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One of my favorite stops on my 2008 Michigan Road trips was Napoleon, a little town in Ripley County, Indiana. A grand old home stands where the road intersects with Wilson St. there, and when I photographed it I wondered about its history. The home's owner saw this photo in my trip writeup and e-mailed me to fill in some details. The house was built in 1822 by Elias Conwell. I'm not aware of any houses older than this on the Michigan Road! It wa … Read More

via Down the Road

If you think back to the 1830s when the Michigan Road was new, it's not much of a stretch to imagine it dotted with log cabins. But would it surprise you to learn that some of them survived to today? Two houses that are probably log cabins still stand on the road. Until a year or so ago, a third stood on the road's original alignment south of Napoleon in Ripley County. It had seen better days when I photographed it. It has now seen its last days, … Read More

via Down the Road

Kurt Garner will also be giving an update on the Michigan Road byway project at the Indiana Byway Conference to be held in Aurora, Indiana on May 19 and 20. Read more about the conference here.

It is still on our agenda to arrange a meeting in Shelbyville with interested parties. We hope to do this in March or April. If you live in the Shelbyville area and would like to attend, please either leave a comment or contact us via e-mail.

The four-span stone arch bridge, probably built about 1890, stands on County Road 450 South, which is a one-lane alignment of the Michigan Road that was bypassed no later than 1940 when a new routing of US 421, including a more modern concrete-arch bridge, was built.

The old alignment and its bridge still serve a few homes and farms.

This photo shows the bridge’s north face.

The bridge was named to the National Register on December 24, 2009, making a nice Christmas present for the Michigan Road.

Many of the road’s homes are downright arresting. Here’s a brief and incomplete survey of the homes you’ll see when you drive the Michigan Road from end to end. To get a better look at any of these houses, click its image to see it larger on Flickr.

The 1872 Fairmount House stands at the top of Michigan Hill in Madison:

At least two log cabins still stand on the road. Here’s one in Ripley County south of Napoleon:

This home with its strong presence stands on the north edge of Napoleon:

This grand old home, which stands south of Greensburg, commands your attention:

This house stands on the road just as you leave Greensburg:

This 1858 house stands just outside Greensburg near the new Honda plant:

This house is north of the public square in Shelbyville:

This home stands were I-74 ends along the Michgan Road’s path on Indianapolis’s Southside:

This 1840s farmhouse near 64th Street in Indianapolis has been for sale for more than a year:

The 1834 Boardman House anchored the former town of Augusta, but it’s now well within Indianapolis:

This farmhouse is just inside Boone County:

This lonely little house is in the tiny town of Waugh (pronounced “Waaa”):

This home with its graceful porches stands in Middlefork:

Just north of Middlefork stands the well-preserved Mathews Hoosier Homestead farmhouse:

Rochester is chock full of great old homes, of which this is just one:

This 1892 house is just north of downtown in Argos:

Plymouth’s First Assembly of God was probably once a residence. Sadly, it is gone, removed this year in favor of a parking lot.

Plymouth’s first mayor, Horace Corbin, lived here:

New Carlisle is rich in historic homes, of which this is just one:

The road was leveled sometime after these comparatively Johnny-come-lately homes in Michigan City were built, creating the need for the retaining wall:

We’ll share information about our effort here as we move forward with our project.