Lincoln Highway Road Trip, day 9, end-of-day. In Auburn, Indiana, close to the Michigan state line.
After a pleasant drive through the rest of the western Ohio portion of the trip (with a couple of great stops – more later) I crossed over to Indiana mid-afternoon with Fort Wayne my first stop. It is a bigger city – well, big for these parts, around 250,000 people – and I walked around the old downtown. Another Midwestern Fresno – as with Dayton, the prior medium sized city I was in, meh – but with some standout architecture here and there.
Like so many other towns and cities around here it has a monumental courthouse, and there is also this stunning (1930) deco bank building (pictured) built for the former Lincoln National Bank and Trust – continuing our Lincoln theme – which according to Wikpedia was chartered as The German American National Bank in 1905. That name fell a bit out of fashion in WWI and it was changed… like so many people I encounter back here they were so friendly and welcoming inside the bank and had a very enlightened photography policy, too. Two shots from the exterior – first, one of seven bronze panels at the main entrance depicting scenes from the life of President Lincoln, and, next, one of the building itself (once the tallest building in Indiana according to handout I got at the bank – what am I going to do with all these factoids?)…inside, you see pictures of the two large art deco murals and a picture of the ceiling. It is as fine a deco building as I have seen elsewhere in much larger and more important cities and was quite a surprising and welcome find.
Why am I in Auburn IN which is a small detour from the Lincoln Highway? Tomorrow I shall visit the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum located here – the legendary Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg cars were all made at the factory here until production ceased in 1937. Can’t wait. Time permitting, I might even continue the theme tomorrow and visit the former Studebaker factory near South Bend.
Off to dinner now and to watch the Warriors game with all the Hoosiers at a nearby bar and grill. What better place to watch than a state where basketball is religion? Go Dubs!
