & Career Academy, 730 W. 25th Ave., Gary, IN 46407

Phone: (219) 881-1500

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Website: www.edlinesites.net/pages/Theodore_Roosevelt_College

Directions: One block west and two blocks south of the Jackson home.

Renamed the Jackson 5, the group’s first professional gig came at Mr. Lucky’s Lounge, a Gary bar. All the band members were underage at the time; Michael was only six. Before long, they were playing at saloons and nightclubs all over the region. One of their signature acts was to have little Michael disappear into the audience and reappear beneath a female patron’s dress. Eventually they caught the eye of Berry Gordy. After cutting their first album, Joe took the group to California, leaving Katherine behind with the rest of the kids.

Mr. Lucky’s Lounge has been closed for some time and will likely be demolished, if the sign offering BUY YOUR LUCKY BRICK is any indication.

Beat it!

Mr. Lucky’s Lounge (closed), 1100 Grant St., Gary, IN 46404

No phone

Hours: Always visible; view from street

Cost: Free

Directions: Six blocks south of Rte. 20, at 11th Ave.

Griffith

American Natural Resources

Taxidermy isn’t for everyone, but maybe that’s because the mounted critters can be so predictable—if you’ve seen one moose head you’ve seen them all. But American Natural Resources goes beyond the traditional poses, as you’ll see in its fur-, fowl-, and fish-filled store. In one display, five raccoons play a game of poker. In another, four hedgehogs ride in a rowboat. These dioramas aren’t for sale, but they do make great photos. However, if you’re looking for something for the den, they have plenty of floor models to choose from, depending on your budget, from a $5,700 mountain lion on a tree limb to a $1,460 raccoon couple paddling a birch bark canoe to a $63.99 toilet paper holder made from sawed-off deer antlers.

120 N. Broad St., Griffith, IN 46319

Phone: (219) 922-6444

Hours: Monday–Friday 9:30 AM–6 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.americannaturalresources.com

Directions: Three blocks east of the intersection of Cline Ave. and Main St.

Hammond

A Christmas Story Town

Fans of the holiday film A Christmas Story know it is set in the fictional northwest Indiana town of Hohman. True fans, however, know that Hohman is a barely disguised substitute for Hammond, the town where author Jean Shepherd grew up. The Shepherds lived from the late 1920s to 1939 in a bungalow at 2907 Cleveland Street, a home that survives to this day (but is off-limits to visitors—view from the sidewalk). Three blocks to the east you can find Warren G. Harding Elementary (3211 165th St., (219) 989-7351, www.hammond.k12.in.us), a new building that replaced the one Shepherd and his brother Randy attended years ago. Yes, that really was his brother’s name.

No need to be discouraged that you can’t go inside Shepherd’s home or school, because Hammond honors its native son each December at the local tourist bureau. Several years ago the town purchased six mechanical window displays from Macy’s, all based on the movie, depicting Black Bart’s bandits, the turkey-stealing Bumpus’s dogs, the Triple Dog Dare, and more, and put them up for all to see at Christmastime. Check the website, for it also has Santa picture days—he sits atop a snowy mountain with a slide for the kids—as well as Little Piggie eating contests.

And there’s more! Outside the building at the flagpole, you’ll find a bronze statue of Flick with his tongue stuck to the pole, unveiled in 2013 with the original actor Scott Schwartz on hand. A sign warns tourists, IF YOU LICK, YOU WILL STICK, but that only applies in winter.

Finally, if you find yourself in Hammond after dark between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, stop by Peteyville (3033 Crane Pl., www.facebook.com/Peteyville.IN/). Pete Basala decorates his home with an over-the-top light extravaganza worthy of all who appreciate the tackier side of the holiday.

The consequence of accepting a Triple Dog Dare.

Indiana Welcome Center, 7770 Corinne Dr., Hammond, IN 46323

Phone: (800) ALL-LAKE or (219) 989-7979

Hours: September–May, daily 8 AM–5 PM; June–August, daily 9 AM–6 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.southshorecva.com/about-south-shore/indiana-welcome-center/

Directions: Exit I-80/94 at Kennedy Ave., south one block to first light and turn right.

Highland

Devil, Be Gone!

Have you been on the road a while and the kids seem, well, rowdier than usual? Don’t be so quick to blame it on that junk food you had in Muncie. Did you ever consider that the little ones might be … possessed? Sure you have. So why not bring them by the Hegewisch Baptist Church to drive out those demons? That’s right: exorcism, though they call it Demonic Deliverance.

HBC’s late Pastor Win Worley began the practice in 1970, but not until 1992 did this place hold its first open house. The church got more than 500 visitors, most from this world. Today, HBC hosts several Deliverance Meetings a year, or if you promise to sit through an entire Sunday service, they’ll cleanse your soul on the way out. To find out about the church’s next Deliverance Meeting, check out its website. There you’ll find do-it-yourself Deliverance prayers (just fill in the blanks with the possessed’s name), HBC’s perspectives on rock music (including ABBA), and their Plan of Salvation.

Hegewisch Baptist Church, 8711 Cottage Grove Ave., Highland, IN 46322

Phone: (219) 838-9410

Hours: Thursday 6 PM, Sunday 10:30 AM

Cost: Free

Website: http://hbcdelivers.org

Directions: One block north of Rte. 6 (Ridge Rd.), 10 blocks east of Rte. 41.

SPECIAL SERVICES

Maybe you’re not a Baptist or aren’t possessed by demons. No problem—there are other strange Indiana churches where you can get your Sunday morning fix.

Drive-In Church

Lake Shore Drive-In, Main St. & Rickey Rd., Monticello, (574) 583-5545, www.monticelloumchurch.org

With the Indiana Beach Amusement Park in town, Monticello churches have to do something special to attract the less-than-entirely faithful waiting for the gates to open. During summer months, the United Methodist Church holds an 8:30 AM service at the Lake Shore Drive-In. Congregants stay in their cars and listen to Rev. Wes Brookshire over the radio. People are encouraged to honk their horns in place of saying “Amen,” which the neighbors surely appreciate.

Boat-In Service

702 E. Lake View Rd., Syracuse, (574) 457-7172, www.wawaseepoa.org/worship.htm

Since 1969, local ministers have sponsored a “Boat-In Worship” service on Syracuse’s Lake Wawasee during the summer season—Memorial to Labor Day. The faithful don’t have to dress up (you’re welcome “from coat and tie to bathing suit”) or even leave their watercraft to attend the service. The service is held at Oakwood Pier from 8:30 to 9:00 AM each Sunday, weather permitting.

