Garbage news

The highlight of the Rensselaer City Council meeting on Monday evening was a report by John Julien, who works for Baker-Tilly and is the City's financial consultant. He presented findings on several issues facing the City.

His firm did an analysis of the sewage rate. Revenues have declined a bit, partially due to the closing of SJC. Operating costs, mostly in the form of wages and benefits, have risen. He suggested that the city needs a 10% increase in rates to balance between costs and revenues.

However, the City also has an upcoming sewage project that will replace the current lift station east of Weston Cemetery and extend sewage lines. That project proposes rebuilding the lift station next to the high-rate treatment plant on Lincoln Street. He suggested that an addition 10% increase was needed for that project. Hence, the total increase in rates that he recommended was 20%, which he suggested could be implemented in two or three stages, perhaps the first 10% in January of 2021 and the second in January of 2022.

He said that in August he would present a report on the water department. Here revenues have been constant but costs have risen. He anticipates a recommended rate increase of 12% to 15%. This would help prepare for the next water project, which will likely be a water tower near the Interstate to improve water pressure for those customers.

A third area of recommendation was for the trash pick-up program. User fees, both stickers and payments by businesses for their trash services, raise about $500,000 but costs are $700,000. The difference is picked up from the general fund. He suggested that the finances of trash pickup be given their own set of books, which has been the trend in other cities with municipal service. He also recommended that the sticker program be replaced with a standard residential monthly charge of about $17.85 and that this change begin in January of 2021. The majority of people will see an increase. This rate would help the City update its trucks with lifts that would operate with uniform trash containers, which the City would provide to residents. (Not mentioned was whether the new trucks with lifts would allow the reduction in employees.) In response to a question if a lower rate could be charged to households that do not generate much trash, he said that once the totes or containers were provided, some households could be given smaller containers and charged less.

Only one action on these reports was taken at the Monday meeting. The Council passed a motion that the 2021 budget, which will be presented in August, should be prepared with sanitation removed from the general fund. The next two meetings will have the public hearings and ordinances that make these reports policy.

In other business, the Council approved a request from the Eagles to close Harrison Street for a fish fry provided that the Little Cousin Jasper Festival does not get canceled. It approved two transfers of funds. It delayed consideration of an extension of the IMPA contract to next month. It gave the Police Department permission to tell Dodge what it would like in a new squad car but the actual purchase will not be approved until an order is placed. The Awards Committee recommended adding a 40-year service award to the 10, 20, and 30-year awards and that recommendation was accepted. The 10-year award is a plaque, the 20 and engraved clock, the 20 an engraved watch. The 40-year award will be a jacket and a $400 bonus.

A committee was appointed to consider a golf-cart ordinance. The City employee picnic has been canceled and a committee was appointed to consider to plan some alternative celebration. The recycling department has ordered new glass crushers to replace one that has failed and another that is failing.

In other news, a new trail in Brookside Park has been paved. It runs from the parking lot around the south side of Roth Field, then north through the tennis courts to connect to the new Blacker Fields.

At the fair

I rode out to the Fairgrounds on Tuesday to see what was happening and to compare this year to previous years. There was activity in two areas, the horse arena and the show arena.

The field that should have carnival rides was empty and the exhibit halls were closed. However, there were quite a few campers in the campgrounds, though the area by the horse arena was only lightly populated. The old fair office was gone, with only its foundation remaining.

There were two food vendors serving those who were showing livestock.

Tuesday was goat day in the show arena.

I notice that paving of SR 114 still is not completed. There is a strip down the center of the road that needs to be finished. My guess is that reflectors need to be installed.

The farmers market is in full swing with many buyers and many sellers. I finally got a few small tomatoes from my garden, but others have done much better.

I have not seen any mulberries this year. Did the late freeze get them?

Fountain Stone Theaters has announced it is temporarily closing because there are no new films being released and there is no demand for movies right now. The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce is closing its office and disposing of its furnishings. I do not know what the story is there. CTS Express in downtown Rensselaer has had a sign on its door for a couple of months that its downtown facility is closed and directs people to the location at the Interstate. I just noticed it.

SJC has released its July newsletter.

I managed to find Comet NEOWISE with binoculars last week. It was a faint, blurry star and I could not see a tail. Viewing from Rensselaer is difficult because of all the stray light. My daughter who lives at 5000 feet in the desert in the middle of nowhere has been taking pictures of the comet and what I saw was nothing like what she captures in her photographs.

Last week I heard the crop dusters and this week I am not hearing them, so I suspect that they have come and gone. Update: Early Wednesday there was a crop duster buzzing a field on the northwest outskirts of Rensselaer.

