A very long time ago

Earlier this week I was invited to view some prehistoric earthworks located on a private property in Jasper County. They are on a sand ridge that until recently was overgrown with trees and underbrush. The owner of the property has spent many years collecting Indian artifacts and his knowledge of the prehistoric residents of our area was key to his recognizing the significance of what was on his property.

If I had walked alone through his property, I might have noticed that the landscape was unusual, with a number of circular pits and small mounds. It is very unlikely that I would have thought that these features could have been made many centuries ago. Below is a picture I took but it is impossible to capture the patterns that are visible when a person is actually there.

Indiana has other, similar prehistoric earthworks. Perhaps the best known is Mounds State Park near Anderson. (See also here.) The largest earthworks structure there is bigger than any that are on the Jasper County property, but it has a similar shape and design. It is round and on one side the lip of the circle is lower than the rest of the lip. There is a raised platform in the center. This kind of structure seems to be called a henge. There are at least six of them at the Jasper County site. They were probably built by people of the Adena culture more than 2000 years ago.

The owner of the property has shown them to archaeologists from Purdue and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Both were impressed and said that this is an important archeological site. One of the archaeologists would like to survey and map it with specialized equipment, but that equipment was loaned out and not currently available. Good maps would make interpretation of the site much easier. Even though the site has not been disturbed by farming, many centuries of erosion have blurred the features. One must use imagination to picture what was here when the site was in use.

What archeologists know about the people who made these structures is very limited. The tools and artifacts that were left by the inhabitants of Indiana 2000 years ago were considerably different from the tools and artifacts of the inhabitants of Indiana when Columbus stumbled on the Americas. Think of how little we would know of the Greeks and Romans if they had not left written records. Tools and other artifacts are not good substitutes for written records.

The owner of the land has not dug for any Indian artifacts, but he has used a metal detector to search the site for items left by early European settlers. He has found many nails, mostly from horse shoes, bullets, shell casings, and even part of a gun. Below is about one half of the metal artifacts he has found.

Judging from the tremendous number of Indian artifacts that have been found in Jasper County, this area had substantial populations before European settlement. Further, this area was probably inhabited since the glaciers retreated from Indiana at the end of the last Ice Age about 15,000 years ago. For information about Indian tribes in Indiana when European settlement occurred, see here.

Over the years I have had a number of posts about Indian artifacts (the best one is here and for others search the blog for "Indian artifacts") and I have bemoaned the fact that there is not more recognition of the people who lived here for thousands of years before European settlement. The owner of this site would like to find a way to give some public access to these earthworks. Perhaps it can eventually become something that will give recognition to our area's prehistory.

Indiana pre-history

On Saturday I had a chance to visit the Prehistoric Indian Artifact Show sponsored by the Indiana Archeological Society held at the Demotte Christian School. (Thanks, David V.)

The event was held in the gymnasium and had rows of exhibits, mostly neatly presented. Some of the material on display was for sale and some of it was only there to be admired.

We live in a region that is rich in Indian artifacts. The Kankakee Marsh to our north and more wetlands to our south provided an abundance of game for hunters. The many sand hills that our region has were ideal for camps, and a good location could be occupied intermittently for thousands of years. Europeans have only been in our area for a few hundred years, but various groups of Indians inhabited and hunted it for about ten thousand years.  Given that very long period of human use in an area that was full of wild game, it should not be a surprise that there were many lost and abandoned stone tools.

People who were displaying tended to display pieces that were in excellent condition and were not the sort of thing a collector would find very often. A display like that below would either represent many years of collecting or, more likely, the purchase of key pieces from several collections.

It does not take a lot of money to collection a few arrowheads. On the table of one of the major dealers at the show, there were containers of arrowheads that cost between $3.00 and $30.00. I asked why some were so much more than others and was told that many factors such as quality, condition, rarity, collector interest, and type of material played a part. That is not too much different from collecting anything else--to be a serious collector requires a lot of study and learning about the field. (One also has to worry about forgeries.)

 The same dealer had some more expensive pieces.

 Actually, most of what are called arrowheads are spear heads. The Indians did not develop or adopt bows and arrows until 1000 or 1500 years ago. (I am not sure how well the dates have been determined by archeologists.) Before then the Indians used spears, which were effective because of the use of the atlatl. (See also here and here.) But because the atlatls were made of wood, they have rotted away.