“Live Gospel” McDonald’s

McDonald’s, 3639 169th St., Hammond, (219) 845-8625

Though not technically a church, you can still find salvation in this Hammond McDonald’s on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evenings. Local gospel singers are invited to perform on the stage for patrons who come from all over northern Indiana and Chicagoland. Stained glass windows add a holy aura. So grab a Big Mac and fries and enjoy performances of “Amazing Grease” and “What a Friend We Have in Grimace.” Just kidding—the songs are legit.

Marion Easter Pageant

Marion YMCA, 123 Sutter Way, Marion, (765) 677-2152, www.easterpageant.com

Every Easter since 1937, with a few years off during World War II, the town of Marion has staged a blockbuster passion play with a cast of hundreds. It’s a unique production, as there are no spoken words—the story is told through “music, pantomime, and pageantry.” They’ve had to scale back a little since 2003, when the permanent venue deteriorated, so the play is now performed at the local YMCA.

The Last Supper

Family Christian Center, 340 W. 45th Ave., Munster, (219) 922-6500, www.familychristiancenter.org

While the services at this megachurch are fairly standard, there is something unique about the church: its four-story front entry has a cross-shaped array of windows, and behind those windows is a life-size re-creation of The Last Supper made with department store mannequins. Just below, another Jesus mannequin drags a cross to Calvary. The best time to view them is after sundown, when they are illuminated.

Huntington

Outhouse Collection

How many outhouses could one man need? In Hy Goldenberg’s case, 17, and he only stopped collecting because he passed away in February 2000. The first one Goldberg bought cost him two dollars. It came from Monument City, a town that was condemned and flooded as part of a dam construction project. When it was delivered to his farm on the Wabash River, the trucker brought two privies, the one Hy had bought and another, “better” outhouse. This gave Goldenberg an idea: Why not start an outhouse collection?

Most of the tiny structures are simple, traditional models, but he did rescue a concrete outhouse, an octagonal model, and a round crapper with a copper weather vane; for that he had to shell out $17. He even found a family’s “three-seater”—one for mom, one for dad, and a baby seat in between that is jusssst right. Awwwww …

After Hy passed away, his wife, Lorry, donated their farmland to be a nature preserve, as long as her husband’s collection was preserved as well. Thanks to the folks at the Acres Land Trust, it has been.

Tel-Hy Nature Preserve, 1129 N. CR 300 W, Huntington, IN 46750

Phone: (260) 637-ACRE

Hours: Dawn–dusk

Cost: Free

Website: www.acreslandtrust.org/tel-hy

Directions: Take Etna Ave. southwest out of town until it becomes N. CR 300 W, ahead on the left.

Remnants of the good ol’ days.

The Quayle Vice Presidential Learning Center

The residents of Huntington felt a museum was the least they could do for their most famous native son, so they converted an old Christian Scientist Church and stuffed it with Dan Quayle-obelia. Upstairs you can see the Quayle clan’s family heirlooms: a lock of Danny’s baby hair, his Little League uniform, and his Senate golf bag, well used. And be sure to check out the report cards from his stellar elementary school career. Every visitor wants to see what he received in Spelling.

The museum’s also got Quayle’s IU law degree, chewed by Barnaby, the family dog. (Barnaby was put up for adoption shortly after the incident.) One of the strangest artifacts on display is a hollow ostrich egg with Quayle’s 1989 inauguration re-created inside, faithfully depicting Marilyn’s blue UFO hat. And be sure to get your photo taken next to a life-size cutout of the Boy Wonder; let your pose reflect your political persuasion.

The ground floor of the museum is filled with items relating to all of the nation’s Second Bananas. More US veeps have come from Indiana than any other state, earning it the nickname “Birthplace of Vice Presidents”: Schuyler Colfax, Thomas A. Hendricks, Charles Warren Fairbanks, Thomas R. Marshall (who said, “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar”), and Dan Quayle. The museum has items related to each and every one up through Joe Biden. Wouldn’t you like to see Millard Filmore’s hat?

815 Warren St., Huntington, IN 46750

Phone: (260) 356-6356

Hours: Monday–Friday 9:30 AM–4:30 PM

Cost: Adults $3, Kids (7–27) $1

Website: http://historyeducates.org/

Directions: At Warren and Tipton (Rte. 24) Sts., one block east of Rte. 224.

Kendallville

Mid-America Windmill Museum

In the history of the settlement of the Great Plains, the windmill’s contribution often gets short shrift. Not in Kendallville. This specialty museum honors the wind-powered workhorses that pumped the water and milled the grain that made American agriculture possible.

The windmill collection was started by Russ Baker and now contains more than 50 restored windmills along a strolling pathway. The largest is a replica of the Robertson Post windmill, the first windmill in North America, built in 1610 in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Kendallville was chosen as the location of this museum because the area was once home to more than 90 windmill manufacturers. If you visit in late June, you may even see a windmill erected and blown for the annual Windmill Festival.

732 S. Allen Chapel Rd., PO Box 5048, Kendallville, IN 46755

Phone: (219) 347-2334

Hours: April–November, Tuesday–Friday 10 AM–4 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM, Sunday 1–4 PM

Cost: Adults $5, Seniors (55+) $4, Kids (6–12) $2

Website: www.midamericawindmillmuseum.org

Directions: West of town on Rte. 6, turn south on County Rd. 1000E, follow the signs.

Knox

Bowling Ball Rosary

The idea came from Fr. Emil Bloch of the nearby St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church: an enormous World Rosary of Peace, its big beads painted different colors to honor all the inhabitants of Earth. The heavy lifting, however, fell to parishioners Linda and Bill Stage, who constructed the rosary from old bowling balls in their front yard. The chain linking them all surrounds a gazebo dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the notorious BVM. Visitors are welcome to visit the site during daylight hours, not just to be respectful to the homeowners but also to keep you from cracking your shin on a bead in the dark.

4215 W. CR 200 N, Knox, IN 46534

Private phone

Hours: Always visible, daylight hours

Cost: Free

Directions: North of town on Rte. 35, then east on CR 200 N for about a block.

SUPERSIZED PINS

The rosary in Knox may be large, but its bowling ball beads are standard size—nothing special. As far as anyone knows, there are no giant bowling balls in Indiana. There are, however, a few giant pins scattered around the state, usually marking the entrance to a bowling center. You can find one in Fort Wayne at Pro Bowl West (1455 Goshen Rd., (260) 482-4889, www.probowlwest.com) and two in Indianapolis, at Woodland Bowl (3421 E. 96th St., (317) 844-4099, www.royalpin.com/woodland/) and Royal Pin Expo Bowl (5261 Elmwood Ave., (317) 787-3448, www.royalpin.com/expo).

