Metamora reels from really bad news
Quasi government org shuts down Indiana history
Indiana State Historic Site #1 is the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site. It contains maybe 10 miles of the original canal, a feeder dam, numerous canal locks, one of which works, a mill complete with water wheel, an admn building and maintenance garage, a big red gambrel-roofed barn where the Belgium tow horses lived, Tow Path Park near Lock 25, various parking lots and public toilets, lots of land mostly in grass and a world heritage marker, a covered bridge aqueduct carrying the canal over Duck Creek. it should be named Duck Creek Crossing Aqueduct, because that’s literally what it is, but that’s a fight for another time.
State Historic Site #1 is centered in Metamora, Indiana’s authentic canal town since it was built to accommodate the needs of canal traffic in the 1840s. The State Historic Site is intertwined with the privately owned structures in town. Of those privately owned places there are basically two varieties, tourism and homesteaders. As a homesteader I was not part of the tourist trade in Metamora. There are many people like me who earn our living without reference to the crowds the historic site designation brings. Most of the time we avoid the crowds and only go downtown during the weekdays when it’s empty.
The tourism economy people have several NGOs to which they adhere. Historic Metamora, the Duck Creek Crossing Organization, the Whitewater Canal Byway Association, Whitewater Canal Trail, inc., and some others whom I can’t recall right now. The Whitewater Valley Railroad uses Metamora as its ultimate destination for their weekend excursions from Connersville. I paint this picture so you’ll see how distorting came the news that the glue which holds the Historic Site together had decided to close it. Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites said it will happen at the end of this summer season That's like two months away! That’s an outrage and like Robert Ludlum once told me, the first inspiration for his books came from him being outraged about something.
So you see my excitement. Being on the periphery of Metamora central I’m in a position to document how this deal goes down. This will be bonus stuff for my paid subscribers, but free subscribers will get enough to keep interested, and hopefully slightly frustrated.
As a property owner in Metamora, and one who has answered the primary question—Do we want to save the historic district? Yes!—I’ll be participating if and when I can in any actions to save it. As a spectator, you will gain insight into MAGA America up close and in action. So I begin with a song:
Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, up popped a little press release laden with grief, not so much for me but for Indiana State Historic Site #1 aka Metamora. The press release from the quasi government organization, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, was headlined: “Whitewater Canal State Historic Site Will Close.” I have two properties in Metamora but do not take part in the tourist trade so it won’t hurt me financially. But it will hurt me aesthetically.
ISMHS explained its decision weakly, it “has made the difficult decision to close the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site. The intention is for the site to remain open through the 2025 summer season.
“After exhausting all avenues to raise the funds to make essential repair, it is no longer economically or environmentally feasible to continue to operate and manage the site.”
This is bull shit! A few years ago ISMHS was granted $15 million to enhance the state’s historic sites. Most of the money went to the state museum in Indianapolis. Some went to the Levi Coffin Underground Railroad museum in Fountain City and some went elsewhere, but the Whitewater Canal Historic Site, the state’s number one site, received something like $426. And that was all spent in one. place, a new dock for the mock canal boat Ben Franklin.You can imagine how fancy that was.
“No longer economically or environmentally feasible to continue?” What the hell does that mean? Museums are never economically feasible. That's not what they are about. They are repositories of the past and are operated and maintained on the public purse for the public good, at least state museums are. The Whitewater Canal State Historic Site was never meant to be an economic profit center. It wasn’t designed that way so this argument won’t fly. It’s just a lie, an excuse and not a very good one.
This quasi government organization, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, is abdicating its responsibility to Indiana's living history. How did we get to this point? Republican government-as-business mentality is the reason. When I moved to Metamora the historic site was managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources which did a fine job. Then the red, red legislators in Indy decided they would create this quasi government org, ISMHS, and bequeath it both the state museum in the capital but also the eleven historic sites.
So many questions, like whose going to cut the grass and keep water in the canal. Who gets the money if they sell the property? I don’t know that any real fight will come up from the people of Metamora, but if it does I’ll try to document it here.
Mussic Monday
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