VC HISTORY, EPISODE 2 with Larry Moss

DACC Executive Director of Public Relations and VC History host, Lara Conkin sits down and talks with Larry Moss.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to BC History, a partnership between Danville Area Community College and the Vermillion County 200th Anniversary Committee, where we feature the untold stories of Vermilion County history. I'm Laura Conklin, Executive Director of College Relations at DAC, and my guest today is Larry Moss, who is a fellow member of the Vermilion County 200th Anniversary Committee. And the United States was officially formed in 1776. Illinois became a state in December of 1818, and Vermillion County was officially established in January of 1826, just 50 years later. While there are many well-known figures and stories from Uncle Joe Cannon to Abraham Lincoln, there are many more stories that have been lost to history. And so some of us history buffs have gotten together to talk about what uh what the Vermilion County what those stories were. And Larry, I'm gonna give a real short bio of you. Larry retired from Automation International after 46 years, which is just incredible to me. In 2019, he was president and co-owner. He and his wife Janet are on the board and have been members of the Newell Township Historical Society for 25 years, which is great. They also administer the Facebook page for the Newell Township Historical Society. They live just outside of Bismarck, and I understand that's your lifelong resident, correct? Yes, yes. Yes. And Larry recently joined the Vermillion County Museum Board. I'm also on that board, and we're we sit together on the 200th anniversary committee. And you and your wife are both members of the Illinois Genealogic and Historic Society and the Northside Church of Christ in Bismarck, and you have two grown daughters, one of whom I know very well. Tracy was a reporter at the News Gazette for many years. So, Larry, tell me, you're a lifelong resident of the Bismarck area, and I know with all of the history information that you have, one of the things that you do is you talk to the fifth graders at Bismarck Grade School about the history of Bismarck and Myersville. And one of the things that we're going to do as part of the 200th anniversary are tours of different areas of Vermaine County. And we're going to tell some of those stories on the tours, but not everybody's going to be able to make a tour. So let's talk about Bismarck and Myersville. I had never heard of Myersville before.

unknown 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Well, Bismarck, uh, obviously I grew up in Bismarck. Uh both sides of my family are from that area. And uh, you know, as a young, as a young kid, you know, you really don't ask questions or anything. But my grandparents on my mother's side uh lived in the old Myersville. And uh they were one of the kind of last holdouts of the town. And I didn't really know too much about it, but I'd always heard, you know, little stories about it. My grandfather, um, he he did a lot of uh uh work in that area right there. And and uh but I just I just you know it was probably 20 25, 26 years ago uh with my job and the traveling I did, I didn't really get you know into Bismarck like I should have been when I was when I was younger, and I always wanted to, and a lot of the older uh people would say, Larry, you really need to join the Newell Township Historical Society, which was just a group of uh people from the Bismarck area that decided to do the history of Bismarck. And along with that was this kind of unknown town of Michaelsville. And uh I had several ladies say, Larry, you really got to join. So finally finally I did, and that kind of got me started. And uh I started learning a lot more things, and fortunately uh my mother passed away when I was real young, so I didn't get a lot of information there. But my my grandmother and and uh and aunt or two, you know, helped a lot and just I ask a million questions.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Right. So I'm from Vermilion County to Ells, Indiana. Um, and I know you know we have towns that really don't exist so much anymore, but they're still there. I've driven down the road to Bismarck, I don't remember seeing a Myersville. So does it not exist anymore?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

It does not exist, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Okay, so where did it go?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Well, it uh you come off of Route 1, and uh which is what a lot of people call the Bismarck Road. Cool. Okay. Okay, you know that used to be a single slab of concrete years ago, and you went across an old metal bridge. Uh the kids we used to play on that thing all the time, and then of course the new two-lane highway went through many years later. And uh, but it uh it was centered the little town centered around the North Fork River.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