Some of the points found in our area are knows as Indiana Green. They were made from chert that was found somewhere near Attica.

In addition to spear and arrow heads, there were many other tools on display. Below is a large selection of axes and other implements such as hoes. The notches show that they would be mounted on a handle.

 My guess on seeing pieces like the one below was they they were mortars, used in food preparation, but I was told that they actually were used for some kind of game. They must be quite rare because the one below had a price tag of $1600.

 There are a number of people in Rensselaer who collect or who have collected Indian artifacts. Several decades ago people would search farmer's fields, but now farmers do not want people searching their fields without permission. So unless you have access to a collecting site, it is hard to collect them. I also heard several people complaining that no-till practices rather than plowing have made it harder to find artifacts--the plow dug down and revealed what was beneath the surface, and after a few thousand years, a stone tool would no longer be on the surface.

Shows like this are one of the few places that force you to recognize that what we think of as the history of our region is just a tiny bit of the actual history.

By the way, did you know that arrowheads tessellate?

Pop tabs, myth and reality

I stopped by the annual Van Rensselaer PTA Craft show on Saturday to see what was happening. I noticed that the school was collecting pop-can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House and was amazed by how many they had collected. (I assume that the can if full of only tabs.)

Several years ago a student at SJC told me that the tabs were made of a special alloy and worth much more than the rest of the cans. An Internet search quickly told me that this was not true. Doing the math using the numbers in the snopes article, it takes 28 tabs to earn a penny.

Why then does Ronald McDonald House collect them? One of the Ronald McDonald House web pages says. "Although the whole aluminum can is valuable, the tab is much cleaner and easier to collect in large quantities than whole cans." Another says, "Collecting pop tabs is a great way to teach kids about philanthropy and the importance of recycling...." However, Snopes contends that "a lot of really nice people end up sadly disappointed when they eventually discover all their hard work pretty much went for naught."

People like to be useful and to help people in need but often are more concerned about the symbolism of what they are doing than the actual results. The purpose of some of the charities we see is more to make the donors feel good about themselves than to actually help people in need. (I have nothing against Ronald McDonald House. I used their house in Indianapolis many years ago and found that they provide a very useful and valuable service. They deserve support. And they are honest about what they are doing on their website.)

I wonder if the rumor that tabs had special value is an echo from a time in which they did. A couple years ago I noticed this can along a road in Nevada. It could have been there twenty or thirty years--the area is desert, so the process of decay and decomposition are very slow. The can is made of iron while the tab is aluminum. Are you old enough to remember them?

If you are as old as I am, you remember even an older form of tab, the kind that pulled off the can. Those tabs are still around. I had a conversation with a man in Martinsville a couple months ago in which he told me that he had bought a metal detector in hopes of finding hidden treasure. He said about all he ever found were the old aluminum tabs buried three or four inches underground. He said they were everywhere.

After leaving the craft fair, I stopped in the Jasper County Historical Society museum to see what they were doing. The quilt show was gone and a new installation featuring recent acquisitions and resources was being prepared. I will try to remember to go back in two weeks to see it completed. (The museum is open the first and third Saturday of every month.) I reminded them that they should do a show featuring Indian artifacts from the area, and they are considering it. I also suggested a pioneer craft show, but the only pioneer craft that I can think of that is still practiced is basket making. What kind exhibits would you like to see?

Speaking of Indian artifacts, today is the bicentennial of the Battle of Tippecanoe, which took place northeast of Lafayette. It was historically important because it broke the power of the Eastern Indian tribes. We do not have any important Revolutionary War or Civil War historic sites in Indiana, and this battlefield is the only one near us that has national significance. Read more about it here. Update: The Journal and Courier has had good coverage; for example, see here.

Updates and flint knapping

Work continues on the Mt Calvary Road/US 231 intersection. The edge of the hill on which the Cemetery rests has been trimmed and a retaining wall is being added.

 Below is a view from the other side. The Cemetery sits on a sand ridge.

 Paving seems to be compete.

More sand or stone was being delivered to the construction site of the assisted living complex south of Fountain Stone. A truck full of stone seems to be a lot of stone, but the volume looks less impressive when it is smoothed out.

 Truckloads of stone are being delivered to the dog park construction site on Bunkum Road. Below is the site early on Tuesday.

 A bit later in the day after more stone had been delivered, the blue pipe had become a culvert. Stone was still being hauled on Wednesday morning.

