Friday, April 9, 2010

Enos

On the day I visited the Nature Conservancy at Kankakee Sands, I also visited some other fun spots in Newton County. First on my list was the failed town of Enos, which sits at the beginning of SR 14 on US 41. Entering from the east, you cross some railroad tracks that are no longer in use. They run the length of the county, from north to south, and were originally part of the  Chicago, Indiana & Southern Railroad. West of the tracks is an abandoned grain elevator. It has the name Newton Ag Service on the large bin and is the only structure in Enos included in the Newton County: Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory Interim Report (June 2009).
The town of Enos was founded in 1907. It owes it existence to the railroad.

South of SR 14 is a large building that is apparently an apartment building.
North of the highway and west of the grain elevator is a building that looks like it was once a township school. It seems to be in use, but I could not figure out if it was residential or not. A couple of Newtonians told me that it is the alternative school for the North Newton School Corporation.
Going further west, there is an empty building for sale. It was once a restaurant.
West of U.S. 41 is an attractive large building. A sign identifies it as the Maggio Apartments. It seems rather strange to have two rather large apartment buildings in dead town that has no single-family homes.
Finally, on the southwest side of the town is a building that looks like it could be a house, but it has a commercial parking lot. and a sign on the building that reads, "Kendall Oil Rutledge Auto Center." It is apparently an auto repair shop.
If you know more about Enos, feel free to write something in the comments.

4 comments:

  1. That building with all of the signs was once a really good restaurant. We used to go on Sundays for dinner after church. There are not many of those kinds of Sunday dinner restaurants around anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Does anyone know anything about the little house with the address of 2003Indiana~14Indiana just east of 250W. on Rt.14?
    It's had at least 3-4 owners in the last 7-8 years...And empty again. Is it for sale?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The second picture, you describe as 'South of SR 14 is a large building that is apparently an apartment building.' Was once a motel. My lady friend (who owns an old highway motel converted into apartments near Lowell, IN.) and I looked into buying it some years back. It was built in 1984 and is quite nice actually. It has a lobby and an internal hallway with units on each side of the hall. The units were small but nice and had marble bathrooms and showers. There's a coin laundry a step or two down from the lobby. The Landlords residence is huge. Gotta be at least 2000 sq. ft. From what we were told, it was built mainly to accommodate seasonal hunters and fishermen heading to the nearby marshes. The owner was apparently a gambler and had an apartment in Vegas and wanted to sell the place. The asking price at the time was $250,000. The reason we decided against the purchase is one, the local authorities would not allow a larger Motel sign (the sign was a tiny two feet square at the time. Something about the Indiana Highway beautification act 0_o. And two, the place is simply too far from everything. It's 20 miles from Lowell, 20 miles from Rensselaer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interested to know the origin of the town name. My last name is Enos and have lived in the Michigan City and Westville area for over 50 years but was originally from New York state

    ReplyDelete

I have been getting too much spam lately so comments are now moderated and spam is deleted.