And it it uh it started becoming in inhabited about, oh, I think it was like about uh 1838. Uh you know, a lot of the people that uh come from the Myersville area at that time were from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, they moved here. Uh that area right there on the North Fork River, which is obviously the you know the river that feeds Lake Remillion, right? Uh it was had a lot of uh trees and woods and great for hunting. If you look at you go west or east of Bismarck or that area there, it's flat prairie. But there around that river, it was just hilly and rough. So there was a lot of game, a lot of woods.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So is it on the west side or the east side of Route One as it exists now?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

It was on both sides.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, yeah, it was on it was on both sides. So it it it's it stretched out, you know, but it was centered right around the river. So if you come down Route One and you turn on the Bismarck Road, when you cross the bridge, you're just entering Myersville.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

There was a little few houses on the side, but the mill that we'll talk about was just right there, not too far from that.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Okay, so what kind of mill was it?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

It was a grist mill. Uh originally uh there was a mill built. Um the Gundy family was uh a well-known family in that area. They came here from uh the east, and uh that name was pretty synonymous with Myersville and early Bismarck.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Uh they prospered, uh, the Gundy family. And uh Gundy Cemetery was named after that family, which is one of the bigger cemeteries there. Uh one of the uh the Gundy uh father uh was a revolutionary soldier and he's buried there. So we have a revolutionary soldier in the Gundy.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

And most of the Myersville residents are buried in Gundy. That was just the area there. But uh people were attracted to that area because of the, like I say, the the timber and the the river, they got their water and so forth. But one of the things as they grew, what they started missing was a grist mill. Because these people have, you know, they were farmers, but they got to grind their corn and their wheat and whatever the case may be. And the closest one I think was Eugene, Indiana back then. Now this is the 1830s.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Right. So that's the area I'm from.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Okay, and that's a long way to go to the right. It is a long way to go. So there was there was a need for it. And uh a gentleman by uh name of Peter Crisman, which uh Crisman Park in Rossville is named after. Okay, uh, he decided he's gonna start one and he bought some property off of Gundy, uh, right there at right there at the bridge uh area. Uh it wasn't a bridge there then, but but uh he bought that property and him and his son started a little what they called a sawmill. Because you've got to have a sawmill first.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

These are water powered.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Uh having every found out exactly where that might have been, but we know where the other one was. But anyhow, they started a little sawmill and a and uh and a grist mill, and they started developing it. Then they want to go into a larger one and they were going to dig across this high ravine area, and as they were digging through, the sun got a little bit too far through this tunnel and it caved in on him.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, and it it crushed him to death. That uh that really upset Mr. Coons.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah. So he decided that's it. I'm I'm not finishing the the the mill. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm getting out of here.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So he sold it to another gentleman that um was smart enough to hire two mill rights, and that's where the word millright comes from, is these guys know how to make mills. You just it there's that's an art.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Right, right. So these two gentlemen I don't suppose they had engineers back then.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

No, they they were the equivalent of the equivalent of an engineer, okay. And they knew how to do it. And the Myers brothers came out here and they moved out here without their families first, and uh this gentleman said, I want you to build me this mill. And uh they were they were good at what they did, and uh so they started, finished the the tunnel. Uh the tunnel runs under to what they call a mill pond. That's kind of a holding area for the water.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Because the river goes up and down. So you want you want that m mill to you know to hold that, and they had a gate, and then they built this two-story building.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Um and uh so they were the Myers brothers. Is that where Myersville comes from? Yes, that's where the name finally came from.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah. And Coots finally sold out. It seems like when you study a lot of this, there's a lot of buying and selling of property.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, I mean, life was hard then in the Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

So they they they uh the two Myers brothers, they become very successful. And uh they they started the mill and and and got it running. And wow, all of a sudden, you know, people said that this is this is what we need. And I think I think they I read where there were people who came from 70 miles away to have their their um you know corn ground. Now it takes forever to get that done.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So they would stay. Uh they would they would bring their wagons or whatever, they'd stay maybe one or two days, depending on how much they had to have ground.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