A long post after a road trip

Last week I was out of town taking a road trip through five states and hundreds of miles of corn and soybeans and as a result I missed the City Council meeting on July 13. However, the minutes of the meeting are online. Here are highlights.

The council approved closing two streets for the Little Cousin Jasper Festival. It agreed to extend a contract with IMPA that currently expires in 2042. There was no mention of what the new expiration date would be.

The gas tracker for July as a 7½¢ increase. The mayor declared September 4 as the Mayor's Holiday, which will be a day off for City employees. There were no police issues on Cruise Night.

Work on State Road 114 seems to be finished and work on US 231 has started. On Monday workers were sealing the highway north of John Deere road. A couple of sweepers cleaned the road, a tank truck applied a layer of tar, and then another machine with the truck attached sprinkled stone on the fresh tar.

On Tuesday evening there was a Rensselaer BZA meeting that I missed and I cannot find the minutes online. I believe one agenda item was the fireman training facility behind Dollar General and I assumed that it was approved. A second item was a conditional use application to construct and operate an auto repair business in an R1 district on Grace Street. The decision on this was continued to a meeting on Wednesday, July 22. The BZA met in executive session to discuss exactly what the legal requirements were and then in an open meeting with 12 members of the public present. To approve the application the Board had to agree to five findings of facts, but all five members voting rejected the first finding, so the application was denied. The meeting lasted less than ten minutes. The members apologized to the applicants, but said that the law gave them no leeway.

On Monday night the County BZA met with one item on the agenda, a special exception for a home business of repairing autos along US 231 in Walker Township. The business has been operating for about five years and the owner wanted to comply with the legal requirements. A neighbor was in the Zoom meeting to object. He did not like the business next to him. After discussion the special exception was approved for two years. After that the owner will have to come back for a reapproval and show that he is in compliance with all regulations. The exception was approved on a four-to-one vote. The next meeting will be August 17 if there is an agenda.

After the BZA meeting the plan commission met with three items on the agenda. The first was approval of a two lot subdivision in Barkley Township. Two months ago the land been rezoned to A2. Lot 1 will have 4 acres and lot two will have 9 acres. The request was approved. The second item was a three-lot subdivision in Walker Township. The owner would like to subdivide it so he can give a lot to his daughter so she can build a house. The final item was an amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance that clarifies the date needed to get agenda items published in the newspaper.

On Tuesday evening there was a joint Counsel/Commissioners meeting. It was a hybrid meeting with some people physically meeting at the old youth center on Sparling Avenue, and others attending via zoom. I decided to attend via zoom, and that was a mistake. The audio quality was very poor when a speaker was not close to the mic. For a while two mics were on and the echo was so bad that it was hard to hear anything.

The first item discussed was EMS funding. The question is how much should the Township EMS services get. At the August 3 commissioners meeting the commissioners will open the bids for EMS services and will review those bids in an executive session to try to decide funding. It was noted that when the jail is paid off in 2022, funds can be juggled to give more for EMS services.

There was a discussion of the hiring and personnel freeze that is not working out as anticipated. There have been more people retiring than expected and in some cases multiple people from the same offices have retired or resigned. Some of this discussion was unintelligible because of the echo effect.

Brienne Hooker of the Jasper-Newton Foundation addressed the meeting to explain what the Foundation was doing but the audio was very poor and I did not catch much of what she said. One of the last items discussed was a request by Sheriff Williamson for some kind of benefit or hazard pay for working during the shutdown. While many County workers worked from home, the members of the sheriffs department continued working as usual. A suggestion from Kendall Cobb was that instead of paying more, the employees could be given an extra 40 hours of comp time. There are 44 full-time officers and personnel that would be affected.

After the meeting those present toured the building but that was not broadcast.

The Council meeting that followed had several additional appropriations on its agenda and several transfers. But first Judge Potter, who has lost one of his court reporters and we'll have another retiring at the end of the year, addressed the Council. The remaining reporter is training her replacement but the judge does not believe that the replacement will be able to train a second reporter when the new year starts. So his request is to hire the second replacement early to get her trained so when the new year starts his court will have two trained reporters. The item could not be approved at this meeting because it was not advertised soon enough. It will be on the agenda of the next meeting.

There were additional appropriations for CASA, the Clerk's office, and the Sheriff that were approved. An additional appropriation for Animal Control was tabled until the next meeting. At the end of the meeting a citizen from the Kankakee Valley School District who was attending via Zoom said that he would like a mandate for school masks. He will probably get his wish as the Governor on Wednesday issued a directive making masks mandatory for grades 3 and up when school resumes.