Che Mah

Che Mah was born in China on April 15, 1838, and though he would eventually become world famous, he never amounted to much. At least not in height—he grew to be only 28 inches tall, shorter than Tom Thumb—and was once described as “a pocket edition of a Mandarin, perfect in every detail, and with his scanty black beard and diminutive stature looked as if he had just stepped off a tea caddy.”

P. T. Barnum brought Che Mah to the United States in 1881 to be a part of his traveling circus, which took the tiny man on a tour through Europe. He later joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show before retiring, settling in Knox with his wife and son. The couple later divorced, but Che Mah remarried. He died at the age of 87 and was buried under a headstone that is more than twice his height. The local historical society also has a few of his personal effects on display.

Crown Hill Cemetery, Lake St., Knox, IN 46534

No phone

Hours: Daylight

Cost: Free

Directions: On the northeast side of town between Lake and John Sts.

Starke County Historical Society Museum, 401 S. Main St., Knox, IN 46534

Phone: (574) 772-5393

Hours: Call for an appointment

Cost: Donation

Website: www.starkehistory.com

Directions: Two blocks west of Rte. 35, five blocks north of Culver Rd.

LaPorte

Belle Was a Groundbreaker

In many ways, Belle Gunness broke new ground for American women. Long before women achieved universal suffrage, Gunness proved that a determined woman could do anything a man could, at least in her chosen profession, which was serial murder. Born in Norway in 1858, she immigrated to the States in 1886 and settled near Chicago. She married Mads Sorenson in 1893 and adopted several children who, shortly after Belle received money for their care, mysteriously died. Then Mads perished in a fit of convulsions in 1900. Belle bought a pig farm outside LaPorte with her husband’s life insurance settlement.

She didn’t stay single long. Belle married Peter Gunness in April 1902, but he died eight months later when a sausage grinder fell from a high shelf and crushed his skull. Again, Belle received a healthy insurance settlement. See the pattern?

Worried she might begin to develop a reputation among suspicious insurance agents, Belle devised a new fundraising plan. She advertised in Chicago’s Norwegian “lonely hearts” newspapers for a spouse and managed to convince her suitors to liquidate their assets and head to LaPorte, cash in hand. “And don’t tell your family where you’re headed,” she’d add in her perfumed letters, “it would ruin the surprise when we tie the knot!”

Disposing of the bodies became an awful chore, so she had a hired hand named Ray Lamphere dig ditches for her to bury her “trash.” Many mornings Lamphere would find the ditches filled back in. He started to become suspicious of the late-night departures of so many of Belle’s potential husbands, which were described by Belle but never witnessed by him. And why did they always leave their belongings? he wondered.

The brother of one suitor, Andrew K. Helgelein, came looking for his sibling, having written Belle in advance. The day before he arrived, Belle made up a will with a local attorney. That night, April 28, 1908, her home burned to the ground, killing Belle and three additional children she had birthed or collected along the way.

Ray Lamphere was charged with arson and murder, but after 13 bodies were unearthed, Belle looked more like a suspect than a victim. Still, Lamphere was convicted of arson and spent the rest of his life in the Michigan City penitentiary.

Was Belle the headless body found in the burned home? Officials claimed it was considerably smaller than the robust Belle, and its only identifying feature was a charred dental plate found in the rubble. Many historians today believe Gunness escaped by killing a prostitute, beheading her, and leaving her own dentures with the body before lighting a cover-up fire.

The excavation of the victims of “Lady Bluebeard” became a popular pastime in pre-TV, pre-radio LaPorte. Families would come out to picnic, watch the diggings, and carve their initials on an unburned shed on the property. You can view the graffiti-covered siding today in the LaPorte County Historical Society Museum. Inside is a scary, crude mannequin of Belle. You’ll see sketches of the farm, the letter and four-leaf clover Gunness sent to Helgelein, and a gruesome photo of victim Ole Budsberg, whose head was brought in on a shovel for Lamphere’s trial. (It’s available as a postcard at the front desk.) A plaque in the shed repeats a popular rhyme of the time:

Amid roses of red and violets of blue She buried not one But forty-two.

Forty-two? Fourteen? Exactly how victims many did she off? It’s hard to tell, but somewhere between 14 and 40 men bought the farm on the farm Belle bought. A. K. Helgelein was buried in Patton Cemetery in LaPorte (1401 Rumely St., (219) 362-9671), and his tombstone indicates his status as Gunness’s final victim.

Big, bad Belle. Photo by Patrick Hughes, courtesy of the LaPorte County Historical Society Museum

Gunness Farm Site, McClung Rd., LaPorte, IN 46350

No phone

Hours: Always visible; view from the road

Cost: Free

Directions: North from downtown on Rte. 35/39 until the routes diverge; follow Rte. 39 and take the first right onto McClung Rd., follow McClung south along Fishtrap Lake until you see a gate with NO DUMPING signs on the left; her home was where the field to the west is today.

LaPorte County Historical Society Museum, 2405 Indiana Ave., LaPorte, IN 46350

Phone: (219) 324-6767

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10 AM–4:30 PM

Cost: Adults $5, Seniors (60+) $4, Kids (18 and under) free

Website: www.laportecountyhistory.org

Directions: Head southeast from downtown on Rte. 35 (Indiana Ave.) until just past Crescent Dr.

Logansport

Batmobile Builder

Some people spend their entire lives trying to find their passion, but Mark Racop knew at the age of two. It was 1967 when he got his first look at a Batmobile, and though he was barely old enough to talk, he announced to his parents that he would have one someday. They probably thought he wanted a toy, but they were wrong. At the age of 17, barely street legal himself, he built his first Batmobile using a 1974 Monte Carlo in his parents’ garage with the help of four friends. It took three years to finish, and he called it Bat 1.

As you can imagine, Bat 1 led to Bat 2, and so on, though for legal reasons they weren’t officially called Batmobiles. And then in 2010 the original patent expired and Racop pounced on the opportunity like the Penguin on a herring, buying the rights from DC Comics to produce the car that has meant so much to him. Today his company finishes a few new ones each year for very rich geeks around the world, and there’s a waiting list. Each is customized, depending on the interest and budget of the buyer. You can get a Batphone, Batbeam antenna, parachute pull, Batcomputer switch, Emergency Bat Turn lever, and Detect-A-Scope. Everybody gets the flame-shooting exhaust port.

Racop is open to visitors and is generous with his time; he will gladly show you around the shop where you’ll see a half-dozen cars in various stages of construction. His hope is to open an adjoining museum to display his huge collection of Batman artifacts and memorabilia.

