Us 31

[jim1956]

I finally made my US 31 trip with my old friend and we had a ball. He's never done any roadsleuthing before, but when I handed him my 1924 ABB and ordered him to navigate, a change came over him and he became just as obsessively curious about where the road used to go as I am!

 

If you ever do this trip, I recommend Plymouth, Rochester, and Peru as nice towns. I do not recommend Argos or Mexico; they're decaying little dots on the map. I found Kokomo to be remarkably unremarkable.

 

Before sunrise, new lamps (reproductions of originals) light the Leeper Park bridge over the St. Joseph River on South Bend's old northside. My mom grew up near here, and my brother had an apartment near here, and my old friend currently lives just around the corner from here. This is part of US 31's old route through South Bend.

 

The Morris Performing Arts Center on US 31's first alignment through South Bend.

 

There used to be a notorious one-lane bridge on 31 north of Rochester, IN. My friend (who's in the pic below) remembers it from trips to visit family when he was a kid, but by the time I first traveled 31, the road had been rerouted around Rochester. This abutment may have been from the old bridge. A modern 2-lane bridge was built in 1982, and I stood on it to get this shot. The historical marker commemorates the Michigan Road, and the plaque on the rock remembers the Potawatomi Indians when 850 of them were marched at gunpoint from Indiana to Kansas in 1838 through here -- it appears they followed what would become the Dixie Highway to Logansport. 40 Potawatomi died. I'm (a very small) part Potawatomi.

 

My friend wanted to follow the 1924 ABB route through Rochester. The book said this was State Road 1. (Indiana's state roads were renumbered with the coming of the federal numbered highways.)

 

In Peru, I was thrilled to come upon a classic car show. They closed a downtown block of old US 31 for it. I blogged about a 1966 Plymouth at the show (http://jimgrey.wordpress.com). Here's a pic of a 1955 Nash that has been very heavily modified.

 

In Indianapolis, we tried to figure out why the map said Meridian St. (old 31) went over the White River and another road right next to it also called Meridian St. didn't. We think that this was probably a case of a bridge replacement that moved the road a bit. This photo is from the older bit of Meridian St. of the current bridge.

 

I'm not sure when I'll have time to write the trip report, so I thought I'd share some highlights now.

 

The only bummer on the trip was in Kokomo. I was stepping backwards to get a building in my camera's frame when I stumbled over something. My camera went flying and landed in the grass. Now the lens doesn't extend properly when I turn it on. It comes out at a slight angle, and I have to tap it into position.

 

jim