I was surprised and disappointed to learn that the 2020 County Fair has been canceled. Because the fair was canceled, the person who was going to sell biplane rides also decided to cancel.

I have a preliminary virtual tour of Rensselaer's murals here. It expands the recent post summarizing RENARTWLK 2020 to include RENARWLK 2019 and some other things as well.

Dodd's Rebellion Part 2

Yesterday's post had part one of this topic. Today we get two more accounts, each very different. What actually happened? Who knows, but that is true of many things in the past.

The account below is from The Daily Evansville Journal, Sept 12, 1863

A final account comes from a family history of the Sparling family. It is unsigned, but must have been written either by Frances or Samuel Sparling. My guess is that it was done by Samuel. The Jasper County Library has it in its digital archives.

This constant drain upon the boys of the families who were supporting the Union cause, created a serious situation in the county. I have already noted the large number of families who came from the Carolinas, Virginia and Kentucky. This created a large and powerful block of Southern sympathizers. The accepted leader of this group was George Spitler. He followed the old Virginia traditions of large land holdings and bought a large body of land, now owned by St. Joseph College. The old Spitler home was located near the site of the College Gymnasium. Grandfather's home was located about one quarter of a mile from the Spitler home. The "barn stormers" were threatening, if not active. The feeling ran so high that it became necessary to maintain a home guard. Grandfather often told me of finding notes, warning him of dire results that would follow, in case he did or did not do certain things. 

This feeling finally came to a climax in the threatened uprising known as Dodd's rebellion. In order to understand the feeling generated by the Civil War we must recall that the settlers from the south naturally carried with them the social, political, and economic ideas of their old homes. In many instances these families were large landowners. This was nothing more than the plantation idea of the south. We need only to recall the holdings of the Spitler, McKeever, Halstead, Harris, and Thompson families, who came directly from Virginia, or after a short sojourn in Kentucky and Ohio. Political opinion had much to do with the cleavage of ideas. The Republican Party had come into existence on the slavery issue. To illustrate this political feeling I cite the predicament of Uncle Abraham. As a boy he promised his uncle Bingham that he would always vote the democratic ticket. So [he] became a southern sympathizer, much to the worry of my grandmother. 

Dodd's Rebellion occurred during the second Lincoln campaign for reelection. Arms and munitions had been quietly brought into the county and distributed among the proper persons. As a boy I was often on the Spitler place, after it had been acquired by the Catholic Church, and converted into an orphanage. It was not uncommon to find bayonets that had been concealed. I shall give an account to this episode only in so far as it pertains to my family. During this political campaign the Democrats brought to Rensselaer a speaker by the name of Dodd. From all accounts his address was especially bitter. He referred to the boys at the front as "Lincoln's Dogs." As a result a committee, headed by Mr. Bedford, arrested him, and placed him in jail. This was on Friday and the next day Spitler in a speech in Newton County asserted that if Dodd was not released within twenty-four hours the "Iroquois River would run red with blood." In the meantime the friends of the South began collecting on Given's Hill, about one mile north of town. They came armed with every conceivable weapon. Grandmother told me that about 600 assembled, but this seems too large, but if correct, it indicated a sizable block of Southern sympathizers in the county 

The home guard was scattered over the county and on Sunday morning the anvils began firing, as a call for the guard to assemble at Rensselaer. On that Sunday morning seven muskets were left in grandfather's home while the boys were attending Sunday school at the Big Slough School. It was not long before martial law was declared for Rensselaer, and guards posted. The guard members were assigned to the homes of the town. And here came in an amusing family incident. I have already noted that Uncle Abraham was a friend of the South, or locally known as "Copperhead", so Grandmother taught him a patriotic lesson in reverse. She made him shoulder his deer musket and go to the defensive Rensselaer. 

The final climax to this threatened tragedy came in a dramatic fact that the home of Spitler was struck by lightning and Spitler was killed. This occurred on Sunday evening when everything was set for carnage. Grandmother had a strain of the occult in her nature, and she often remarked that the sudden death of Spitler was an active Providence because it saved a loss of many lives. With a leader gone that tense situation soon became normal. It seems strange that this incident, so far from the battlefields of war, should've found it's grim setting in Jasper County. Of course the reasons are obvious. Indiana was in fact a peninsula of the South. The Indiana legislator was so Southern in it sympathies that it refused to vote funds for the Indiana troops at the front. The governor had to go to New York City and borrow the funds on his own promise to pay. In order to complete the history of Jasper County this incident should be followed in greater detail.

According to his tombstone, George Spitler died on August 17, 1863. It is not clear from the articles the exact date of the Dodd speech, but it seems it was later than August 17.

Update: Another and completely different take on this event is here. (Search the document for Dodd.)