So was there a hotel or did they just stay in their wagon?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

No, it started that's how the town grew. So all of a sudden they had to have a hotel, and then they had to have a doctor, and that's how the town just started growing around the mill.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

So I've you know, I I I read historical novels or different things. Was there a restaurant or did they, you know, they had a couple general stores. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah. And uh the the the the talk is that a lot of people, a lot of the kids and that would just go fish in the river and while they're waiting on their grain to be done. Uh a lot of money wasn't exchanged. Uh if they didn't have the money, the the mill operator would take one-fifth of your grain.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And that was his pay.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

You know.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And then he would maybe sell it to the general store or something where they could. All right, that made sense. So at the height, how big was Myersville?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

About 60 families.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Okay. Which at that time was probably pretty good. So you're what, like five miles from Danville existed then, correct?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yes, yes, it did.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

But Danville wasn't very big.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

No, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Okay. So compared to compared to Danville, how was Myersville?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Well, uh what I've read, what I've read a couple places, uh, you know, in uh they said that you know it was one of the most prominent towns in Berming County. You know, Denmark was was originally before Danville.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Right. And I just I just learned the other day that you know Denmark Road was actually named after a town that used to exist and is now at the bottom of Lake Vermillion. So, you know, things happen to towns.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

So how did Myersville cease to exist?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Well, uh unfortunately, the railroad came. Okay. And that's the railroad that comes out of Danville. Right now it's you know, it's a CSX. It used to be the you know, Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad. Uh the town was really thriving. Uh, they had doctors, they had uh three or four uh they had church, I mean a school. Uh, you know, the map shows that I have, it shows all of the different uh and this map is one your grandfather great yes, my grandfather, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Made out by by memory.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

By memory, yeah, that's amazing. And he's got all the you know the lots laid out, the teachers and so forth and so on. But yeah, it was it was a growing uh little community. Well known, the the Gundy family and those kind of kept an eye on it. They made a comment one time that that uh the Gundis were really strong, you know, uh Christian people. There was no alcohol allowed, okay, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So they had they they had a couple of general stores, but no bars.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, no bars. They had the hotel, uh, they had a doctor's residence, uh, and uh uh they had to have places for a uh blacksmith, you know, and uh so it it uh it grew to that point, and then when uh they did when CNI had to come through, they had to look for the high ground. Okay. And Myersville wasn't that. Right, because the the river floods. Yeah, yeah. So they had to find it.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Not lately, we've had a drought, but the river floods.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So it they had to so they they were about two miles east of Myersville, where it was.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So what basically happened then is uh slowly the town started moving into Bismarck.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

So did the did the people just move or did they pick up and like literally move their buildings too?

SPEAKER_00 13:15

They they actually moved a lot of them. So yeah, yeah. I I don't have I've heard stories that when uh the snow and ice were on uh some of these the these buildings, they would actually hook them to teams of horses and drag them.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

You know, at least partially.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

A lot of them were torn down and uh and moved. You know, they didn't waste anything back then. Right. You know, they they just rebuilt and rebuilt. So it it slowly and you know it took time for it to happen. But Bismarck uh shows themselves as as becoming a town in in 1872. Okay. So that's when and but it never was an incorporated village, but that's when the date that they put down that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So obviously the mill is not where it was anymore. Where did the mill go?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Okay. The mill uh in 1912, uh my my great-grandfather was the last uh operator of the mill. He he operated it for about 30 years. He died when he was 57 years old, and you know, so I'm uh but uh it in studying what a mill takes, I just can't believe the amount of labor it takes. Wow. And taking you've seen the pictures of the dam.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Can you imagine how that you had to constantly so the the maintaining the dam was the responsibility of the mill owner? Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Okay, and then the big flues, those are the ones that that flow the water into the mill. Uh the big flues would leak all the time, they were made out of wood, you know, and they would have to be worked on. Uh it used to have an overshot wheel, you know, what you see all the time. The big mill yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

