On Wednesday two county offices that recently moved had an open house. (It was a year ago that the county was thinking of buying the old
Ceres Solution offices north of Rensselaer--time flies.) The two offices that moved were the Purdue Extension office, which had been in the County Annex, and the County Surveyors office, which had been in the Court House.
The extension office occupies the southern part of the building and the surveyor the northern half. When one enters the main door, one goes past the reception area of the surveyor on the right and continues to the reception area for the extension offices. The extension reception area is shown below, looking toward the north.
The whole extension area had a comfortable feel to it. In addition to the plants, there were interesting decorative items that the staff had brought from their old offices. I noticed an old scales in the office area above. The person who brought it did not know what it had been used for. There were also some old publications that would fit in nicely at the historical museum.
In the extension area the offices small and on the west wall. The extension people said that they did not have appreciably more space in the new area, but that the space that they had was more useable. One thing that they liked was a lunch room. Below you can see one of the offices.
On the eastern side of the building was a large conference room. I wanted to get a picture of it without any people, but there was a good attendance and I never got the chance to take the picture I wanted. I settled for a picture of the light refreshments that they were serving in the conference room.
Purdue extension does a number of things and has a complex structure. Three of the people are employees of Purdue, but some of the staff is hired by the county. The funding comes from county, state, and federal sources. They do a lot of work with 4-H and also do educational programs in the schools. They provide a number of services to the farmers, mostly that have an educational component.
The surveyors office has a completely different feel to it. They have bigger toys-note the large printer/plotter in this picture. I bet you do not have one of those in your office. This picture shows the large work room that dominates the space used by the surveyor.
Below is the same room, looking west.
The individual offices in the surveyors quarters are on the eastern side of the building. The far north end of the building has a storage area that is full of maps and documents. I have forgotten what was in these drawers--it might have been ditch records. The surveyors office is in charge of the many ditches of the county, and each ditch has lots of records that go with it. If you want to write a best seller about the ditches of Jasper County, you will want to have access to these records.
Or maybe you would rather study the roads. They have records on the roads as well. I am sure there is some fascinating reading in these volumes.
The county surveyor gets the biggest and best office in the building.
At one time the hospital was planning an open house this spring. Anyone know if there is a date for it?
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