Dodd's Rebellion Part 1

I mentioned a few weeks ago the name of H. H. Dodd and his contribution to Rensselaer history. There are no accounts of this in Rensselaer newspapers because the copies of those newspapers no longer exist. (I think a fire set to cover up some wrong doing was involved.) However, a couple of contemporary accounts in other newspapers survive. In those days papers did not pretend to be non-partisan. They took a side and proclaimed it. The first account is from the Plymouth Weekly Democrat published on Thursday, September 24, 1863. It is the same article that was published in The Indiana State Sentinel in Indianapolis on September 21, 1863. (Both were found on the Hoosier State Chronicles website.)

Blogger does not handle very long pictures correctly. I had to split this up to make it display in a readable form and even then it is not the way I wanted it. The original can be seen here.

As far as I know, there never was a person named Wesley Spitler in Jasper County.

Next time, the Republican view and a view of the disturbance many years later.

Leopold Family Part Two (Updated)

A previous post began exploring what happened to the Leopold family, an early and influential Rensselaer family. According to his obituary, Abraham arrived in Rensselaer when it had about 500 residents and he watched it grow to about 3000 at the time of his death. This post continues by looking at his six sons.

(Sources include obituaries found on microfilm in the library and posted to findagrave memorials, information that can be gleaned from genealogical sites such as familysearch.org and ancestry.com, and the Hoosier State Chronicles. It is very hard to trace people on genealogical sites after about 1950. The last census to be made public was the 1940 census and other more recent records often are not yet available.)

1) Milton Leopold (1865–1870) died when he was only four years old. He is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Attica. (The Jewish Cemetery has about 100 burials and adjoins the larger Riverside Cemetery.)

2) Simon Leopold (1869–1934) died in Colorado and is buried there. He declared bankruptcy in 1899 and later in the 1910s managed the Model Clothing Store in Rensselaer, which sold mens clothing.

The newspaper reports of his death said that he moved to Colorado for health reasons. After moving to Colorado, he divorced his first wife in 1922 and remarried in 1923. (His second wife was the aunt by marriage of Lefty Clark, former editor of the Rensselaer Republican.) The newspaper reports of his death make no mention of the first wife. The will of his father singles him out with the mention that he owed his father money and he is not listed as one of the children among whom the estate will be divided.  His only child, daughter Selma (1894-1952), was one of the people who escape from the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903.  She graduated from Rensselaer High School and taught English there in 1916. Selma never married and had no children. The picture below is from the 1916 Chaos yearbook,

3) Bernhart (1870–1948) worked for his father and then had grocery stores in Wolcott and Remington. Following his marriage, he moved to Brook, where he ran a store until 1923. While in Brook, he and his sons established what became the Home Finance Company, which he relocated to Rensselaer in 1925. In 1935 he left Rensselaer and moved to California, where he lived with his daughter, Pauline Leopold Abrams. Son Simon (1892–1960) moved to Hammond and died in Munster.  Grandson James served in the military during WWII and is buried in Will County, Illinois. I could not find his children.

Bernhart's son Glenn Leopold (1893–1969) stayed in Rensselaer and managed the Home Finance Company, which was still going strong when he died. He and his wife Pauline (1902-1973) are buried in Memory Gardens Cemetery, as is his son William (1928–2012), the last of the Leopolds to be buried locally. William began his career working with his father at the Home Finance Company and later went to Washington where he worked for the Small Business Administration. He retired to California, where he died. The guestbook of his memorial at the California funeral home contains this interesting note:

I just found out about Bill's passing. He was a Cousin of my Father Curt Baker(Eltzbacher). Bill's family were responsible for bringing my Father, Uncle, and paternal Grandmother to the United States the night before the Nazi's overtook their little hometown in Germany in 1938. Bill had visited my Wife and I when we lived in Stockton, California. Bill was a very interesting man and possibly the last of that generation of Eltzbachers and Leopolds. Rest in Peace, Bill.

Bernhart's daughter Pauline Leopold Abrams (1912–1993) graduated from Rensselaer High School in 1930. Her picture below is from the 1930 yearbook. She lived her adult life in California and I could find almost nothing about her.

4) Isaac Leopold (1872-1940), the fourth son of Abraham and Emilie, started his business life with his younger brother Louis in a mens-clothing store in Remington, which they moved to Wolcott. It was while he was in Wolcott that his 16-year-old son Milton (1900-1916) died of typhoid fever. Milton is buried in Weston Cemetery. A year after his son's death the family moved to Rensselaer where Isaac engaged in selling real estate and finance. He was a director of Farmers and Merchants National Bank. His second child, Robert (1906-1963), graduated from Rensselaer High School in 1924. Robert moved to Louisville, Kentucky where he managed a millinery shop, then to Iowa where he was a buyer in millinery goods. He is buried in Denver, Colorado. He had at least one daughter.

