Indiana has a potential Route 66. Most Hoosiers don’t realize it, let alone outsiders. But it’s already there.
The dots just need to be connected.
Three summers ago, photographer Jim Avelis and I visited those dots — the cities, towns and wide spots in the road along the angles and curves of the Wabash River. No single road links those places. Instead, a motorist wanting to drive along the Wabash and view the sights and civilizations abutting the waterway’s 446 Indiana miles must navigate a patchwork of city streets, county roads, and state and national highways.
It can be done. (Well, for almost all of the way, that is. There’s no path — paved, gravel, dirt or otherwise — hugging the Wabash’s final two miles as it merges with the Ohio River. Trust me. Get a pair of hiking boots to tackle the wilderness, weeds and cornfields in that homestretch.) Travelers need a guide, though, and currently no map charts the ideal combination of roads that would create a formal “Wabash River Road.”
That’s about to change, thanks to a group of Wabash devotees. Soon, a “virtual” Wabash River Road through a phone app or website could link together the real-life roads necessary to discover the fabled Hoosier state river.
The Wabash River Heritage Corridor Commission is trying to assemble the optimum series of roads for a traveler to follow the river. It would be designated as the Wabash River Road, meandering from the Wabash’s entry into Indiana at Jay County on the Ohio border to its confluence with the Ohio River in Posey County in the state’s deep south.
Historic Route 66 veers from Chicago to the Santa Monica pier in California, with quirky motels and diners, oddity museums and rock formations throughout its 2,451 nostalgic miles.
Wabash River tourists might not be able to get their kicks the same ways they do on Route 66. (The World’s Largest Ball of Twine is in Kansas, not Indiana.) But there’s fascinating history, unique eateries, colorful festivals, diverse entertainment venues and natural beauty in the communities and countryside adjoining the river. All a curious wayfarer needs is a full tank of gas and a map delineating the Wabash River Road.
Thankfully, the corridor commission recognizes the possibilities of charting such a clear course.
Its members, representing the 19 counties touched by the Wabash, started the project about a decade ago. Their work intensified during the past two years, commission president Dave Hacker explained, with vice president Kara Kish (also the progressive parks superintendent in Vigo County) leading a strategic plan and Miami County highway engineer Ken Einselen plotting the network of roads and points of interest. The commission will load the data into a geographic information system (known as GIS) document, a concept similar to Google Earth.
“It’s been a long project,” Hacker said.
They’ve considered different ways to designate the route for travelers. River road signs were considered, along with funding, Hacker said, but the commission “determined that from a long-term maintenance standpoint, we’re not able to continuously maintain those signs,” for now, at least.
With or without “River Road” signs, the virtual road map adds a practical, modern element. Most vacationers abide by the serene voice on their vehicle’s GPS to make turns or stops, and pay less attention to the physical signs pointing the directions.
Whatever the final format for charting the Wabash River Road entails, the commission hopes to give the end result to the Indiana Office of Tourism Development to promote and market the route. It makes sense. So often, public officials and economic development leaders will say, “Well, we don’t have an ocean or mountains in Indiana, but there’s lots to see and do here.”
Indiana has a river. An iconic river, immortalized in song, not just by Paul Dresser (in “On the Banks of the Wabash”), but in tunes by Johnny Cash, John Prine and others.
Those river banks are dotted with fascinating towns, big and small. I’d recommend river explorers check out the view from the State Line Bridge Road in Jay County; the Bluffton River Greenway Trail; the impressive Honeywell Center in Wabash; a peanut butter and onion Duane Purvis burger at the Triple XXX Family Restaurant in West Lafayette; the Dresser sculpture in Terre Haute’s Fairbanks Park; Vincennes’ panoramic scenery at the George Rogers Clark Memorial National Park; and New Harmony’s Antheneum and labyrinth.
Just for starters. The John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge linking the waterfronts of Lafayette and West Lafayette teems with shops and walkers, joggers, bikers, day trippers, ice skaters in the winters and rowers in the warm months. Merom Bluff is spectacular. Logansport, Delphi, Clinton, Attica and Covington have small town charm Route 66ers enjoy. Williamsport has Indiana’s tallest waterfall (hidden behind a parking lot).
And, of course, there’s Terre Haute, a city just four years removed from its critically acclaimed 2013 Year of the River observance. That momentum lingers. “We are beginning to embrace our story as a riverfront community,” Kish said.
The Wabash River Road concept nudges Indiana to do the same on a state level. “We felt that this would increase visibility and exposure and overall awareness of the Wabash River,” Kish said.
Maybe the wanderers in those convertibles and RVs will motor along the Wabash before tackling Route 66.