Our Early Era

As the Indiana Territory emerged in 1800, pioneers making their way west settled along the Ohio and Wabash rivers before heading north. Today, this early heritage remains evident in landmarks including Vincennes’ Grouseland—home of territorial governor William Henry Harrison—and in the early nineteenth-century buildings of New Harmony, built for George Rapp’s experimental utopian community. Preserved as museum sites, private homes, and businesses, Indiana’s oldest landmarks speak to the aspirations of our forebears and offer insights into how they worked and lived.

Transportation routes were essential to Indiana’s early development. In 1836, legislators passed the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act prioritizing construction of canals, and the resulting Wabash and Erie and Whitewater canals spurred economic growth along their routes before financial woes, floods, and the rise of railroads later spelled their demise.

The Whitewater Canal, created to connect the Ohio River to east central Indiana, stretched from Lawrenceburg to Hagerstown, providing waterpower to run grist mills and other industry even after it ceased functioning as a transportation route.

In 1946, the State took ownership of the canal between Laurel and Brookville, a 14-mile stretch that now comprises the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site, a centerpiece for tourism in Frankin County’s Metamora. A trip to the picturesque village allows visitors to step back into a bygone era, where they can walk along the remains of the Whitewater Canal and visit the town’s collection of nineteenth-century buildings.

One of the town’s oldest buildings, the 1838 Martindale House (above) was saved from neglect and today operates as a tavern and family-friendly restaurant. PHOTO: Joey Smith

On Main Street, one of Metamora’s earliest landmarks still stands, an office and later tavern built in 1838 by Whitewater Canal shipping agent Ezekial Tyner. Amos Martindale enlarged the building in 1870 to serve as a hotel, conferring the name it still holds today.

More than a century later, when the vacant and neglected Martindale House needed immediate investment, Indiana Landmarks acquired the property and completed exterior restoration before selling the building to tinsmith David Bowser and stained-glass artist Dirk Leffew in 2015. Inspired by its storied past, the pair set about turning Martindale House back into a tavern and family-friendly restaurant.

To restore the landmark’s canal-era appearance, the partners repaired historic windows, refinished original wood, and tuckpointed brick fireplaces, sourcing historic replacement glass from Germany and sand from a local creek for new mortar. “It’s too important a building for this town to lose,” says Bowser. “We wanted to keep it preserved and not see the inside remodeled and ruin all its history.”

A few blocks away, Indiana Landmarks’ affiliate Historic Metamora is working to safeguard the village’s oldest house of worship, the former Methodist Episcopal Church on Wynn Street. Built in 1853, the building now houses a non-denominational congregation and a community food pantry. Aided by a $12,500 grant from the Efroymson Family Fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation, Historic Metamora is undertaking roof and steeple repairs to make the building watertight.