602 Erie Ave., Logansport, IN 46947

Phone: (574) 722-3237

Hours: Call for an appointment

Cost: Free; Batmobiles, $124,999 and up

Website: www.fiberglassfreaks.com

Directions: One block south of Market St., between Sixth and Berkley Sts., just northeast of the river.

Catch the Brass Ring

Were it not for lawyers, there might be more brass ring carousels in the United States today. All those riders risking their necks, leaning out and grabbing a brass ring for a free ride, turned ambulance chasers into merry-go-round monitors. But the good folk of Logansport are sticking to their rings.

The Cass County Carousel was built in 1902 (though some animals go back to 1885) by Gustav Dentzel in Fort Wayne, then moved to Logansport in 1919. It was restored in 1993 and is the only surviving brass ring merry-go-round in the state. Most of its 42 hand-carved critters are horses, but it’s also got reindeer, giraffes, goats, a lion, and a tiger. The two felines don’t move up and down, making it much easier to reach for the round, golden object of your desire.

Lest you think this throwback is entirely unaffected by the litigious who walk among us, check out the animals on the outside track. They all have seat belts.

If riding around in a circle isn’t your idea of fun, the park also has a historic miniature train. It’s 25¢ cheaper than the merry-go-round, and you ride a lot farther.

Cass County Carousel, Riverside Park, 1208 Riverside Dr., Logansport, IN 46947

Phone: (574) 753-8725

Hours: June–August, Monday–Friday 6–9 PM, Saturday–Sunday 1–9 PM

Cost: $1/ride, or one brass ring; Train, 75¢/ride

Website: www.casscountycarousel.com

Directions: Five blocks east of Rte. 25, four blocks north of Rte. 24, between 10th and 11th Sts.

RIDE A RARE ONE

Have you ever ridden a leopard? Or a giant panda? A dugong or a babirusa or a cassowary? Do you even know what those are? Maybe that’s part of the problem—these animals are all nearly extinct but can be found on the Endangered Species Carousel at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo (3411 Sherman Blvd., (219) 427-6800, www.kidszoo.org). There are 36 wooden creatures representing 17 different species on the merry-go-round, which also includes a manatee, a stork, a Sumatran tiger, a sloth bear, and several Asian elephants.

Another carousel with strange figures (though not endangered) can be found at Davis Mercantile in Shipshewana (255 E. Main St., (260) 768-7300, www.davismercantile.com). It’s got plenty of elaborate horses, but also a bulldog, a rooster, a lamb, a corn-stealing pig, and a very horny goat.

Finally, Indianapolis’s Broad Ripple Park Carousel has been restored and moved to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (3000 N. Meridian St., (317) 334-4000, www.childrensmuseum.org). In addition to horses, it has giraffes, deer, goats, a lion, and a tiger.

Mentone

World’s Largest Egg

As hard-boiled eggs go, this is one of the hardest—concrete no less. Built in 1946 by Hugh Rickel and weighing a ton and a half, the 11-foot Mentone Egg honors the region’s primary agricultural export. Mentone calls itself the “Egg Basket of the Midwest,” and if all the hens laid them this large, they’d need some mighty big baskets. Every June, the town throws an Egg Festival, and they recently tried to raise enough funds to construct an egg-shaped water tower. They were unsuccessful, so this old oversized ova will have to do for now.

The classic question that comes to mind while admiring this 3,000-pound monument is one that has puzzled philosophers for centuries: Which came first, the concrete chicken or the concrete egg?

This must have hurt.

E. Main & Morgan Sts., Mentone, IN 46539

Phone: (574) 353-7417

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.mentoneeggcity.com/history.htm

Directions: Near the grain elevator at the corner of Main (Rte. 25) and Morgan Sts.

Michigan City

Submarine Superstar

If you were asked, “Where would be a good location for a submarine base?” would you answer, “Indiana”? You would if you were Lodner Phillips! When this former cobbler began asking the same question of the US Navy, the answer was more likely, “What’s a submarine?” Large underwater craft had yet to be invented, and the navy was not convinced that a submarine was even militarily useful.

Phillips set out to change the navy’s mind. Between 1840 and 1850 he built several vessels. The first was a small, one-man craft, but later versions were 40 feet long. The full-sized subs could dive 100 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan, which is exactly what he did with his family on weekends.

Phillips was awarded more than 40 patents for his maritime inventions, which included torpedoes, underwater suits, and diving bells. But due in part to the distraction of the Civil War, he never persuaded the navy to build a port in Indiana. He eventually left town for New York and would be forgotten in Michigan City today were it not for several models of his Hoosier inventions on display at its Old Lighthouse Museum. The museum also has a large collection of ship models, old postcards, and lighthouse gewgaws.

Old Lighthouse Museum, Washington Park, Heisman Harbor Rd., PO Box 512, Michigan City, IN 46360

Phone: (219) 872-6133

Hours: April–October, Tuesday–Sunday 1–4 PM

Cost: Adults $5, Kids (under 14) $4

Website: www.oldlighthousemuseum.org

Directions: Just west of Franklin St. (the continuation of Pine St.), at the lake.

Monticello

MiniMonticello

If you ever want to see Monticello, all you have to do is check the flip side of the nickels in your pocket. Or you could go to Charlottesville, Virginia, to see the original for yourself, but that would cost you a lot of nickels. There is, however, a third option: come to Monticello, Indiana, to see a Monticello-shaped bank—about half the size of Jefferson’s architectural masterpiece.

Lafayette Bank and Trust, 116 E. Washington St., Monticello, IN 47960

Phone: (574) 583-4666

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: www.firstmerchants.com/LBT

Directions: On Rte. 24 (Washington St.) two blocks west of the river.

Like a nickel, only bigger.

Munster

Carmelite Shrines

Northern Indiana is, in a word, FLAT. This geographic reality makes it all the more difficult to find a cave to establish a grotto. But the parishioners at the Carmelite Shrine in Munster didn’t let the topography get them down; they just built their caves up.

The exterior of the Main Grotto hardly does justice to the treasures that lie within. Just to the right of the main, exterior altar is a small, candle-filled niche that opens to yet another, larger room, and another, and another, and another. The walls are covered in rough stones embedded in concrete and broken by marble bas-reliefs of biblical scenes. Your holy journey is illuminated by recessed lighting and backlit onyx sconces. Find the stairs to the second floor and you can peep out a secret window aimed at a statue of the Virgin. Don’t miss the Flagellation Grotto, if that’s what you’re into. The final grotto has dozens of scenes carved to show Mary and all her incarnations: Mother Undefiled, Mother Most Amiable, Mother Most Admirable, Mother of This, Mother of That …

Another grotto, at the north end of the gardens, is sunken into the ground like a crypt. It acts as a chapel, and the clammy, subterranean aura seems all the more spooky when you come across a statue of Jesus, dead and sprawled out on the altar. Yikes!