5) Louis Leopold (1874-1928) tried merchandizing in Remington and Wolcott before moving to Chicago and working for a store in that city. His health began failing more than a decade before he died. He had one daughter, Esther Leopold Beck (1903–1968).

6) The youngest son, Moses (1876–1972), did not follow in the family tradition of retail commerce but became a lawyer and eventually a circuit court judge, serving Jasper County from 1932 until 1969. He married late to a woman much younger than himself and had no children. Milton was the last descendent of Abraham and Emilie to live in Rensselaer and his wife, Maurine Tuteur Leopold (1894–1989), was the last Leopold to live in Rensselaer.

Abraham and Emilie had eleven children, two of whom died before reaching adulthood. They also had eleven grandchildren, two of whom died before reaching adulthood. I could find eight great grandchildren, but I am certain I missed some.

Addendum: Melissa Smith from the Rensselaer Library sent me a column from the February 15, 1877 issue of the Rensselaer Union newspaper that profiled a few of the leading citizens of Rensselaer. Here is what it had about Abraham Leopold.

RENARTWLK 2020: a virtual tour

Mural week is over and there are sixteen new murals in downtown Rensselaer. Posts last week watched the artists work on them and showed them in various stages of completion. This post will walk you through the sixteen in a virtual tour that will begin on Van Rensselaer Street near the Court House. From there you can see the chess queen mural by Caesar Perez.

Perez is from Chicago and he was recommended for RENARTWLK by another muralist, Max Sansing. He posted a picture of his mural on Instagram with the comment: "Just finished up over at @renartwlk over in @cityofrensselaerin where I had a fantastic time" and he then lists people he worked with.

Continuing down the alley, as you reach the end you will find the mural of a tiger by FASM Creative. He is an old friend of Cameron Moberg and Cameron credits him with helping him become a street artist. His comment on the picture of the mural on Instagram was, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7"

Now we walk to the northwest along front street, crossing Washington Street until we get to the alley behind Embers Station. As we walk along the newly paved alley, we find a wall with two small murals, one done in 2019 and the other in 2020. The newer one is signed Bugs but it is by Ricky Watts, who did a much larger mural that we will see it a bit.

Continuing, we find a colorful mural by Christine Riutzel. She is an artist from Branson, MO. Cameron found her on Instagram and she is one of several younger artists that he wanted to help by giving her the experience of being a part of a mural fest.

Her comment on the mural on her Instagram account was, "Finished this in 3 days. Dang. I'm having a blast in Rensselaer at @renartwlk. Thanks to @camer1sf for the invite and being so welcoming! I'm so excited to have participated in my first mural fest!"

One the side of the building is a much larger mural by an artist that goes by the name Pawn. He is a California artist who has done most of his work in California and took the opportunity of painting in RENARTWLK to paint outside of California.  The mural is very long and hard to capture in one photograph.

On the wall next to that decorated by Pawn is an even bigger mural by Ricky Watts. He is another California artist and these colorful abstract designs are typical of what he paints. He found the wall, which was in a rather sorry state, a challenge to paint, but Cameron says that a mark of a good muralist is to be able to use the wall to one's advantage. His Instagram comment on the work was, "Wrapped up this week-long project in Rensselaer, Indiana for @renartwlk. BIG shout outs [long list of people]."

There is one more major work in this bay between buildings. It was painted by Chicago artist Max Sansing. The key is something he paints in a lot of his murals. He worked with Cameron in Lafayette on the murals done there.

We walk to the end of the alley and cross the street and look back to the wall of First Merchants bank. The painting here has twelve sections, each done by an artist that contributed in one way or another in RENARTWLK 2020.

Artists represented are: @allisonbamcat @rickywatts @sub_urban_warrior @pawnpaint @mister_toledo @alex_ann_allen @artistryanp @maxsansing @beautyfromlight @nick.abstract @fasmcreative  @camer1sf 
(Clicking a name should take you to their Instagram page.)

Continuing through the second alley, we find the back of a building with a mural by Mitchell Austin who signs with the name Metabyte. He is an Indiana artist. This was the first mural of 2020 started and the first finished.

He had a long comment about his experience on his Instagram page: "I probably say this after every wall I do but this time I mean it. This is my favorite thing I’ve painted to date! Wish I coulda stuck around a bit longer than I did, worked on this 2 full days morning to night. Had to work almost nonstop in the heat bc I was working on a tight schedule. Drove back and forth-3hr commute, total of 12hrs bc I’m crazy! It’s always a pleasure tho, I had a blast & I got to meet some cool artists that I look up to. My homie @camer1sf knows how to pick em let me tell ya! Looking forward to our paths crossing again!"

