The National Road & History in Wayne County Indiana
Being from Central Illinois, the story in my backyard is all about Route 66. I am covering content about the Mother Road frequently. However, alongside the Route 66 100th anniversary is our nation’s 250th. I am remembering on this anniversary the men and women that fought for our freedom.
I love this silo decorated with “God Bless Our Veteran’s” that Annie Jansen and I saw while visiting Wayne County on a hosted trip by Visit Richmond’s Nancy Sartain.
Nancy reminded us of the importance of Route 40, The National Road. The National Road enters Wayne County from Ohio. Then it winds through the historic towns of Richmond, Centerville, known as the City of Arches, and Cambridge City, nicknamed “Antique Alley”.
The National Road
The National Road was shared by livestock, wagons and pedestrians. Both the Whitewater Canal, and the Historic National Road run through Wayne County. One National Road sign states, “Shuffling hogs, horses and geese vied for space alongside wagons, carriages, and coaches. Emigrants migrated to the west with everything they owned. Others drove livestock to market or shipped goods via the canals that intersected the road. Stagecoaches filled with mail carried news of family and friends.”
Route 40 brought transcontinental traffic across the Midwest. The National Road website shares, “The mid-1950’s were a period described by many as the Golden Age of Automobiling.”
Route 40 carried more automobile traffic than any other transcontinental highway. The website states, “Back then, if you needed to go from coast to coast, there simply wasn’t a better choice.” The highway ran 3,157 miles from Atlantic City to San Francisco. It was decommissioned when the Interstate Highway came through. It is amazing to think of the impact the National Road and Whitewater Canal had on Midwest history over the years.
There is more information about the National Road at the Wayne County Historical Museum. They even have a fun simulated driving experience that Annie and I enjoyed.
Strong women from Wayne County
Did you know that the first Indiana Woman’s Right Convention took place in Dublin, Indiana in 1852? What is truly astounding is that it wasn’t until 1920 that we actually got the right to vote!
The Overbeck sisters were other strong, independent women from Cambridge City that pursued a career in their own backyard.
The Overbeck sisters produced Indiana’s first nationally recognized art pottery from 1911 until 1955. To learn more about this art history, we stopped by the Cambridge City Library where they have an Overbeck Pottery Museum. Cambridge City Public Library Director, Karen Bays-Winslow showed us the museum. To set the stage, she played a fascinating documentary about the family and the pottery they created.
The Overbeck sisters
On the Overbeck Pottery Museum website they share, “…At a time when most pottery was copied from European and Japanese art, they believed that “borrowed art is dead art.” The majority of their work stemmed from their surroundings and included painted porcelain, red ware, important vases, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and figurines modeled after real-life persons or “grotesques”– which Mary called the “humor of the kiln.”
A creative family, the sisters never married and the story is both amazing in what they accomplished, and sad in some respects. The story includes ill health, struggles and triumph. It is awe inspiring to see artists like the Overbeck Sisters who decide to stay home, create art, and succeed against all odds bringing the world to their door, and art to Wayne County Indiana. More Overbeck pottery is on display at the Richmond Art Museum.
Richmond Art Museum
The Richmond Art Museum is the 2nd oldest art museum in Indiana. The Richmond Art Museum (RAM) is the only art museum attached to a high school. Shaun Dingwerth, the Executive Director since 1998 showed us around this beautiful place. Besides being the director of the museum, Shawn also authored the book The Richmond Group Artists about a group of artists interest in fostering art in their community. The museum offers 37,000 objects of art.
Open now is the interactive display Connection to Freedom. The exhibit is about the Underground Railroad, which has a lot of history in Wayne County. Students and visitors contribute to this weaving art.
While we saw many lovely works of art, I loved India Cruse-Griffin’s painting Dancing in the Street.
The building RAM is housed in was built in 1941. McGuire Hall, the auditorium at RAM was modernized and has murals related to art in the Richmond area. The auditorium is stunning and used for both school and Civic events.
The Gilded Age!
Art comes in all forms, and at the Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond Collections Manager Kerry George showed us the new Gilded age exhibit. A Richmond native, Kerry said, “I was born and raised here.”
“It started around the 1890 – 1910,” Kerry said, adding, “It can be stretched to 1870 -1910 a time that is post-Civil War, reconstruction, and the building race. There was money pomp, but there was an ugly side too.”
The exhibit profiles the Gilded Age during Wayne County history.
“We were a small town with a population of 9,000, but we had 41 millionaires, this was more than New York City. We had a lot of resources wood and water and companies took off, building pianos, cars, and buggies.”
While there were lots of people with money, most of the population didn’t have servants and were struggling. There were no child labor laws, and some started working as early as five or six.
The Gilded Age was a time of fashion change “The colors were fascinating, they wanted the brightest color and wanted to be noticed,” Kerry added. “There was a price to innovation though, they used arsenic in clothing.”
“The Tin Plate King, Daniel Reid was also from here,” Kerry shared. The Reid name is known all over the area with the beautiful Reid Center with its Tiffany Glass windows, hospital and more.
Steam engine production was also huge with the Gaar Scott & Co. and Robinson & Co, and more like Elwood McGuire that created the first push mower machine. Kerry shared there were 14 lawn manufacturers in Wayne County “Dille and McGuire produced two thirds of all the lawn mowers in the world.
Julia Gaar
Julia Gaar established the Wayne County Museum. Kerry said, “Julia Gaar loved traveling the world. Her favorite place was Egypt. In 1929 she purchased a mummy in an antique shop,” explaining how a mummy ended up in Wayne County.
The Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History
The Joseph Moore Museum of Natural History is located in Earlham College. Nicole Blair the Museum Education Lead gave us a tour along with two students, Olivia Kremer and Lena Rude. “We have over 40 students that help run the museum,” Nicole said.
“The museum was founded by Joseph Moore. He was a teacher at the Friends Boarding School which later became Earlham in the 1800’s,” Lena said. His hunting collection became some of the original items in the natural history museum. Besides that, there are fossils, skeletons of a Mastodon, Sabor Tooth Tiger, and Giant Sloth and beaver. All of these Nicloe said once roamed in the area.
“We have the largest collection of Indiana birds,” Lena said pointing to the variety that included a whooping crane. They thrived in what was once the marshland of Indiana. In the collections area below, Nicole took us on a tour of the specimens that have been lovingly cataloged over the years.
There are also live animals that the kids are thrilled to see. We had the most fun getting to view Godzilla, a Gecko.
At the museum, they too have a mummy, TA’AN.
What is funny is originally they thought the mummy at Wayne County Historical Museum was a woman and at Earlham was a man, in fact, it was just the opposite.
From the National Road, to independent women to art and natural history, Wayne County offers it all. This is just the tip of the iceberg of things to do and see in this beautiful county in the Hoosier state!