Other parking lots that are having work done are those of the Rensselaer Library (seal coating) and St. Augustine Church (repaving). Work on the St Augustine parking lot has been delayed because the milling machine is not yet available.

On Tuesday a combine was harvesting the beans along Sparling Avenue.

 One place that will not be involved in the harvest this year is the large grain elevator in Remington. It has ceased operations.

 On Tuesday evening the Jasper County Historical Society's program was on Indian artifacts and flint knapping, the process in which the Indian artifacts were made. Giving a demonstration was a 16-year old from White County who has been flint knapping for eight years. Watching him work the rock gives one an appreciation for the skill of stone-age tool makers.

Flint and chert differ from location to location and people who study Indian stone tools can identify not only the culture from which they came but also the site of where the stone was mined. Jasper County has some flint but it is hard to work so little was done with it. There is an outcrop of better stone around Attica and many arrow heads found locally are from that material. Some of the items found locally are from other sources, some quite distant.

The Historical Society had a dress rehearsal of the Weston Cemetery Walk on Sunday and everyone who has parts to play seems to be ready for the public performance, which will be on Saturday at 2:00. Those attending will be divided into groups and each group will start at a different station and then rotate through the other seven stations. At each station there will be a reenactor who will tell fascinating stories of rich men, poor men, tragic deaths, triumphant lives, pioneer families, anonymous graves, majestic tombstones, and much, much more.

Tickets cost $10 and are available at Willow Switch, Brown's, and Jordans. 

Shopping at Elk Investments

Two months ago I had a post about a new business, Elk Investments, opening on West Washington across the street from CVS. Last Friday I had some spare time so I stopped in to see what they had. How can one resist advertising saying that they buy and sell fine jewelry, gold and silver, old coins, antique militaria, and Indian artifacts? There is something there for both men and women.

The small boy in me immediately noticed the swords on the wall. Most are Japanese samurai swords and they were really nice, but they were out of my price range.
Almost as much fun were the arrow heads and other stone tools.

This area had Indian settlements for thousands of years and they left behind many artifacts. I do not know where to hunt for them, but a number of local people collect them and have respectable collections. (That brings me to a pet peeve--Rensselaer has nothing to acknowledge the thousands of years of human habitation in this area that preceded the arrival of Europeans and their descendants. Lafayette has Prophetstown State Park and Fort Ouiatenon, Winamac is named after an Indian chief. There should be something in Rensselaer that connects us to those former inhabitants.)
Steffens Jewelry now has a bit of competition.
I have collected a bit of old money, mostly for use in the classroom, but it is more fun to spend it.
While I was in the store, two people came in to sell old gold jewelry. Elk Investments assesses it and pays cash. They then ship it off to a smelter who melts it down for ingots.

One of my older relatives has sold all the old gold jewelry she can find, probably to pay for her trips to the casinos in Gary. Is this a good time to buy or sell gold? Gold rises in price when people fear inflation. Normally we do not worry about inflation during a deep recession, but the Federal Reserve has created a huge amount of bank reserves, which could, if the Fed does not handle the situation correctly, be the source of future inflation. Plus, government spending is out of control and while the politicians in Washington sometimes talk about the problem, they seem unwilling to actually do anything about it. I worry about inflation because it is one of those things that could hurt me a lot and I do not trust the people in Washington to do the right thing.

They also buy silver. If you have a dollar in silver coin, it is worth $11.00 as metal. I think this box was a week's purchase by them. (They could also be buying old copper pennies because they are worth more as copper than as pennies, but I think it is currently illegal to melt them down.)
A few years ago there was an impressive auction at the fair grounds. A lady from Morocco was moving and selling a huge collection of Japanese and Chinese pottery and rugs and a lot of really nice stuff. There were a lot of dealers attending. One thing up for bid was a set of silverware. Someone bid $1 per piece. I knew that was low, so I bid it up to either $1.25 or $1.50. The original bidder then topped me and I decide that because I did not know what I was doing, I should not be bidding more. I asked the people at Elk Investments what the going rate for a piece of sterling silverware was and they said $7 or $8. So I dropped out of that auction way too early.

Behind the counter they had three old bank notes issued by Rensselaer banks in the 19th century. These are very rare and I do not think they were for sale.
If you are interested in the history of U.S. money, visit the on-line American Currency Exhibit at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and you will learn why banks issued paper money like that shown above.