But he switched it over to what they called two turbines, and they were vertical turbines, and the water would run and they would spin this way. You got a lot more torque and a lot more, you'd say, horsepower out of those. Uh this mill was huge in s in size. And uh, and it was being two-story, you know. And if you look and I'd never seen this inside this mill, obviously we don't have pictures of it, but when you look at those, oh my gosh, the just the amount of labor. So there were apparently there was a a huge flood at one time. It damaged the dam well enough that Samuel just said, that's it, I'm I'm done. I'm not I'm not doing this anymore. So they shut the dam shut it down. The picture we have uh is of the mill after it was closed. So it sat there for quite a few years. Um I I had an aunt tell me one time that uh uh Gundy Cemetery was just, you know, half a mile away. Well, in the winter they couldn't bury people, so they would store their bodies in the the old mill building. Kind of a morgue until until springtime. Sure. So it sat there for a long time. Uh so in 1912 he he closed it down. A little bit later, uh a couple businessmen in in Bismarck, uh, the Brown brothers, and they're well known, and they they started a big store there.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Uh, one of the brothers, E. D. Brown, said, I would like to have that barn, tear it down, uh, and use it for a dairy. And he owned a uh farm property a mile south towards Danville on Route 1, just off of down, but right by the river again. And they did. So my my uh great-grandfather and a couple other guys completely disassembled it. And remember, this is all peg and this is the great grandfather who owned the mill. Yeah, he ran the mill. And he so he took it apart. He took it apart, yeah. He and some other people started disassembling it. You know, some of it was, you know, kind of old, rotted, and so forth. But they disassembled it enough that they had plenty of timbers, and some of these timbers are unbelievable. I mean, this is you gotta remember, this building was built out of trees that were 200 years old, right? You know, and huge, huge beams that you wouldn't even see nowadays. So they tore it down and uh moved it to uh that site, and it was used as a dairy barn for years. And uh and like like I was saying earlier, we didn't uh I didn't know for a uh long time that where where it had actually went after that. Uh-huh. So it was I don't know the timing on the the uh the dairy farm, but after uh Mr. Brown passed away, uh uh one of one of his daughter daughters uh decided that, you know, that uh they would still keep it and do some things with it. But uh uh she was uh Mrs. Laurie and that was her mate uh married name.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

She married uh Lori. And there were five he had five daughters. And the daughters inherited the the barn and they kept it for quite some time and then it caught become very dilapidated. It was at the end of a dead end road, it did flood sometimes and so forth. And then the Laurie family, the these five daughters decided what are we going to do with it? So they contacted Kennecook to say, would you guys be interested in this building?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

So Kennecook County Park.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

And about ten guys from the Kennnecook, they worked and worked day and night to tear that apart, that barn apart, and moved it to the park now. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So that's the barn that we see at the um in the old village, and and it's a it's a an event space now. People get married there. Yeah, that's amazing. It is, and you're you're right. So the are the insides of the barn, are they uh what was there to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

A lot of them were. Now, when they tore the barn down uh when it was a dairy, the bottom lot of it had been rotted because of the floods. Okay. Uh some of the wood had just, you know, a lot of it was oak. Right. But some of it, so they had to replace quite a bit of it. If you go into the barn now, you'll walk into the barn at Kinicook and you'll notice about three or four feet off the floor uh is concrete post. Well, the reason why is those posts were rotted from that part.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

But they did save a lot. They they did save quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

The beams in that barn are humongous.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And they're all pegged. They're all pegged. Wow. And they still use the same pegs, and it was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I can I can't imagine in this world I have I have a uh a toaster oven, and I've only had it for less than two years. And last night we used it and it started making a funny noise. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to get a new toaster oven, you know, two years. I have to get a new toaster oven. But this barn has been around for since eight 1836. So almost 200 years, this barn and has been taken apart and put back together and taken apart and put back together and flooded, and it still exists today.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

