A graveyard mystery

Gas Utility work

The Gas Department continues work replacing the regulator next to McDonalds on South College. The old regulator has been dismantled and some temporary lines are feeding gas into the distribution network. At the regulator station the gas pressure for residences is lowered from 100 psi to 30 psi. Some gas continues at 100 psi and goes on to the regulator station on Lincoln Avenue. The 100-psi line at one time also fed the power plant.

The old regulator is gone but there is still equipment lowering the pressure. 

I find it amazing that they can do this kind of work without interrupting the gas supply.

A mystery

I talked briefly last week to a woman who probably knows more about local cemeteries than anyone else. I asked her for the name of the Indian boy who died at the Indian School and is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery. His name was Frank Hendricks and I found a notice of his death by searching the Hoosier State Chronicles. I attached the notice to his findagrave memorial.

Doing a bit more digging, I found two other death notices of pupils at the Indian School who the paper reported were buried at Mount Calvary. However, they are not recorded in the records that I have access to. The first is from the Rensselaer Republican of April 26, 1894 and the second from the same paper of October 11, 1894.

There seem to be three possibilities. The paper may have been wrong and they were not buried in Mount Calvary. The paper may have been right and they were buried there, but are not in the records that I found. Or they may have been buried there but were later disinterred and were reburied elsewhere. I suspect there is no way to find out which is correct.

Plaques

The post reporting the ribbon cutting at Blacker Fields had pictures of some of the new plaques in the parks. There are more, including two at Foundation Park.

Back to the Blacker Fields, here are the two plaques showing the names of small donors.

Three new benches have been added to the parks. Below is the new bench in memory of Jared Valentine, who was murdered in 2018 at Arby's.

In front of the bench is a stone with an engraving that is hard to read unless the light is just right.

Another bench has been installed by Roth Field in memory of Michelle Effinger. I am not sure where the third one is, but I will find it.

Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission meetings

On Monday evening the Jasper County BZA met in the Circuit Court room. The Commissioners room was, in the words of one person there, full of junk. The County is having the floor on the second floor smoothed and polished, and the various things that were there were moved into the Commissioners room. 

The BZA had only one item on its agenda, a request for a variance for a lot width on a parcel in Keener Township. The required frontage is 250 feet but the owner wanted to split the lot, with a 50 foot access road to the back half. He had no plans to build but wanted that option for the future. There were several people in the audience who spoke on the matter, some for and some against. Concerns were that the road already had too much traffic and adding another driveway would only increase it, potential for groundwater contamination and effects on wildlife. The variance was granted with one member of the BZA opposed.

After a short break, the Plan Commission met. The first item on the agenda was a matter continued from the August meeting in which the applicant had requested a two-lot subdivision. The Commission had continued the matter because the applicant had built without a building permit even though he knew he needed it. The Commission had imposed a $2500 fine and mandated that the owner hire an inspector to make sure the building was up to code. At this meeting the Planning officer reported that all the conditions had been met and the two-lot subdivision was approved.

There were two more two-lot subdivisions approved. The first was in Walker Township where two two-acre lots were being carved from a larger plot, and the second was for the person who had requested the lot-width variance in the BZA meeting. The last item was a rezone of some land in Jordan Township from A1 to A2, The land is a flood plain and not buildable. The owner wants to use it for hunting, which apparently is not an approved use for land zoned A1.

Jasper County Council

The Jasper County Council meeting on Tuesday was long but not especially interesting. The Sheriff had made a job offer to a person who decided not to accept the day before he was to begin. The Sheriff has found another person for the position, but wanted input from the Council about starting pay because the new person has several years of experience in law enforcement. 

The Council approved several additional appropriations. One was for Community Corrections Renovations and was listed on the agenda for $500,000.00. The Council decided that an extra zero had been added and approved it for $50,000. 

The Budget was then read and approved on first reading. There will need to be an approval for a second reading before it is adopted. If you would like to see the budget, you can find it at the Indiana gateway here.

Next on the agenda was a review of non-binding reviews. No reviews were done. Rather the message to whatever units of government that are included here was to stay within the state growth factor.

There were four reviews of binding taxing units: Rensselaer Central School Corporation, Airport Authority, Northwest Indiana Solid Waste, and Iroquois Conservancy. There were presentations for each and the approval of the budgets will be voted in the October meeting. The Airport Authority budget is slightly lower this year and it was a busy year for crop dusters. The solid waste district has a slight increase in its budget, but it has no taxes. Its revenues come from the tipping fees at the landfills.

The most interesting part of the meeting came at the end when the two commissioners who were attending the meeting were asked for comments. They are working with the City of Rensselaer to attempt to get City utilities west of the Interstate. The State controls the process for carbon capture, so the commissioners are telling people with concerns that they should share those concerns with their state legislators. The commissioners cannot stop the project, but it will need 70% of the landowners involved to agree. Rein Bontreger said that the landowners should hold out for top dollar and if the project ever moves forward, the County will try to extract as much money from BP as possible.

Notes

The dome for the arena at the Connection Center in Demotte has been installed.

Dollar Tree had its grand opening in its new location on Thursday. A lot of people were in the store shopping. Most prices are $1.25, but there are a couple of aisles of things from $2 to $5.

The Jasper County Historical Society paid to restore the monument to George Spitler in Weston Cemetery. It was leaning and in danger of falling over. It is located at the east edge of Weston Cemetery and is the tallest monument in that area.

There is no surviving obituary for him; the papers from those years were destroyed in a fire. However, you can read about him here. (Start at the bottom of the page.)

This week's Rensselaer Republican has an excellent article about the Memories Alive Cemetery Walk. It also has the press release from Jasper County Economic Development about the upcoming façade grant program.

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