Elk Investments is an interesting place to browse. (In case you are wondering, at the end of each business day, they collect all the merchandise and put it in a safe.)

At the library

There is a display of Indian artifacts at the Rensselaer library in the display case by the genealogy area. It contains items from a local collector.

 I am not sure what dates the Paleolithic refers to. Paleolithic is stone age, and before the arrival of Europeans, the Americas were still in the stone age with tools made not from metal but from stones (and sticks and bone and fired clay).

 The items are labeled so that there is some information about each. Experts could tell more, but even they do not know the full story behind many of the items (such as what banner stones were used for, a topic on which the local collector has written a paper published in an archaeological journal.)

 We think of the Indians as using bows and arrows, but for most of the thousands of years in which the Americas were inhabited, the primary hunting weapon was the atlatl.

The artifacts should remind us most of the human history of this area is only sketchily known.

*******
The demolition of the building on Front Street east of Washington is complete. This was the view on Sunday. The lot will be used for parking for CTS Tire. That will require some fill and a retaining wall because the land slopes down to the river. The additional parking will mean that customers of CTS Tire will not have to use the city lot across the street.

Many things

Is it my imagination or does the sky look different in the fall than it does in the summer? I kept wondering that yesterday as the dark clouds mixed with patches of very blue sky.

 The city leaf vac is roaming the streets searching for leaves. It has ended one of the old rituals of fall--burning leaves. (Do you miss the smell of burning leaves?)

The Animal Control Board advertised that it was meeting in the Library on Monday night and because I had never been to one of their meetings, I decided to attend. (I was told that it had been a long time since any member of the public had been at one of their meetings.) They had six members plus the director of the shelter present, which was enough for a quorum, something they did not have at their last meeting. (A quorum is necessary for any vote to be official.)

After a brief discussion of the director's report on how many animals were received and what happened to them, the Board had a lengthy discussion of finances relating to donations. The whole issue came up when the Animal Shelter had a float in a recent parade. They wanted to use some funds in their donation budget to pay for some expenses, but were told by the auditor that they could not do that because they lacked the appropriate line item in their donation account. If that does not quite make sense to you, you can understand why the Board spent about half an hour discussing it.

I do not think I have ever been to a meeting where members had as many cell phone calls. Most of the members got at least one, and at this point in the meeting the chair of the Board received one and had to leave because of an emergency involving one of his dogs. The meeting continued with a discussion of a policy for comp time. I do not understand the nuances of this, but the issue is important because animal control people often have to come in at odd hours to deal with a problem. As I understand it, they are paid time and a half for these calls, but then are expected to adjust their work schedules so their total time worked is not affected. The policy passed and a couple more people had to leave.

Then there was a discussion of personnel issues that I did not understand at all, followed by a discussion of a pit bull that is being held at the shelter pending a court decision. The dog had bitten three people and its fate will be determined at a November 10th hearing. At this point two more people had to leave, so only the director and one member of the board were left. Since I was no longer at a meeting bur rather a conversation between two people,  I left as well.

The Tuesday night Historical Society meeting had one of the largest crowds ever. The program was about Indian artifacts. All of the items shown below and much more were found by one local collector.

Our area seems to be unusually rich in these artifacts. Much of our area was once swamp so people camped on the sand hills, and those hills are often full of arrowheads, spear points, axes, and other stone items used by the Indians. However, finding them has gotten more difficult because of the advent of no-till farming--wind and water erosion are friends of the arrowhead hunter. Also, land owners are much less willing to let collectors onto their properties than they used to be.

(Normally the County Council meets on the same Tuesdays as the Historical Society, but this month they moved their meeting back a week because county officials who need to be at the meeting were out of town. The County Council meeting will be next Tuesday.)

Planning Commission meeting, July 25, 2016

The meeting of the Jasper County Planning Commission was unusually long and contentious on Monday evening. The first item on the agenda, a zoning change to allow a couple to put a second house on a rural property, passed with little discussion. Not so the second item, a request to rezone a property a few hundred yards north the intersection of SR 14 and US 231 from commercial business to agricultural. The owner had bought the property in June and intended to raise hogs on it, though it is a small, narrow lot, only 9.9 acres. The lot has a building on the west end near the highway that was for many years, and no one knew how many, used as a hog market or transfer. Since the lot had been used for hogs for many years and because it was adjacent to farm lots, the owner assumed that he could raise hogs there. He wanted to have about 180 gilts and ten boars on the property, and when the gilts had a litter, they would stay in the existing building until the piglets were weaned and sent to other farms.