It still exists today. They did they did a good job of putting it together. My my wife actually, for our historical society, she would go out there while they were reassembling it. And they hired a company out of Ohio and they brought a bunch of new oak beams in to match up. And we've got a series of photographs of that barn being actually being put back together. They did a fantastic. They hired some specialists that know how to do that. That helped a great deal. And uh so, but they they saved as much as they could. There was a lot of stuff. Uh I end up getting some of the pieces from they were they said, well, there are not there's nothing, we can't use them, you know. Right. Uh, but just as uh, you know, memorabilia, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Right, right. So just to kind of I know that you go every year, you go in, you do a presentation for the fifth graders at Bismarck Grade School. Um we are going to, like I said, have those have these tours that as part of the 200th anniversary committee, we're gonna do tours, and I know you're going to lead one. Where is that tour going to go?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Well, we're gonna start out uh at the uh Northside Church of Christ in Bismarck. That's a good place for parking. Our historical side, we have a an the old bank from Bismarck.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

We rem redid it, and it's back to 1905, but it's small enough you can't get a lot of people in it. Sure. So we're gonna move a lot of our stuff to the to the church so people can come in there. We did that back uh when Bismarck, I think, had its 150th. So we're going to have a lot of the paraphernalia and everything to look at. We'll have the bus there, and then we'll leave there and head right to Myersville.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

And then you know, there's really nothing. I I know where everything's at, we can see some of the foundation, we can point out where everything was.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

But really, there's only one house really that's that's really considered one of the originals. It was a doctor's home. And it was actually moved from one side of the town to the other, even.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

So we know exactly where everything's at. I've had uh metal detectors go out there, we found some coins, you know, some odds and ends, but uh uh we found, like I say, the foundation. We found the gate that opened up into the mill. Uh that's pretty neat and that it's still there. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So are you is your tour gonna end at Myersville or are you?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

No, no. We're gonna go up, we're gonna go to Gundy for a little bit and got a little support. Surprised about that.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Maybe. And then we'll come back and we'll go up and head back to Route One.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Now, one thing about Myersville, it stretched to Route One, not the town itself. The town was just a little square. But there was a lot of homes and stuff. There was a blacksmith up the hill. That place right there, everybody knows by Moore's Corner. That's everybody knows Moore's Corner. That's what that means. And Moore's Corner, just to the north of Moore's Corner, uh, was uh the site where all the livestock from Danville would gather to be prepared to go to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, and they had cabins there where you could stay all night. So it was kind of a uh an area that you would gather everybody together. Pigs, horses, cattle, ducks, chickens, whatever the case of the case. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

So how did they get this? Was prior to the railroad, correct? Because so how did they get them from point A to point B?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

They walked them.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Now I'm gonna tell you a story. And and uh I I've given this talk a few times to different organizations. They go, no, you're lying. But I've got it in writing. I even looked it up on the internet. But this we're talking about ducks here. Now you talk about five, six hundred ducks, and they got to take them to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

And if you think about it, they didn't have railroad trains and wagons couldn't carry that many. So what they would do, they would uh to they'd take these ducks and they'd run them through some warm tar on their feet, okay? And that tar would stick to their feet and then walk them through sand, and that would protect their feet on the way to Chicago as they walked.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Oh my goodness. Well, how did they not fly away?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Well, the ducks don't fly.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

These did. These were domestic domesticated.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

And it, you know, it took several weeks to get there. And they had and uh but you know that that that route was the main route to Chicago at that time.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Now is that where Route One is now? Is that the route that they used?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah. Route one was actually uh uh where where you turn off the Bismarck, Route One, you can still see probably 50, 60 yards, that's where the road Ridgley was, and they they had moved it over, but it's still pretty close to where it was.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

You know.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

So was this like a a a big like cows and horses and pigs and everybody went all at one time?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

That's my understanding. Yeah, yeah. And they would gather there. And like I say, there were there were cabins there. Uh I I knew a lady that she could she could still remember some of the foundations of those old cabins. They'd stay all night. I'm sure it took a lot of time to get everything ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

