Southern Indiana Living - March / April 2024

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A Walk in the Garden with Bob Hill Quiet Sites No Longer My initial meeting with what became the Port of Indiana — Jeffersonville came with very mixed results. Beginning in 1975 I had been driving past the then-rural site along Utica Pike between Jeffersonville and Utica for 10 years. The property was farm fields, a farmhouse and an old wooden barn, with the Ohio River and Six Mile Island over there somewhere. Sure, there were newspaper stories that indicated Indiana was going to build a port here, but it just sounded more like Jacksonville, Florida, than Jeffersonville, Indiana. A port in a pasture? No way. That was in my gotta-havemore-old-barn-boards phase of life. I was building a wooden barn myself. Figuring the port property was abandoned, and eager for the barn boards, I parked my pickup truck on the site, grabbed a hammer and clawed away, about filling my truck. I wasn’t home more than 15 minutes when the actual barn owner showed up and nicely suggested I return his wood, which I did. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he had been watching me the whole time. He never even thanked me for my work. So, fast-forward to 1985 and the Port of Indiana — Jeffersonville was open on 1,000 acres — maybe 75% of it still farm fields. And it grew. And grew. Those driving past on Utica Pike noticed more buildings, more railroad tracks and, yeah, more traffic. All of it from the same distance. Over there by the river. A little mysterious. Lit up at night like a starship hanger. Trespassers not welcome. Every once in a while I would take a chance and drive back in there, take in the increasing piles of scrap steel, mounds of salt to treat the winter roads, immense piles of shelled corn, barges tied up to shore, dozens of railroad cars spread out along the river. More tracks came. Miles of tracks. It was interesting to watch as it seemed like one guy with some electronic gizmo was controlling the train engines from the ground. Nobody up in the cab. Hand-flipping the switches to guide the engines from one track to another. For all that progress the port and all its goings-on still seemed so hidden. A good buddy owned a boat, so we would cruise the Ohio River, checking out the port from the Six Mile Island side. From there we could see the big protective riverside building, the places where the barges were tied up as all sorts of material and grain was loaded. The barges then headed down to the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, or maybe north toward Minnesota. Or maybe across the Atlantic Ocean to ports in Europe. From right here. Just off Utica Pike. And that’s not counting the hundreds of semi-trucks that went in and out every day. And the delivery trucks. Have never seen a helicopter yet, but surely it’s happened. There was more. Some of the visible, twice-a-year port entertainment were the hundreds of grain trucks that brought in shelled corn in the fall. It was piled in enormous, 60-foot mounds for weeks at a time, with tarps for protection. Then all of it was removed in a massive show of backhoes and trucks in late winter to be shipped out. It’s especially fun to watch the process at night, the trucks and dumpsters outlined in tall lights, the grain dust flying in the air. Curious about what really goes on, I checked out the port’s website. It mentioned in about the 38 years since the port opened — and maybe 45 years since a guy got caught stealing some barn boards — it now hosts 27 companies, including 15 steel-related businesses, roll-forming steel, galvanizing and otherwise. It can hold 350 rail cars near the dock. Its total annual traffic averages 835 barges a year, 350,000 semitrucks and 11,000 railroad cars. The major cargo includes corn, wire rods, fertilizer, salt, soybeans, steel, pig iron and liquid asphalt. The business figures, and some of these always sound like economists throwing darts at a Ouija board, are listed as a $1.8 billion total economic impact, $96 million in tax revenue and 12,137 jobs created with an average salary of $45,000. Just over there off Utica Pike. But there was even more in the neighborhood. Just a few miles away, and well connected to the port, is the River Ridge Commerce Center. Its growth has been a little more public — and with no old barns left to tear down since the government booted the farmers off the land to build a black powder and rocket propellant plant in about 1940. The government, and well Sure, there were newspaper stories that indicated Indiana was going to build a port here, but it just sounded more like Jacksonville, Florida, than