However, after he purchased the property he discovered that it was zoned commercial-business. Apparently it had been zoned business in 1971 or 1972 and that designation allowed for agricultural uses.  When the zoning ordinances changed and that business zoning classification was eliminated, it was made commercial business and apparently that classification does not allow agriculture or maybe just animals.

There were a couple of people in the audience who opposed the change because they did not want hogs on the property. One member of the Commission suggested that the property should be zoned commercial because it is near the intersection of two highways and there are two or three businesses nearby. Eventually the Commission decided to delay a decision for a month to talk to their lawyer and get more info. They noted that if the land is zoned agricultural, the maximum number of pigs the owner can have on the land is 99 because there is an ordinance that say that non-confined pigs cannot exceed ten to an acre. Along with the delay in considering the matter, they gave him permission to keep pigs on the property until they decide the issue.

The third item was a proposal to change zoning of property in Wheatfield Township from residential to agricultural. The land in question was a sand ridge that had been zoned residential because someone planned a subdivision on the property and that subdivision never happened. After zoning was changed to agricultural, the owner intended to apply for a special exception from the Board of Zoning Appeals to mine the sand, that is, he proposed leveling the sand ridge and selling the sand. After the sand ridge was removed, he would farm the land. He had come to the Commission because he had moved some sand to help a neighbor and had been given a cease and desist order.

This proposed zoning change attracted a lot of opposition, with most if it centered on the archeology of the area. Much of Jasper and Newton Counties was once marsh land that teemed with wildlife. The American Indians of the area hunted the wildlife and made their settlements on the high points, the sand ridges. This is well known to those who hunt Indian artifacts. The party requesting the change had approval from the Army Corp of Engineers which protects wetlands but did not have an archeological survey which protects sites of archeological interest. A member of the audience who at one time owned the property told the Commission that the ridge was full of arrowheads and other artifacts. The Commission decided to delay decision until the September meeting, giving the petitioner time to find or do an archeological survey. (You can see the property on the Jasper County GIS site by searching for Prairie Creek Ag Lands.)

The last item on the agenda was an amendment to the flood plain codes of Jasper County, but after almost two hours of meeting, the members decided to table the discussion for a future meeting. After the Commission adjourned, the Board of Zoning Appeal met. The only item on the agenda was a special exception for sand mining, but since the zoning had not changed, they could not act on the matter, so they moved the item to the September meeting. 

And now for something completely different. You might remember from biology that a lichen is the symbiosis of a fungus and an alga. That understanding of lichen, which has been around for 150 years, is incorrect. Read about what a lichen really is here.

I need a picture, so here is a happy one. Gas prices in town are again below $2.00 a gallon.

Planning for the future

Signs of spring keep appearing. Last week I saw several robins and several turkey vultures. I am always excited to see the return of the turkey vultures both because it means spring is coming and because they are very graceful as they soar overhead.

The Jasper County Tourism Commission met on Friday morning. The funding request that they considered was from the Fountain Park Chautauqua, which will be celebrating its 125 anniversary this summer. Its first year was 1895 and it now has 70 cottages and a 30 room hotel that dates from the very early days of its history. The Chautauqua movement started as training for Sunday School teachers but has over the years changed to be mostly a celebration of the arts. The Remington Chautauqua is open to the public with a $5.00 daily entry fee. This year it will run from July 18 to August 3.

The Chautauqua requested $2500 to help pay for country singer Nich Lynch from Chicago. (Website here.) He appeared on American Idol sometime in the past. After some discussion and mention that the Council was cutting everyone this year, the members approved a grant of $2000.

Another item on the Chautauqua entertainment schedule this year is a retired professor talking on the history of toilet paper.

The Tourism office and JCEDO is preparing new trifolds promoting Jasper County. There was mention that IDOT is planning a welcome center for the rest area at mile marker 230. The focus of the exhibits will be the Grand Kankakee Marsh. (The rest area plans were mentioned in an October 2019 post.)

There was also discussion of other ways that the area could highlight its pre-settlement history and habitat. Residents who collect Indian artifacts know that this area had large Indian populations, some of which may have been seasonal, in the past but there is very little public recognition of that history and it is something that might have a tourism angle.