1628 Ridge Rd., Munster, IN 46321

Phone: (219) 838-7111

Hours: Daily 8:30 AM–5 PM; Grotto, call ahead to have the lights turned on

Cost: Free

Directions: Eight blocks west of Rte. 41, on the south side of the road.

Nappanee, Middlebury, Shipshewana

Amish Mania

Northwestern Indiana has well-established populations of both Amish and Mennonites, and with them, a large selection of sightseeing possibilities. Don’t risk sideswiping a buggy by rushing to visit them all in one weekend—take a hint from the local folk: if you want to maximize your humble, back-to-the-land weekend, choose the Amish attraction that’s right for you.

Amish Acres

Amish Acres is like Vegas for folks in black hats and bonnets. Its grounds cover 80 acres, a complete farming community with a bakery, meat and cheese shop, cow shed, barn, and white-clapboard home. Check out the candle dipping, quilting, fudge making, and horseshoeing before you settle down at the Restaurant Barn for a traditional 12-course meal.

But that’s not all! Amish Acres has Indiana’s only resident musical repertory theater. It’s longest running production, Plain and Fancy, is a toe-tapping salute to life among the Amish. Had enough of the beards and zipperless outfits? How about Carnival! or, racier still, Gypsy or Damn Yankees?

Go ahead—spend the night! This place has two hotels, the Nappanee Inn and the Inn at Amish Acres. Both offer large swimming pools, full-body massages, and electric lights. They even have a helicopter landing field. Who ever thought simple living could be so scrumptious?

1600 W. Market St., Nappanee, IN 46550

Phone: (800) 800- 4942 or (574) 773-4188

Hours: April–October, dates and times vary—see website

Cost: Adults $12.95, Kids (4–11) $4.95; Buggy rides, Adults $6.95, Kids (4–11) $3.95

Website: www.amishacres.com

Directions: One mile west of Rte. 19 on Rte. 6.

Das Dutchman Essenhaus

Maybe you’re not interested in full Amish immersion—you’re mostly interested in their multicourse dinners. Das Dutchman Essenhaus offers two gorging options: family-style service for parties of 15 or more, or belly up to the buffet—beef and noodles, chicken and noodles, chicken noodle soup, creamed chicken and biscuits, biscuits and noodles, noodles with noodles, noodles noodles spam and noodles, and just plain noodles. Be sure to leave room for pie. If you’re lucky, they’ll sit you in a booth shaped like a buggy. It’ll make it easier to roll you out later.

240 US 20, Middlebury, IN 46540

Phone: (800) 455-9471

Hours: Monday–Thursday 6 AM–8 PM, Friday–Saturday 6 AM–9 PM

Cost: Meals $7–15

Website: www.essenhaus.com

Directions: At the intersection of Rte. 20 and Rte. 16.

Menno-Hof Mennonite-Amish Visitors Center

If Amish Acres is Vegas to buggy-drivers, the Menno-Hof Visitors Center is the Smithsonian. Here you’ll follow the rich history of the Anabaptist tradition, from 1525 to the present, through its three main branches: the Hutterites, the Mennonites, and the Amish.

While their faith stresses simplicity, this multimedia extravaganza is anything but. It all starts with the “Good Fences Make Good Community” slide show; then you’re whisked back in time to a Zurich courtyard where it all began. The Anabaptists’ breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church didn’t come without a price, as you’ll see in the next room, the Dungeon. Be sure to look down the stone shaft to see the poor soul awaiting his fate for his beliefs.

Now it’s time to emigrate—move through the Harbor to the Sailing Ship, headed for the American colonies. Finish your tour with displays of modern (if that’s the word) Anabaptist teachings and activities. And no trip through the barn/museum would be complete without a visit to the Tornado Theater. This simulator recalls the Midwest’s 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, and then Hurricane Joan, which slammed into Nicaragua, with blowing wind, shaking floor, and flashing “lightning.” It’s not entirely clear what this has to do with the Amish, but as tornados go, it’s a lot of fun.

510 S. Van Buren St., PO Box 701, Shipshewana, IN 46565

Phone: (260) 768-4117

Hours: September–May, Monday–Saturday 10 AM–5 PM; June–August, Monday–Friday 10 AM–7 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM

Cost: Adults $7, Kids (6–14) $4

Website: www.mennohof.org

Directions: At the south end of town on Rte. 5 (Van Buren St.).

New Carlisle

World’s Largest Living Sign

Strange as it sounds, the World’s Largest Living Sign promotes a product that is not currently available. In 1938 the Civilian Conservation Corps planted 8,259 white pines on the Studebaker automobile proving grounds west of South Bend. The trees were arranged to form letters spelling out STUDEBAKER when viewed from the air. Each letter is 200 feet wide, 200 feet long, and 60 feet tall.

To fully appreciate the living sign, you once had to fly over the old racetrack, which is part of a park currently known as Bendix Woods, and pick out the brand name in the sculpted treetops. Today you can use a drone or the satellite feature on Google Earth.

Bendix Woods County Park, 32132 State Road 2, New Carlisle, IN 46552

Phone: (574) 654-3155

Hours: September–April, daily 10 AM–6 PM; May–August, daily 10 AM–8 PM

Cost: In-state, $4/car; Out-of-state, $5/car

Website: www.sjcparks.org/bendix.html

Directions: On the south side of Western Ave. (Rte. 2), just east of the county line.

If you had an airplane, why would you drive a Studebaker? Courtesy of Bendix Woods County Park

Peru

Circus City Museum

Most parents would cringe at the thought of their child running away to join the circus, but not in Peru. Kids here are actually encouraged to become circus performers … and they don’t even have to run away—Peru is already the “Circus City.”

Peru’s circus tradition began in 1884 when Ben Wallace and James Anderson purchased the W. C. Coup Circus at auction and renamed it “Wallace & Co.’s Great World Menagerie, Grand International Mardi Gras, Highway Holiday Hidalgo, and Alliance of Novelties.” Who wouldn’t buy tickets for that? Season after season, Wallace bought out or merged with other shows, and the whole operation wintered at an elaborate facility on the east bank of the Mississinewa River, two and a half miles southeast of town. (Drive east on Rte. 124 and turn left just after crossing the bridge to see crumbling remnants of the headquarters.)

In 1907 Wallace bought the Carl Hagenbeck Circus to form the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, the best-known touring operation stationed in Peru. Over the next 30 years (under a variety of owners) it would employ the likes of Emmett Kelly; Tom Mix; lion tamer Clyde Beatty; the Great Willi Wilno, better known as the Human Cannonball; and Blacaman, the Hindoo Animal Hypnotist.

