As some of you might have noticed, it’s been rather dry here in the Midwest. As a consequence, our bodies of water are at record lows for the summer months. Specifically, the Salamonie Lake in Indiana is so low that one of the cities that was flooded to build the Lake has come to the surface. Because of this, crowds have flocked to the site of a city that hasn’t seen the surface (during the summer) for 50 years.
The lake is up and down during the year so the road between the parking and the water is non-trivial.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Clearly a warning that’s more important when we’re NOT in record drought.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
So as a personal footnote, I couldn’t help but be THRILLED beyond reasonable measure that the kids were THIS excited. Sadly I think they were eventually disappointed but they were amused for long enough to charge ahead of us to see the mysterious sunken city.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Lots of flatness.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
The lake is highly variable in depth it appears. I wonder how close these cliffs get to being under water.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Much to the kids’ disappointment, only the foundations of the old buildings were visible. I think they expected a whole city to come to the surface.v
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Ever the opportunist, the velvet leaf managed to invade the landscape.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Bud-Wei-Ser. *sigh* Everywhere you go there’s litter.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
History abounds in red brick.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Foundations of the old school reside at the new water’s edge.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
signs of civilization…
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
Yeah, expectations didn’t equal results so at least one of our party succumbed to boredom.
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| From 7-21-2012 Monument City, Indiana |
But, so we close. As it turns out the day after we visited the DNR closed the site to visitors. Apparently too many people were stealing the rusty tin cans and other refuse to be found.












Great Blog;artistic and educational.I think the DNR was being severe.One person’s thief is another ones archeologist.
agreed; if they were actually going to go do their own research it’d be one thing but shooing people off just to let it get submerged again seems silly.
Had I known I would have gone there on my recent trip to Indiana. Thanks for taking us. And, oh for Pete’s sake… Why do they care if people carry stuff off? They cared so much about the town they flooded it, right?
my pleasure!