Jeffersonville, Indiana. A port in a pasture? No way. ahead of our entry into World War II, first purchased about 5,000 acres with 60 families booted off the land. It purchased another 4,800 acres stretching southward into Utica Township, with 50 farmhouses and 35 summer cottages along the Ohio River seized. One more purchase would include the old Rose Island Amusement Park. Call it the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. Its history rings loudly, thanks to the 27,500 people who once worked there as the Depression ended, and another 20,000 who built the facility. Again, the dutiful Ohio River was a reason for the site, the water needed to create the powder and fuel for World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Then all went silent. For almost 30 years, until River Ridge opened in 1998. Several of us got a tour of the old Army facility before that. The huge buildings were ghost-like, filled with old, rusted assembly lines, dangling pipes and steel closets. We peeked into one of the huge, 176 ammunition “igloos,” the massive soil and concrete bun- 8 • Mar/Apr 2024 • Southern Indiana Living
kers built to hold the powder. We toured some of the solid, old houses built along the ridge over the Ohio where supervisors lived, all later allowed to rot into decay. We stared across the huge empty fields, wondering what would become of it. The answers were wonderfully mixed. The northern 5,100 acres of the ammunition plant became the serene Charlestown State Park, with trails up ridges and along the river and only 20 minutes from our house. Another 6,000 acres became the River Ridge Commerce Center, now hosting more than 70 companies, including aerospace, automotive, food and beverage with names like Medline, Amazon, Bose and Kroger, with 18,000 total jobs and $2.7 billion economic output. Monster, even million-squarefoot buildings are now sprawled across those open fields like something from a science fiction movie. For better or for worse, the surrounding area is booming with apartments and subdivisions, and more coming. Most recently Meta — think Facebook — promised to build an $800 million, 700,000-square-foot data center with 100 jobs. This, close on the business heels of Canadian Solar promising an $800 million production facility with 1,200 jobs and Cheesecake Factory with a $74 million bakery and 200 jobs. So it goes in the once-quiet places along the Ohio River in Southern Indiana. No more wooden barns allowed. • About the Author Former Courier-Journal columnist Bob Hill enjoys gardening, good fun, good friends and the life he and his wife, Janet. Cold Outside? Come in to spend FREE time researching YOUR local information! Tina Lee, Owner 812-620-0754 56 Public Square, Salem IN Tues-Sat: 10AM-5PM Crawford County Historical & Genealogical Society Tuesdays & Thursdays 11 AM–2 PM 310 Oak Hill Circle, English, IN | CCHGS.org CLARKSVILLE Clark Rehabilitation & Skilled Nursing Center 517 N. Little League Blvd. Riverview Village 586 Eastern Blvd. JEFFERSONVILLE Hillcrest Village 203 Sparks Ave. Experts in Rehabilitation Scan QR codes with your cell phone camera to take a Virtual Tour of any of our Clarksville communities! Care Coordination Center here when you need us: 888-996-8272 ASCCare.com Visit ASCCare.com for more information about locations, services and career opportunities. LEAVENWORTH Todd-Dickey Nursing & Rehabilitation 712 W. 2nd St. SCOTTSBURG Hickory Creek at Scottsburg 1100 N. Gardner St. Lake Pointe Village 545 W. Moonglo Rd. CLK-mkt 7.5x4.75_SIndLivingMag_02.24.indd 1 Southern Indiana Living • Mar/Apr 2/16/24 2024 3:24 PM • 9
Page 1 and 2: SPECIAL SECTION: VIEWING THE ECLIPS
Page 3 and 4: MerryM Ledges IN THE WOODS LRustic
Page 5 and 6: Southern Indiana Living MAR / APR 2
Page 7: Flashback Photo A Place of Worship
Page 11 and 12: H ow am I doing? Teachers no longer
Page 13 and 14: cars and classic signage, including
Page 15 and 16: Pitching Hope People of Southern In
Page 17 and 18: “Lots of mornings I’d wake up a
Page 19 and 20: YOU’RE INVITED! YOU’RE INVITED!
Page 21 and 22: “We provide items for you to get
Page 23 and 24: Real Life Nutrition Nutritious Sips
Page 25 and 26: SPECIAL SECTION Enjoying the Eclips
Page 27 and 28: Winery will together host the 2024
Page 29 and 30: VIsit the the Crawford County Welco
Page 31 and 32: Special Section: Solar Eclipse Even
Page 33 and 34: INSPIRE A LOVE OF READING Enroll yo
Page 35 and 36: April 19th and 20th Home and Garden
Page 37 and 38: High school boys don’t always mak
Page 39 and 40: Spring into something new. Souther

Southern Indiana Living - March / April 2024

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