Southern Decatur County
1. The tour begins at the southwest corner of Tower Tree Square in Greensburg.
Travel south on Broadway (two soft right turns) and turn left at the intersection of SW 60 (stop sign) where you quickly leave the city limits of Greensburg enroute to Sandcreek Township, one of three townships in the southern part of the county.
2. Within a few houses (at 1011 S. Ireland) you will notice a rare stainless stell sided home. The siding was installed in the late 1940's and still looks good today.
Sandcreek Township was established in May of 1825. Some of the oldest towns along the southern area include Westport, founded on March 23, 1836, Harris City in 1866. Letts Corner in 1868, Rodney in 1880 and Sardinia in 1882.
3. A short distance on the right is the Fogg family farm (large brick homes) built over 150 years ago. We are told the walls of the brick homes are 3-bricks thick. The bricks were also made on the site at the time of construction.
4. Within seconds, you pass the Standard Fertilizer Plant (look left) where trucks pick up dead animals from farms and slaughter houses and then process them into meat and bone meal which is mixed with corn and made into feed for hogs and chickens; inedible greases which are used in manufacture of soaps, cosmetics, animal feed, gunpowder, and hides, which are sold to tanneries for being made into leather coats, shoes and purses.
5. Turn right on CR 250 S, travel to SW 220, turn left, and be prepared to see what once was a prosperous town of Harris City. It is about five miles south of Greensburg and has the Harris City Stone Quarry, a cemetery and few homes today. The town has an interesting history.
It was in July, 1863, when Morgan's Raiders were riding through the southern counties of Indiana and folklore has it that the Raiders camped in what is now Harris City. A young confederate soldier named B.B. Harris was so taken by the countryside that at the end of the Civil War, he returned to Decatur County and settled in Greensburg. He built the stone quarry ... hence the name "Harris City." The stone quarry once employed 300 persons and a 3-story hotel was built to house the workers. The town once had 37 homes.
The stone quarry was known for its blue-lime-stone rock of "prized" strength at 179,000 pounds per cubic foot. It shipped 3,000 train carloads of stone for the construction of the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis, 6,000 train carloads to the U.S. Customs Building in Cincinnati and at least 10,000 carloads to Proctor & Gamble for their soap factory near Cincinnati. Ironically, the quarry fell into bankruptcy in 1897 and was eventually sold in 1989. As you leave Harris City, just outside of town... notice the stone fence on the right that was also made of stone from the old quarry.