A small museum located downtown within a former circus building is filled with uniforms, posters, harnesses, cages, trapezes, and lots of photos, not to mention Rattlesnake Annie’s maracas. On the third weekend in July each year, local residents put on the Circus City Festival. All of the performers are Miami County residents, many of whom are descendants of former performers.

Circus City Center, 154 N. Broadway, Peru, IN 46970

Phone: (765) 472-3918

Hours: April–September, Monday–Friday 9 AM–5 PM; October–March, Monday–Friday 9 AM–4 PM

Cost: Donation only

Website: www.peruamateurcircus.com

Directions: Downtown where Broadway meets Seventh St.

BLUE MONKEY SIDESHOW

What’s a circus without a sideshow? Not very odd, that’s what. Trouble is, sideshows are hard to find these days, what with modern advances in medicine and psychology. But there is one freaky troupe in Indiana that still makes the rounds: the Blue Monkey Sideshow (www.bluemonkeysideshow.com). See performers lie on a bed of nails and swing bowling balls from their earlobes. Gasp as they walk over broken glass, swallow swords, and drive three-penny nails up their noses. They even pair up with guest freaks from around the nation—every show is different! Check the website for a performance near you.

Cole Porter’s Birthplace and Grave

Cole Porter was born in Peru on June 9, 1891, and was by all accounts a precocious child. The son of a druggist and an heiress to one of the richest men in town, J. O. Cole, young master Cole was pampered and indulged from the time he could walk. He returned the attention by composing songs for his mother and staging elaborate performances in the sun porch. When his mother consulted a gypsy about her son’s future, she was told that people whose initials spelled out words were prone to greatness; mom immediately gave her son a middle name: Albert. C-A-P spells cap!

Porter loved growing up in a town of circus performers and would often take the Fat Lady for rides around town in his donkey cart or seek out the Wild Man of Borneo to get the inside scoop on upcoming big-top events. As he grew older his musical abilities improved, and during the summers he would play the piano for passengers aboard the Peerless, an excursion vessel that sailed the waters of Lake Maxinkuckee. At the age of 14, Porter was sent off to Worcester Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts.

The composer and lyricist didn’t spend much more time in Peru until he returned in an urn 60 years later. He died in California on October 15, 1964, after complications from a kidney stone operation. Porter’s birth home still stands, today converted into a bed-and-breakfast called the Cole Porter Inn. And each June, Peru celebrates Cole Porter Days.

Cole Porter Inn, 19 S. Huntington St., Peru, IN 46970

Phone: (765) 460-5127

Hours: Always visible; call for reservations

Cost: $99.99/night

Website: www.coleporterinn.com and www.coleporterfestival.org

Directions: Just south of Main St., two blocks east of Broadway.

Porter’s Grave, Mount Hope Cemetery, 411 N. Grant St., Peru, IN 46970

Phone: (765) 472-2493

Hours: Daily 8 AM–4 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.mthopeperu.com

Directions: At the corner of N. Grant & W. 12th Sts.

PORTAGE

• Each October, Portage hosts Elvis FANtasy Fest for the King’s fans.

Freaks of Nature and Cole Porter’s Hand-Me-Downs

One good thing about living in a town filled with circus-loving folk is that they’re not afraid of freaks of nature. Take the stuffed, two-headed calf on the second floor of the Miami County Museum. Born on a local farm, it lived for a few weeks. It’s mild in comparison to the one-headed, two-bodied “Siamese” pig standing next to it. And neither holds a candle to the gruesome white dress hanging nearby. It was worn by a local girl when she fell from her family’s wagon and was run over. The parents kept the dead child’s bloody dress for years before donating it to the museum for all to see.

The ground floor exhibits have their own wonderful weirdness, including the remains of two circus animals. A crudely removed lion pelt, from the tip of its nose to its tail, is draped over a padded stand. In another case, the remains of Charley, a rogue elephant from the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. As the museum’s brochure says, “Our school children like to hear the story about Big Charley.” To make a long story short, on April 25, 1901, this perky pachyderm drowned his cruel trainer, Henry Hoffman, in the Wabash River and had to be destroyed. The museum has his tusk and bullet-ridden skull. Cute story!

Finally, among the dead animals and arrowheads, you can find “artifacts” from Peru’s favorite son, Cole Porter, including his 1955 Fleetwood Cadillac, the carrying case for his dog Hildegarde, and his oversized white sofa.

Miami County Museum, 51 N. Broadway, Peru, IN 46970

Phone: (765) 473-9183

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 9 AM–5 PM

Cost: Free, suggested donation $3

Website: www.miamicountyhistory.org

Directions: At the corner of Broadway and Fifth St.

PORTER

• A Michigan Central and New York Central train collided near Porter on February 27, 1921, killing 37 passengers and crew.

Rochester

Hoosier Tarzan

When you think of Hollywood’s first Tarzan, who comes to mind? Johnny Weissmuller? Try Otto Elmo Linkenhelt. Never heard of him? Perhaps you know him better by his stage name: Elmo Lincoln. Still not ringing a bell? Then come on by the Fulton County Historical Society for an apeman education.

Lincoln was a Rochester native who moved to California in his teens and was later discovered by director D. W. Griffith. He played bit parts in The Birth of a Nation and other, less memorable films before being cast as Tarzan in 1918. During filming, Elmo was required to kill a lion named Old Charlie. The process was made all the easier because the aged cat was heavily drugged. Anything to impress Jane.

Tarzan of the Apes, which made more than $1 million, was followed by The Romance of Tarzan. It was a flop. Lincoln went on to different roles, and other actors were tapped to play the Lord of the Apes. Surprisingly, two more were also Hoosiers: James Hubert “Babe” Pierce of Freedom, in Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), and Bloomington’s Denny Miller in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959). Pierce even married Joan Burroughs, daughter of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs.

You can see plenty of Elmo Lincoln artifacts at the Fulton County Historical Society, as well as thousands of other curiosities from the region. Everywhere you turn there seem to be creepy, midsized dolls carved by Ray Fretlinger. The museum buildings seem to run on forever, and you begin to wonder if the curators ever throw anything away. The answer is simple: they don’t.

Fulton County Historical Society, Round Barn Museum, 37 E. County Rd. 375 N, Rochester, IN 46975

Phone: (574) 223-4436

Hours: Monday–Saturday 9 AM–5 PM

Cost: Donation

Website: http://fultoncountyhistory.org

Directions: Four miles north of town on Rte. 31 at County Rd. 375 N.

