The marker will be installed in front of the splash pad in Switchyard Park.
(Devan Ridgway - WFIU/WTIU)
Monroe County will soon be home to new historical markers that highlight important African American figures.
At 2 p.m. on June 19 — the Juneteenth holiday — one will be installed in Switchyard Park. Elizabeth Mitchell, a Monroe County historian, said she hopes that it becomes the first of many.
“We want to honor those people that have made these contributions in history that we have forgotten about,” she said. “We all kind of stand on their shoulders. Bloomington is what it is today because of the people who were here before us.”
The marker at Switchyard will commemorate African Americans in Bloomington who assisted with the Underground Railroad.
“A man that lived in this area before it became switchyard Park was Samuel Gordon,” she said. “His farm was in this area. And South Rogers was the main road up into Bloomington. And if they made it here, they were good to go.”
Mitchell hopes that more markers highlighting important African Americans will be installed around Monroe County. (Devan Ridgway, WFIU/WTIU News)
Mitchell has plans for four more markers that tell the stories of important African Americans. One will replace an existing marker in Butler Park highlighting Reverend Ernie Butler. The others will shed light on long forgotten black communities.
“There were four Black communities here in Bloomington during segregation,” she said. “They no longer exist, and nobody remembers them. So I'd like to honor those people. And that's Bucktown, Hensonburg, Chandlerville and the Woods, or Woodyard.”
The markers will be funded by the city as well as donations from residents.
The work being done in Monroe County is also possible due to Indiana Landmarks. Eunice Trotter, the director of their Black Heritage Preservation Program said the goal is to uncover, document, preserve and restore Black heritage sites and history.
“This can be a church, a Masonic home, a cemetery, or it could be just information, the stories that were often lost, because no one documented those stories,” she said.
The current marker for Rev. Ernest Butler, that is to be restored soon. The new marker at Switchyard will look similar to this. (Max Rebolledo, WFIU/WTIU News)
Trotter said she uses the same tools any historian would use to locate heritage sites around the state.
“There will be census records, there will be property records for African Americans pre-Civil War,” she said. “That documentation is often relegated to property records because African Americans were considered property.”
Trotter wants to expand the program further throughout Indiana. She said we as a state must write down our shared history so it won’t be forgotten, but that will take the efforts of many people.
“We need allies helping us do this work,” she said. “So I'm hopeful that these small groups that we're forming around the state, which are being mentored by experts in those communities, will generate that capacity that we're looking for.”
Trotter has a strong group behind her. According to Suzanne Stanis, the VP of Education for Indiana Landmarks, they are the largest private statewide historic preservation organization in the country.
“We have offices all over the state, our central regional office is here in Indianapolis, and that covers Bloomington,” she said. “Our mission is to revitalize communities, reconnect us to our diverse heritage and save meaningful places.”
Placemaking can be something as simple as a new mural in a popular area. (Devan Ridgway, WFIU/WTIU News)
There’s a secondary effect restoring and preserving historic sites has on small communities; these projects often become placemaking projects as well.
Placemaking has become a large part of rural communities, especially as many are attempting to revitalize historic downtown areas or create new places for residents to simply enjoy their hometowns.
“It can include things like reactivating an alley space in a downtown area or just making a place more inviting for the community,” she said.
Most importantly, Stanis said that preserving and placemaking are all about appreciating and making better the places that make up most of the state’s land.
“A lot of times, we take what's in our own backyard for granted,” she said. “We just don't appreciate that ‘oh, something exciting must have happened here.’ And our local communities are so important to telling the story of Indiana history.”
As Trotter put it, without proper historic preservation, many of Indiana's most prolific residents will be forgotten.