Continuing to near the end of the alley, we find a group of seven new murals done in 2020. On the northwest side of the alley is a large mural of a scarlet ibis done by California artist who goes by the name Allison Bamcat. Her Instagram comment was: "Completed wall for the amazing community of Rensselaer, Indiana for @renartwlk 30x20’, all spray can. I haven’t been so happy in such a long time, truly. This place is full of magic. Thank you to @camer1sf @embers_station ...and every soul I’ve met here, including new and old friends."

A second mural on this side of the alley is an abstract parting by Nick Smith, another artist from Indiana. His comment on his Instagram picture of the mural was, "Hand painted (no tape) 18x45 ft mural painting for the fine folks at @renartwlk. Truly a great festival in 'small town Indiana,' full of smiles, laughter, and new friends. Thanks to all who helped make this one happen. Rensselaer will have a special place in my heart now. Mural dedicated to all small agricultural towns in Indiana that are so flat, with corn/bean fields with large barns. This mural design is an abstracted landscape of a farm. From a bright blue sky with a big cloud to shapes similar to a big ol' barn on the left. Hope you enjoy. What do you think?"

There is a third painting completely hidden from the alley. It is on the side of the building that has the ibis. I was told that it was the work of Nick Smith and Pawn. I can make out the second word as "Pawn" but I cannot read what the first word is, if it is a word. (Update: It is "Sean".) The wall shows no signs of preparation so this was probably done on the spur of the moment.

On the southeast side of the alley one cannot miss the portrait by Alex Ann Allen. She is from South Bend, Indiana and the portrait is of her brother, who had just graduated from high school. Ms Allen painted the face mostly with a brush, not a spray can.

Her comment on Instagram: "The background is spray paint. I used brushes for the face & my goal is to paint a realistic portrait with cans. I used my little brother Miguel as a reference. I’m proud of him for not only his accomplishments, but who he is as a person."

Late to RENARTWLK 2020 was Natalie Shugailo from the Chicago area who signs her works with the name suburban warrior. She is a friend of Allison Bamcat and when she found out that Bamcat was in Rensselaer, she inquired if a wall could be found for her to paint. Her wall was two walls, the back and side of a small addition to a building. She painted a firefly, and insect she had not seen before coming to Rensselaer. She also did not know that it was the Indiana State insect. She worked quickly and finished in two days.

The artist known as Mister Toledo is from California. His Instagram comment was: "FINISHED! Thank you @renartwlk and the town of Rensselaer for having me. Everyone was so nice and humble. So many amazing talented artists came, and did a killer job. This has been my favorite mural event ever. Thank you a millions @camer1sf."

The final mural of the walk is by Rensselaer's own Trent Musch.

A video shot by Local 219 (mentioned in an earlier post, is here.)

Posts showing the murals under construction:

Start

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Odds and ends July 11, 2020

During Thursday night and Friday morning Rensselaer got a little rain. We need more. It has been miserably hot this past week.

The Airport Authority Board held its monthly meeting on Thursday afternoon. They had advertised for a new engineering consultant and at the meeting approved the selection of Woolpert. Their former engineering consultant will continue to work with the Airport on unfinished projects, but new things, like new airport layout plans, will be handled by Woolpert. A representative of one of the companies not selected was at the meeting and stayed for the whole thing.

The FAA approved $30,000 in COVID grants. Fuel sales for June were at a monthly record, but the expectation is that fuel sales for July and August will be depressed because apparently the annual Oshkosh air show is off this year. One of the biplane operators that sold rides last year is planning to be at the airport in late July and/or early August. The next meeting date is August 13.

On Friday morning there was another Zoom session of the Roundtable run by the Jasper County Economic Development Organization. The presentation was about early childhood (birth through about five) education and care. The closing of the Youth Center on Sparling left many parents searching for alternatives. Although there are both in-home and pre-schools, there is a need for licensed, center-based options.
Remington got such a program started with its Growing Patch, started in 2018. It started with 6 children and in a year grew to 48. The Board decided that it needed more expertise in operating the program, so arranged with Right Steps of Lafayette for management. There are issues in getting funding and meeting requirements that they are better able to handle than the local board. Goodland in Newton County will soon open a learning center, also run by Right Steps and should open with a waiting list.

In Rensselaer there are plans to follow the examples of Remington and Goodland. A non-profit organization, Appleseed Childhood Education, has been formed and is working with Right Steps. Several people mentioned that provision of this service was an issue of economic development. It is one of the things that can affect location decisions of families. If you want to know more, contact appleseed.child.ed at gmail.com.