Roselawn

Hanging Out in Roselawn

Do you long for those childhood days when you were allowed to run naked and nobody batted an eye? Well, perhaps you ought to come to Roselawn, where two nudist resorts are open to the general public: Sun Aura and the Ponderosa Sun Club.

Sun Aura, while under new management, has existed at this location for decades. The camp started as Camp Zoro, then Naked City, and was host to the annual Miss Nude America and Miss Nude Teeny Bopper contests. Back in 1969, it launched the nation’s first nude ski area, the See and Ski Resort. For what should have been obvious reasons, chief among them frostbite, it never lasted. Today Sun Aura bills itself as a “family-oriented” nudist colony. It looks like a KOA Campground, but the old folks in the golf carts here aren’t wearing any clothes. There’s a small heart-shaped lake, a large swimming pool, sand dunes, volleyball courts, and other fun-in-thesun common areas, as well as an 8,000-square-foot round clubhouse that doesn’t look like it has been remodeled since the 1970s. Open year-round, Sun Aura schedules an event every weekend from April through September, including a Mother’s Day Dance, Yard Sale Weekend, a Pig Roast, and the late season Oldies Dance. Mark those calendars!

Sun Aura does not require that guests be nude but strongly encourages it. The Ponderosa Sun Club, on the other hand, will only allow you to wear a T-shirt if you’ve got a really bad sunburn … but no pants! No sunburn? No clothes! The Ponderosa Sun Club has a large pool with a split-level sun deck, tennis, volleyball, and horseshoe courts, and a central campfire pit—just be extra careful of flying embers.

Sun Aura, 3449 E. State Rd. 10, Lake Village, IN 46349

Phone: (219) 345-2000

Hours: Winter, Sunday–Thursday 8 AM–6 PM, Friday–Saturday 8 AM–midnight; Summer, Sunday–Thursday 8 AM–8 PM, Friday–Saturday 8 AM–midnight

Cost: Daily rates range from $30–45, depending on gender and day of week

Website: www.sunauraresort.com

Directions: West of the railroad tracks on the south side of Rte. 10.

Ponderosa Sun Club, PO Box 305, Roselawn, IN 46372

Phone: (219) 345-2268

Hours: May 15–September 15, Monday–Thursday 9 AM–6 PM, Friday–Saturday 8 AM–8 PM, Sunday 8 AM–6 PM

Cost: Monday–Thursday $30/day, Friday–Saturday $35/day; campsites extra

Website: www.ponderosasunclub.com

Directions: Turn north off Rte. 10, just west of the railroad tracks, and follow the signs on County Road 400E.

South Bend

Studebaker National Museum

Most automotive manufacturers got involved in the transportation industry after the invention of the internal combustion engine. Not the Studebakers. These five brothers began making vehicles in 1852, and what a time to get started! The Civil War was looming and the nation needed wagons. Shortly after the smoke had settled, the brothers established the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company in 1868. Over the next hundred years, they rolled with the changing market, moving from Prairie Schooner wagons to buggies, to autos, to oblivion.

You can trace the company’s century-long story at this unique museum. The building is fronted by a hedge spelling STUDEBAKER, a miniature replica of the giant living sign in New Carlisle (see page 44). Inside you will see four different carriages used by US presidents, including the doom buggy Abraham Lincoln rode to Ford’s Theatre. Some of the more popular vehicles here were never available to the public at large, like the 1956 Packard Predictor, a Jetsonsesque dreamobile with “Push-Button Control of Its Ultramatic Transmission”; a push-me-pull-you vehicle named “Peggy” that shuttled senators underground between their offices and the US Capitol; a small prototype of a two-person hovercraft, the Curtiss-Wright “BEE”; and the last Studebaker to roll off the assembly line on March 17, 1966, a turquoise Timberline.

201 S. Chapin St., South Bend, IN 46601

Phone: (888) 371-5600 or (574) 235-9714

Hours: Monday–Saturday 10 AM–5 PM, Sunday Noon–5 PM

Cost: Adults $8, Seniors (60+) $6.50, Kids (6–12) $5

Website: www.studebakermuseum.org

Directions: One block south of Washington St. on Chapin St., west of downtown.

Where the Gipper Died

Unlike the idealized George Gipp portrayed in 1940 by Ronald Reagan in Knute Rockne, All-American, the real George Gipp was something less than a saint … a lot less. He is widely believed to have bet on football games, played poker until all hours of the night, and drank like a fish. And it was one of those bawdy, boozy binges that was his undoing.

Coming home late from a night of gambling, stinking drunk, the Gipper decided to curl up on the back steps of Washington Hall to get a little shut-eye. Or perhaps he passed out or was locked outside after curfew—nobody seems to know for sure. Unfortunately, it was snowing that evening, and George caught pneumonia. His lung infection worsened over the next few days, and he died at St. Joseph’s Hospital (801 E. LaSalle Ave., (574) 239-5298, www.sjmed.com) on December 14, 1920. The movie version had none of the sordid backstory.

A Gipper tale is almost as believable as the film that surrounds his ghost. George’s spirit is said to haunt the attic of Washington Hall and has been seen by drama students since the 1970s. Though it is a theater/auditorium today, it was once used as a temporary residence for students that included—you guessed it—George Gipp. He lived on the upper floor, near the attic, and has been making strange noises ever since.

Washington Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

Phone: (574) 631-2805

Hours: Always visible

Cost: Free

Website: http://washingtonhall.nd.edu

Directions: Directly east of the Golden Dome; Gipp fell asleep on the tall staircase in the rear, on the north side of the building.

SOUTH BEND

• Actor Chad Everett was born in South Bend as Raymon Lee Cramton on June 11, 1937.
• A mysterious shower of fish fell on the northwest side of South Bend in July 1937.
• South Bend is the “Major World Tool and Die Training Center.”

GIPPERISH SITES

Most Fighting Irish football fans can’t seem to get enough of their favorite team—its players, its coaches, you name it. One Gipper death site does not a tour make. So here are a few other South Bend sites to check out if the campus isn’t enough.

George Gipp would never have been the icon he is today without the creative storytelling of coach Knute Rockne. During this coach’s tenure at Notre Dame, he had a record of 105 wins, 12 losses, and 5 ties. Not too bad! He lived at three different homes in South Bend: 1715 College Street (1914–18), 1006 St. Vincent Street (1918–30), and 1417 E. Wayne Street (1930–31). After dying in a Kansas plane crash on March 31, 1931, he was laid to rest in Highland Cemetery (2557 Portage Ave., (219) 234-0036, www.burialplanning.com/cemeteries/highland-cemetery).