A group in Northeast Indiana is trying to do public murals in that part of the state and there was discussion if their efforts might be coordinated in some way to help the local mural project.

Speaking of local murals, the RENARTWLK has a website (here, note that it is a .org not a .com site) and is currently trying to raise money to do a round two of murals. The total budget is $30,000 and $10,000 is being raised from the public. The campaign is not quite to 50% of that $10,000 goal. (See here.)

A silver lining from the fire is that I can now take a decent picture of the mural on Janet's Kitchen. On the other hand, the view of the back of the buildings is not attractive even with a few murals there. Perhaps the second round of murals will greatly improve the view.

On Sunday Rensselaer had its second annual International Woman's Day event. It was well attended, both the morning talks and the afternoon boutique market.

Finally, as I was going to the Tourism meeting on Friday, I noticed movers taking furniture into the former PMC Bank Building. I assume that was for the Probation office, which should now be out of the old annex and in the basement of its new building.

Morocco Homecoming

On Sunday we visited Recher Park in Morocco to see what the Morocco Homecoming 2010 had to offer. Recher Park is a couple blocks south of the old downtown. It would have been the site of the Newton County court house if Morocco had not lost out to Kentland.

We arrived in time for to see some of the Pinewood Derby. We missed the 5k and 10K races that happened early, as well as a breakfast, a parade, the Little Miss/Mr crowning, and a church service.

At 4:30 there was supposed to be a Veterans' Memorial Dedication, but we did not stay for that. The Veterans' Memorial is in the center of the park.

Most of the kids seemed to be quite interested in the many inflatables and did not pay much attention to the permanent playground equipment. I thought this climbing wall apparatus was interesting. It is considerably taller than the climbing walls in the Rensselaer playgrounds.

This slide is taller than anything that currently is in the Rensselaer playgrounds, but there used to be one this tall in Iroquois Park. Note the neat water fountain in the foreground.

I found the Morocco Times booth and bought a copy of the Newton County: Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory so I do not have to deal with overdue notices from the SJC library. I met Yvonne, the editor and publisher. Morocco Times publishes a little monthly. It also has a very active Facebook page, and if you want to keep up with what is happening in Morocco, you should "fan" it (which in the new Facebook setup means you like it.) The closest equivalent Rensselaer Facebook page is the Visit Rensselaer page, but right now it is not nearly as active as the Morocco Times.

While I was there, I met a Morocco author, Bradley Hartman, who has a website at www.hartfeltbooks.com. He has a new book out called Strange Adventures of Jesse Hunter, which uses a number of Newton County people, though I think the names have been changed. If you are interested in local authors, check him out.

Bubba's Pork Skins intrigued me, but not enough to make me try them.

Did you know that the only antique snowmobile museum in Indiana is in Morocco? It is in the back of the Blaney law office at Clay and State and is open weekdays. Dan Blaney has about 30 old machines there. The one in the picture is not one of them--it is only a few years old.

At 2:00 it was time for the kiddie tractor pull. However, we decided to skip that and take the historical tour, an adventure that deserves its own post.

After the historical tour, we visited the Morocco branch of the Newton County Library because a presentation of a collection of Indian artifacts was on the schedule. That, too, deserves its own post. Then we headed back to Rensselaer, missing fun events such as live entertainment, a donation hog roast, and fireworks.

A couple that I missed

I recently had two posts that looked at changes in the empty buildings in Rensselaer, but I missed a couple. First, north of town just south of the John Deere dealer, a building that had a Sharp Electric sign on it a few months ago now seems to be empty and vacant.
It may have been empty for a while because I cannot find Sharp Electric in the phone book. There is no "for-rent" or "for-sale" sign evident.
A new enterprise is going into the tiny building on West Washington across the street from CVS. The sign says it is Elk Investments, LLC, and that they are buying an selling jewelry, gold and silver, old coins, Indian artifacts, and antique militaria. I do not recall any past coin shops in Rensselaer. About ten or fifteen years ago we had a shop that bought and sold baseball cards. Maybe there was more than one. Someone told me that it was eliminated in the fire that took out the old Forsythe building.
This building has seen many uses over the years. I think it was most recently a beauty salon. There has been at least one insurance office in there, and it has also had periods of vacancy. My favorite use was about 30 years ago when it was Hickman's ice cream parlor for two or three years. They had really good ice cream cones. According the the Jasper County Interim Report, it was originally a house-style gas station built about 1925. What else has been in there?