Shopping at Greene's Furniture

A few weeks ago we visited Greene's Antique Mall west of Rensselaer on SR114 and mentioned that it was next to Greene's Amish Furniture.

Outside the store was a selection of storage sheds. They are a strange form of furniture, but if they can be sold for a profit, why not sell them?

Greene's sells expensive and very high quality furniture. The desk shown below was as nice a desk as I have ever seen. It was listed for $16,999 but was on sale with the chair for only $11,999. If you want the best, you have to pay for it. (The only piece of furniture that we ever bought from Greene's was a desk just like this one except that it was about one third the size and a lot less than one third the price.)

The front show room is full of beautiful tables. On the day these pictures were taken, Greene's was having an open house and a number of Amish craftsmen were in the store. If you look carefully at the left side of the photograph, you can see several.

On of my complaints about new furniture is that much of it is poorly made. That would probably not be a complaint I could make about any of these pieces. Since there is a limited market in Rensselaer for furniture of this quality, it should not surprise anyone that Greene's markets to a much boarder audience. People will travel for quality. I have seen their ads on the Lafayette television channel, and their website make clear that they are quite willing to ship out of state. Apparently it is not uncommon for Amish furniture to be sold mail order.

Behind the main showroom is the bedroom room. (I had to say that.) The entire store has 14,000 square feet of space and has been in operation since 1986.

 

In another part of the store there are displays cabinets and living room furniture.  There was also a selection of beds and tables in the primitive, loggy style shown below. It looks solid but not comfortable.

 

Did you know that there was once an Amish presence near the Mount Ayr? They settled there about 1870 but left around 1890 because they did not like the growing conditions. They left an Amish cemetery two miles west of Mount Ayr a bit south of CR 325S.

A single span Warren deck truss

The Newton County Interim Report, a publication that inventories the historical structures of Newton County, lists a bridge south of Lake Village as a outstanding structure, and because I was passing by recently, I stopped and took a look. I was surprised to find a plaque:

The Conrad Bridge
A single span Warren Deck Truss built by the Elkhart Bridge & Iron Company in 1916 with a clear span of 80 ft.
Entered on the state register of historic places April 26, 1999
Restored 2003
Commissioners: Russell C. Collins, Jr., President
James C. Pistello, Vice President
Matthew V. Gibson
County Auditor: Patricia L. Carlson
Engineer: Beam, Longest & Neff L.L.C.
Contractor: Wirtz & Yates Inc

 What makes the bridge unusual is that the trusses are below the bridge. This is fairly common on railroad bridges, but apparently not on bridges for automobiles.

 

There is a parking pull-off just west of the bridge so you can stop and take a closer look.

The bridge spans a stream that has quite a bit of water in it. It may be the ditch that was used to drain the old Beaver Lake and the wetlands around it--I do not know enough about the area to be sure. If you go all the way under the bridge and look up, you will realize that the decking on the bridge is wood.

You can also learn that by going up on the bridge and looking at it. It is a wooden bridge, or at least partly a wooden bridge.

 

I am impressed that the local government in Newton County preserved this structure rather than tearing it down and replacing it with a bland concrete-slab bridge.

North of CR 700N lies the Conrad Savanna, a nature preserve run by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. I have not explored this preserve, though it sounds interesting.  The area south of the road has No-Trespassing signs on it.

(Conrad Savanna is not to be confused with Conrad Station, run by the Nature Conservancy and east of US 41. The Conrad Station preserve has an interesting treasure in it that will be the subject of another post. The bridge mentioned in the link is our bridge described in this post.)

Downtown Wolcott

I was surprised by Wolcott when I stopped there several weeks ago. A century ago it was a booming little town. What is left of its downtown is much more impressive than what is left of downtown Remington, which today has a couple hundred more people than Wolcott has. From the highway, here is the north side of Market Street.
The most impressive building in the downtown is the one shown below, which was built in about 1900 in the Renaissance Revival style. There is a sign in the upstairs window that says, "E.L. Welsch Dentist X-Ray." I wonder how many years ago it was that there was a dentist office there. The White County Interim Report, which cataloged historic structures in White County, loved this building. (If you want to find this book at the SJC library, the call number is F 532.W58 W48 1994. It does not pop up correctly in their search engine.)
Further down Market Street is a building with an interesting turret. The front of the first story has been remodeled, and there was sign in the window announcing a hearing to have the zoning of the building changed.The south side of Market Street has more buildings than the north side. Most of these buildings were also built around 1900. At the west end of the block is a three story building built in the Romanesque Revival style. A glance suggested that the upper floors were being used as apartments.

On the southwest intersection of the highway and Market Street are two large buildings. Part of the closer one, in the Italianate Style, was at one time the Nordyke Drug store. The further one with the round-arched windows is another example of the Romanesque Revival Style. Most of these buildings appeared to be empty.
Directly across the highway is this odd building that houses Timeless Treasures, which appears to be something of an antique store, but that may not be quite accurate. The White County Interim Report says this was built in the Queen Ann style.
Across Market Street from this building was another old building. It may once have been a grocery store. It seemed to have a financial office in it.If Wolcott ever wants to have an Art-in-the-Alley night, they do have an appropriate alley behind the row of buildings on the south side of Market Street.
Just to the south of the downtown are the railroad tracks. Wolcott is an example of a town that was laid out along the railroad, and the fact that its old downtown is adjacent to the railroad reflects that. Rensselaer is located where it is because of rapids in the river, and its downtown grew up close to the river rather than along a later railroad. Wolcott still has its old railroad depot, though it is not in tip-top shape anymore and probably has not been used for years. According to the White County Interim Report, it is one of only two depots that remain in White County. (The other is in Monon.)
You can see a grain elevator behind the depot, and there are more grain storage bins further to the east (which you can see in the Timeless Treasures photo).

The many empty buildings show that Wolcott once had a bustling downtown. I hope they are able to preserve their old buildings and find new uses for them.

New Foundations

There is a new house under construction at the entrance to the Countryside subdivision on the west side of Rensselaer. It joins two other recent housing starts, (on Vine and on Rachel) so maybe the worse of the housing crash is over. Or maybe it is just a random burst.

The new house is next to the little park that is the subject of today's other post.

Plaque or park?

In the Countryside Subdivision just east of Rensselaer there is a small pond with a bench that overlooks it. It looks a lot like a park. Maybe it is one.
Under the bench is a plaque, and since I have been collecting plaques, I thought I would include it. (There are also plaques by some of the small trees, but there at some point I have to draw the line what to include, and I decided that they are too small and obscure to include.
Because we live on such flat land, quite a few retention basins have been constructed in recent years. Some are fenced in, others not. But they do seem to be a new kind of wetland that is providing habitat for some kinds of plants and birds. A post on them would be interesting, but right now I do not know enought to write it.