St. John

Millennium Mary

The Virgin Mary is a large figure in the Catholic Church, but seldom as large as she is in St. John. This supersized steel saint stands 34 feet tall, created by Charles Parks in 1999. She was commissioned by a man named Carl Demma, who trucked her around to various Chicago parishes during the 2000s. Millennium Mary, as she was affectionately nicknamed, has since retired to a life in the country, though she’ll be happy if you visit her today.

In addition to this Megadonna, the Shrine of Christ’s Passion also has a life-sized Stations of the Cross that winds along for a half mile. Forty figures fill the 14 stations, each contained within a grotto, with narration by Bill Kurtis if you hit the buttons. Holy music emanates from speakers all around the property to set the mood.

Shrine of Christ’s Passion, 10630 Wicker Ave., St. John, IN 46373

Phone: (855) 277-7474 or (219) 365-6010

Hours: Friday–Wednesday 10 AM–5 PM, Thursday 10 AM–8 PM

Cost: Free

Website: http://shrineofchristspassion.org

Directions: On Rte. 41 (Wicker Ave.) north of the Rte. 231 (109th St.) interchange.

Valparaiso

Orville Redenbacher Statue

Back in 1952, Orville Redenbacher and Charles Bowman developed a hybrid popcorn in Valparaiso, a variety they sold under the brand Red Bow Popcorn, from the first three letters in each of their names. People loved it, but the name lacked a certain something-something. That’s when Bowman suggested changing it to Orville Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn with his partner as the old face of the new brand. It was a stroke of marketing genius!

The real King of Pop.

Valparaiso honors its native sons each September with a Popcorn Festival. During one festival, organizers built a 12-foot-diameter popcorn ball that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. And in 2012 they unveiled a statue of the bow-tied nerd sitting on a bench in the city’s central park. Sculptor Lou Cella was able to create a fairly accurate depiction of the man by studying clips of his appearances on Hee Haw.

Lincoln Park, 63 Lafayette St., Valparaiso, IN 46383

Phone: (219) 465-0098

Hours: Daylight

Cost: Free

Website: http://valparaisoevents.com/valparaiso-popcorn-festival/

Directions: One block west of the courthouse, south of Lincolnway.

Wakarusa

Bird’s Eye View Museum

If you grew up in Wakarusa or Bonneville Grist Mills, DeVon Rose’s matchstick creations will remind you of the good ol’ days. If you’ve never been to either of these towns, you can experience them today through his miniature dioramas. Look! There’s the Wayne Feed Mill and the Eby Ford dealership! And the bag factory! Oh, what a fascinating place Wakarusa can be, even when shrunk down to a 1/60th scale.

DeVon Rose started building the Bird’s Eye View Museum as a weekend project in 1967, and he kept at it until he died in 2011. The mini-museum was once located in his basement, but after he passed away his 72-piece collection was moved to its own climate-controlled building at the museum complex run by the Wakarusa Historical Society.

Wakarusa Historical Society Complex, 403 E. Wabash Ave., Wakarusa, IN 46573

Phone: (574) 862-1181

Hours: Thursday noon–2 PM, Saturday 9 AM–noon, or by appointment

Cost: Adults $4, Kids $2

Website: http://wakarusahistoricalsociety.com

Directions: Three blocks west of Rte. 19, four blocks south of Waterford St.

WAKARUSA

• Wakarusa is a Native American term for “knee deep in mud.”

Warsaw

Biblical Gardens

If you thought the Bible was filled with only God-said-this and God-said-that, think again. It’s also a botanical record of historic Middle Eastern plants … holy plants! Biblical Gardens claims to be America’s Largest Collection of Biblical Flora with more than 160 species crammed into a plot smaller than an acre. Of course, the climate in Indiana is a bit colder than the Middle East, so not every biblical plant can be found here.

Visitors can stroll along a path that winds through the flowerbeds where small plaques indicate where to find each species referenced in the holy book. Feel free to bring a picnic basket and your Bible to make a day of it. But be careful: if a serpent in a tree offers you an Apple of Knowledge, don’t take it! To find out why, consult the Good Book—it’s somewhere near the beginning.

Center Lake Park, Canal & N. Indiana Sts., Warsaw, IN 46580

Phone: (574) 267-6418

Hours: April–October, dawn–dusk

Cost: Free

Website: www.warsawbiblicalgardens.org

Directions: Just west of Detroit St. (Rte. 15), on the southeast corner of Warsaw Central Park, north of the McDonald’s.

Hallmark Ornament Museum

The Party Shop would be just another knickknack and card emporium were it not for a large display in the back of the store. The Hallmark Ornament Museum is the collection of Jess Prudencio and David Hamrick and includes every Hallmark Keepsake Ornament produced since 1973—more than 4,000—when the company started manufacturing them.

While they may be valuable to those who collect them, the early Keepsake Ornaments are extremely ugly. They were either dull balls with imprinted designs or hideous 1970s yarn art, the kind your cat swatted around, chewed up, and regurgitated years ago. In 1977 Hallmark branched out into fake stained glass, but the results were no more eye-catching than the previous designs. Only when the company started making plastic figurines did things get interesting.

Were they not hung on a pine tree in December, it would be hard to figure out that many of these ornaments are Christmas decorations. You’ll find such odd subjects as a bottle of Hershey’s Syrup, a Wheel of Fortune wheel, the Jetsons in a Space Car, a coop full of singing chickens, Myra Gulch riding a bike (from The Wizard of Oz), a Scooby Doo thermos, and the starship Enterprise’s Captains Kirk and Picard. The Party Shop has many of the old ornaments still for sale, so if you have your eye on that reindeer on a Jet Ski, it’s yours … for a price.

The Party Shop, 3418 Lake City Hwy., Warsaw, IN 46580

Phone: (574) 267-8787

Hours: Monday–Saturday 9:30 AM–8 PM, Sunday noon–5 PM

Cost: Free

Website: www.thepartyshop.com

Directions: In the K-Mart Shopping Center south of Rte. 30, at the east end of town.

WHEATFIELD

• By law, women may not wear halter tops, bathing suits, or short-shorts to political rallies in Wheatfield.

WHITING

• The town of Whiting hosts Pierogi Fest on the last full weekend of July each year (www.pierogifest.net). For details, call (877) 659-0292.

WINAMAC

• The 1980 trial regarding the 1973 Ford Pinto was held at the Pulaski County Courthouse (112 E. Main St., (574) 946-3313, www.pulaskionline.org) in Winamac. Three local teens had been killed in a gas tank fire, but Ford was found not guilty of reckless homicide after a 10-week trial.

WOODVILLE

• Two B&O trains collided in a snowstorm near Woodville on November 6, 1906, killing 43.