The meeting then allowed the people who were on Zoom to report what they or their organizations were doing. Extension is looking to fill their HHS position. The person they had selected told them on the day she was supposed to start that she had taken a different job. There was a task force working with people from Purdue on a revision to the County's comprehensive development plan, which is used by the Advisory Plan Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals. The Jasper County Historical Society will have an exhibit this fall about authors, past and present, from Jasper County. They have identified 70. The County Commissioners will be using an advisory firm from Indianapolis to help the County collect what can be collected from State and Federal reimbursements for COVID expenditures. WorkOne plans to fully open its offices on August 3. Advance Auto in Remington has 53 positions open and will work with WorkOne on a job fair. Indiana Facemasks may be hiring more workers than it initially planned because of high demand. The Genova plant has new ownership and plans to grow its employment to the level, about 50, that it had before the shut down. The Community Roundtables may become a monthly event. The next one is planned for August 14.

There has been more concrete poured at the Blacker fields and the parking lot now has crushed stone and is ready for the car show on Saturday.

The Saturday car show is much larger than previous car shows. Here are a few pictures.

 It's the 35th Cruise Night.

By far the most unusual vehicle I saw was this one, a wooden, handmade car. I asked what class it fit in and learned that it was Class N, Special Interest. I neglected to ask if it allowed to be driven on roads.

Inside the doors of the pool at Brookside Park is a new plaque.

The pool has dollar days each Friday. There were not a lot of people taking advantage of it yesterday.

MainStreet Rensselaer released a video showing what the plans to redevelop Rensselaer. See it here.
Rensselaer Downtown Final Video from Kimley-Horn on Vimeo.

Here is another video, just released by YNG, showing their new upside-down 3-D printer.

The Leopold family, Part 1

Abraham Leopold was an early Rensselaer merchant who had a large impact on the development of the City. He was born in Germany in 1833 and immigrated to the United States when he was only 15. Before settling in Rensselaer, he lived in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, LaPorte, Rock Island, IL, Iowa City, Chicago, and Francesville. Arriving in Rensselaer, he opened a shop in a small building on the Corner of Washington Street and Van Rensselaer. His business was successful and he built the building that now houses the First Merchants Bank as well as the building to its south. His name is on the stone above what is Demotte Carpet. He platted the Leopold addition to Rensselaer and several street names—Emilie, Rachel, Milton, and Leopold—are named for the family or members of the family. He was one of Rensselaer's richest men, with one report of his death guessing his net worth between $100,000 and $250,000 (which was a lot back then). His wealth came more from real estate development and rental than his retail business. Unlike many of his wealthy contemporaries, he lived quite modestly in a home on South Front Street.

I have not been able to find a picture of him online, but there is a picture in Vintage Views (Vol 15, page 15) that also has a picture of the original Leopold Block building.

Abraham and his wife Emilie had eleven children, five girls and six boys. What happened to these children? How did they contribute to Rensselaer? And are there any descendants of Abraham and Emily living in Rensselaer today? This post and a followup will investigate the family tree, with this one focusing on the daughters and the next on the sons.

1) The eldest of the children was Rachel (1867-1937). She married Phillip Mosler (1866-1898) and they first lived in Kentland before moving to Remington and finally Rensselaer. They had two children, Pauline (1890-1903) and Philip (1895-1948). Pauline perished in the Iroquois Theater fire with about 600 other people, including her aunt Sadie Leopold Wolf. Philip later became the manager of the Hammond Goldbatts store. He had a daughter Pauline (1925-2006) who died in California. I do not know if this Pauline had children.

(An article about the fire and the Leopold party at the fire is here. It has pictures of several of the people mentioned in this post and it even links to this blog!)

Racheal lived with her parents for several years before marrying Leo Wolf (1868-1939.) Leo was a widower, his first wife being Sadie Leopold, who died with her niece in the Iroquois Theater five. Rachel is buried in Hammond, IN.

2) Abraham and Emily then had six boys before having three more girls. Sadie Leopold (1868-1903) was mentioned above as a second Leopold who died in the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903. She married Leo Wolf and had a daughter, Helen Wolf (1902-1980), who was raised by her father and aunt Rachael. Helen had three daughters. The Leopold line lives on in this branch, but not in Rensselaer. Sadie is buried in Hammond.

