Rensselaer Adventures

This blog reports events and interesting tidbits from Rensselaer, Indiana and the surrounding area.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

The Wash-O-Quois Museum and other things

Last Saturday I ventured over to Brook to see the Wash-O-Quois Museum because this place that I had never heard of was open in the afternoon.
 I learned the it focused on the history of Washington and Iroquois Townships of Newton County and that was the source of its weird name. It is on Brook main street near the western edge of the downtown.

Brook once had its own school. According to the notes on another picture, from 1904 until 1966 it had grades 1 - 12 and from 1957 until 1997 the building had grades 1 - 6. It was demolished in 1998.
 The museum housed artifacts from those school days.
 Brook also once had a railroad, which was removed in the 1940s. It connected to Morocco. They still have a Railroad Street that ran next to where the railroad was.
 One of the fascinating items was this lamp, which the tag said was one of five original street lights for Brook. It was purchased in 1885 and sat between the Brook Hotel apartments and the Brook Locker Plant. It was originally a kerosene lamp, but someone had put an electric bulp in the top and converted it into a floor lamp.
 The museum is very small and is open only for special occasions. The locals who were there found many things that brought back memories of the good old days.

On Wednesday the Chamber of Commerce luncheon was catered by the new Doggers food truck. A better description is food trailer. It was pulled by a pick-up truck that had a generator in its bed.
The County has chip and sealed Bunkum Road and Wood Road. I am sure many other roads have been done as well, but these are the two that I have been on recently.

Apparently a few days ago I accidentally deleted my Bulletin Board that is on the right. It did not have many items when I deleted it. As you can see, I restored it and updated it. There is a lot going on in September.

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