You know, so that was all part of part of this as well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Huh. So your tour's gonna go to that.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah, we're gonna yeah, there's really nothing to see there, but once we once we go there, we're gonna head straight to Rossville.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Uh and uh we're trying to keep this under about two hours. Sure. And then uh I've got good friends that uh uh take care of the Rossville Museum.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Uh we probably won't go in too much. I don't know. We're trying to keep it under two hours. Right. But we'll show that. We've got some people set up to to look at that, maybe move a little bit around Rossville, talk about some things. The idea I thought we've had with the 200th is not to tell everything, but to get people interested enough to go back.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

You know?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So so we'll run around Rossville a little bit and then we'll come back and then we'll turn uh at Manschapel Road.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Where the church is.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Right. And Manschapel is one of the things the museum oversees that. Right. Um, and there is going to be a gospel thing there this summer. Yes. Um, is that the day of your tour or is that a different that's a different time?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, our tour is gonna be June 20th.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

June 20th.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

The reason we picked June 20th is Bismarck has their fireworks at that time.

unknown 25:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

And they have a rummage sale in Bismarck. There's a lot of people come in.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

So we thought it was a perfect time. We got set up with the Lions Club and the Men's Club and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

So all these tours that we're gonna be doing through the 200th committee, they're going to different parts of Vermillion County at different times. No, no one tour is gonna try and do the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

And they're all gonna be on different days. Yes, I believe so.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

I think there's eight tours.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

So that it can be which is I mean, that's a lot. Yeah. Um, but you could go to on every one if you wanted to, because they're gonna be on different days and and have different tour guides. So somebody who knows more about the Ridge Farm area is gonna do the Southern tour. And um so I mean, we've got a pretty fun summer planned for the for the 200th committee. If you are at all interested in history, we need you to participate because you will enjoy every bit of this. Um Larry, I want to thank you for coming in and talking with me today. We are probably gonna do this again with some other uh some other material. As I said, we're we're trying to do the the lesser-known stories, and I I love the story of Myersville. I love the story that the mill that your grandfather great-grandfather ran is now the barn at Kinnecuck that we can all rent out and have parties in or uh whatever, and that it's still a lot of the same.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah. You know, the interesting thing too when you when you talk about it, you know, the the the railroad depot there is Bismarck. Okay. Isn't that the irony of this?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

That is. The the the railroad that put Myersville out.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Isn't that that it and then it's it's funny when you think of, you know, we think about things like AI replacing people. But I mean it's this isn't new. You know, there a railroad came and and made a town defunct. Um, you know, we don't we don't have telephone operators anymore, and we don't have elevator operators anymore.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Um that's what I tried to show the kids when I do that is is the economics of this. You know, when the mill was there, that that mill was used for those people for their their own consumption. But when the railroad came and the elevator popped up, all of a sudden now they could sell that grain to Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

And that just changed everything. And and that's when the mill slowly went away. My great-grandfather actually started a smaller mill on the other side of the road, and he ran it by a little kerosene engine. He was a holdout. He wasn't leaving. And he he started a little store right there and all that. But yeah, he was he was a holdout. He wouldn't move into business.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Well, and again, in the area of Indiana that I'm from, just just up the road from Rockville and from Bridgeton, and there's still a mill there at Bridgeton. So if if you want to see what a mill looked like then in operation, you'll get a you you can you can get a pretty good idea of how how the the architecture and the work that it takes to make one of those. Imagine that operation set in the barn at Kinnecuck.

unknown 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Larry, thank you so much. I I really enjoyed our conversation. Uh, I love history. If I wasn't doing what I'm doing, I would have wanted to be a history teacher. And I just think it's so much fun to learn about um what used to be. Yeah. And I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope that you'll come and take one of the tours this summer. Uh, get out and learn about the history of this county. Thank you.