3) Julia Leopold (1881-1967) married Louis Haas (1887-1950) from Tipton and for more than a decade lived there. Before 1935 they moved to Rensselaer and lived with her younger sister Gertie on South Front Street. She had one son, Louis Haas (1914-1985), and two granddaughters who were living in California at the time of her death. Louis spent three years of high school at Tipton but graduated from Rensselaer High School. He married and had children, but I have not found them. Julia and her husband are buried in Weston Cemetery in the plot with her parents, niece Pauline, and nephew Milton. Son Louis and his wife are buried in Washington State. Below is his senior picture from the 1932 Chaos yearbook.

4) The final daughter, Gertrude (1884-1962) never married and seems never to have had a job. She is buried in Weston Cemetery in the lot of her brother Bernhart.

5) One daughter died in infancy. She is mentioned without a name in several obituaries and I can find nothing else about her.

Obituaries for most of the people named above can be found on their findagrave memorials. Start here and follow links.

Early July meetings and more

The commissioners met for their July meeting Monday morning. One of the first things on the agenda was opening bids for roadwork funded by the Cross Roads matching grants. There were three projects up for bid, with two of the projects consisting mostly of roads in subdivisions. Four bids were received, one of which was for only one project. The bids were taken under advisement and near the end of the meeting the Commissioners awarded two of the projects to Walsh and Kelly and a third to Reith and Riley. The total for all four projects was a bit more than $1,400,000. The county had received a grant for $1 million from the State so they will have to provide about $400,000. The city of Rensselaer did not submit a bid in the first grant round and it is unclear how much money will be available for the second round because of the reduction in tax revenues from gasoline sales.

The Governor has delayed going to phase 5 of the COVID reopening. As a result, the commissioners voted to keep county offices closed until their next meeting on August 3. There will be a joint commissioner-council meeting this month and it originally was planned for the fairgrounds but that facility is not available. So it will probably be held at the former Youth Center on Sparling Avenue.

Speaking of the former Youth Center, the commissioners approved remodeling plans so that the health department will be able to move to the former Youth Center.

In other business, the Commissioners heard a report from Trane on the jail. The HVAC and lighting part of the project are substantially complete. They are now getting ready to install the solar panel field and poles and panels should begin to be installed this month. If weather cooperates, the project should be completed before the end of October. Next month Trane representatives will be back for another update.

Last month the Commissioners delayed approval of a six-mile fiber-optic project in the Bailey's Corner area. This month the project was back on the agenda. There will be no plowing or trenching of cable. The Commissioners wanted to have hard-copy plans delivered to several offices, and wanted the project to be bonded. With those conditions they approved the project's use of County right-of-ways.

Last month the Commissioners approved replacing the exterior the Parr Post Office building that the Historical Society has at the Fair Grounds. There was an outcry when people heard the word "replica", so this month the Commissioners rescinded their approval from last month and approved a restoration of the building.

Steven Eastridge of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization announced that Smith Transport was building an $11 million dollar facility east of Remington. Smith Transport had sold its previous facility to a plastics company but had decided to stay in the Remington area.

The Commissioners also approved and dealt with a variety of routine contracts and other County business.

In the evening the Park Board met at Iroquois Park. The Board heard plans for a disk golf course for Brookside Park that will be built if the Parks for People board approves the estimated $8000 in costs. The course will have nine holes and each hole will have three sets of tees, so 27 holes are possible. Some of the tees will be appropriate for novice players and others for more experienced players. The course will use most of the areas in the park that currently are not used for other things and will go from Bunkum Road to the highway and back again. Currently the closest disc golf courses are in Lowell and Lafayette. The Board recommended approval to the Parks for People Board.

After searching for a possible concessionaire for ball tournaments, Stace Pickering has concluded that the concessions will have to be done locally. This presents a fundraising opportunity for local groups and organizations.

Work continues at the Blacker ball fields, with installation of fencing for backstops and grading for the parking lot. The north parking lots should be able to hold 300 cars. They should be ready for some use by the car show this Saturday.

I noticed that the water in the quarry was a beautiful turquoise blue.

Paving of SR 114 seems to be mostly finished, and I think the rail crossing gates on Cullen and Jefferson Streets are now operational.

The Bridge Church put on a fireworks display on the 4th. So did a lot of Rensselaer residents—the noise that evening was impressive.

I have noticed that mosquitoes have become a nuisance.

Finally, last week the airport manager sent out a press release about the land that the airport recently purchased. Federal and state grants will finance 95% of the cost of land acquired for airport purposes. The airport has received $485,000 in grants for the Phegley land acquired a few years ago and should get about $1,224,000 for both parcels by the end of 2024. In addition, it may get another $357,000 if a revised airport plan uses some of the land that is not used in the current plan. Most of the improvements at the airport are dictated by the availability of federal and state grants. For more from the press release, see the Rensselaer Republican.