Vacation/Travel Supplement
History and harmony:
O’Bannon, Lincoln and Harmonie state parks
offer lots of fun activities for everyone
Kelly Kuchenbrod of Evansville, Ind., a volunteer at O’Bannon Woods State Park,
demonstrates how wool yarn is created with a traditional spinning wheel. (Photo by Patricia Happel Cornwell)
By Patricia Happel Cornwell (Special to The Criterion)
SOUTHERN INDIANA—Indiana has 24 state parks, but many Hoosiers may not know that tucked away in the southwest corner are three beautiful parks: O’Bannon Woods, Lincoln and Harmonie.
You can reach these parks by State Road 62 from New Albany or I-65 south to I-265 west then I-64 west.
But if you take the interstates, you miss seeing Possum Junction, Little Pigeon Creek and Frog Pond Road. I prefer the “back way” past swallowtail butterflies feeding on Joe Pye Weed, fields of corn and cattle, hilltop farmhouses, small towns, the bell towers of Saint Meinrad Archabbey and sycamores lining Little Blue River.
Department of Natural Resources park fees are $4 per car on Monday through Thursday, $5 per car on Friday through Sunday and on holidays, and $7 for
non-residents. A $36 annual pass for Hoosiers covers admission to all the state parks. An annual pass for a non-resident with an out-of-state license plate costs $46.
Properties are open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. for day users. The area west of Corydon is on Central Time so Lincoln and Harmonie state parks are an hour “behind” Indianapolis. These parks do not have lodges. Campsite and cabin fees vary by location.
O’Bannon Woods State Park
- 7234 Old Forest Road S.W.
- Corydon, IN 47112
- 812-738-8232
- Established in Harrison County in 2004
- 2,000 acres
- 2½ hours or 150 miles from Indianapolis
- 40 minutes or 30 miles from New Albany
- Where to go to Mass:
- St. Joseph Church
- 312 E. High St.
- Corydon, IN 47112
- 812-738-2742
- Mass times: 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. Sunday
O’Bannon Woods is a state park within a state forest. Its 2,000 acres are surrounded by the 24,000-acre Harrison-Crawford State Forest, a nature preserve.
Originally called Wyandotte Woods State Recreation Area, it was renamed in 2004 to honor the late Gov. Frank O’Bannon, a Corydon native.
Like most state parks, it offers picnic areas, campgrounds, cabins, hiking trails, a swimming pool and nature center.
Eighty miles of horse trails loop through the park and state forest, and two horsemen’s camps are available, one with electricity.
Wildflower gardens grace the approach to the nature center, where year-round activities range from children’s programs on creepy, crawly things to canoe trips and guided cave exploration.
A short walk through a butterfly garden behind the center brings you to the 1830s-era farmstead, the hub of living history demonstrations enacted on several weekends during the summer. We watched costumed volunteers ply such pioneer skills as blacksmithing, woodworking and spinning.
What makes O’Bannon Woods unique, however, is its 1850 hay press, a three-story baling mechanism that is its own barn. Restored in 2000, it is one of only eight surviving hay presses in the country and the only one that is still operational. The barn originally also housed cattle, hay and farm equipment.
My husband, John, and I joined a crowd one Saturday to watch the press work. Operating it requires three attendants plus a strong draft animal, such as an ox, to turn a wooden “sweep” at the bottom of the building.
During several weekends a year, “Lion,” a 2,000-pound, 12-year-old Durham Shorthorn ox earns his hay when he is yoked to the sweep, a horizontal wooden beam, and a volunteer leads him in a circle. This raises a 500-pound weight from the second floor to the third level via pulleys as helpers fork hay into a second-floor compartment. When the weight falls, it compresses the hay into a 300-pound square bale. It takes 15 minutes to make one bale.
Samuel Hewitt of Switzerland County invented the press in 1843 to facilitate transportation of hay to urban areas via barges on the Ohio River. It improved on the earlier “jump press,” so named because men actually jumped on the hay to compress it. By the 20th century, steam-powered balers made hay presses obsolete.
O’Bannon Woods partially borders the Ohio River and has small-boat access to the Blue River.
Leavenworth and Corydon are close enough to provide lodging and dining alternatives.
Also nearby are the Corydon First State Capitol, Wyandotte Caves, Marengo Cave and Squire Boone Caverns.
Lincoln State Park
- Highway 162
- 15476 N. County Road 300 E.
- Lincoln City, IN 47552
- 812-937-4710
- Established in Spencer County in 1932
- 1,747 acres
- 3 hours or 195 miles from Indianapolis
- 1¾ hours or 80 miles from New Albany
- Where to go to Mass:
- St. Nicholas Church
- State Road 245
- Santa Claus, IN 47579
- 812-937-2380
- Mass times: 4 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. Sunday
Everybody loves a bargain, especially on vacation, so my husband, John, and I were pleased to discover a “twofer” in Spencer County.
Turning west at the junction of State Road 245 and State Road 162, we discovered the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial directly across the road from Lincoln State Park.
The route to both sites goes past Holiday World in Santa Claus so those with kids may be compelled to stop there. If you do, the only hotel is Santa’s Lodge across from the amusement park.
For adults, Christmas Lake Golf Course is nearby. There is no lodging in Lincoln City so a visit to the park and memorial requires an overnight stay either at Santa’s Lodge, in a campsite or cabin at the park, or at one of two hotels north of Dale near I-64.
Lincoln State Park has cabins, campsites, a swimming pool, nature center, hiking trails, a small wetland and the Sarah Lincoln Woods Nature Preserve.
Lincoln Lake has a boathouse and paddleboats. I was fascinated by stands of American lotuses on the water with unreal and very photogenic six-inch yellow blooms.
History fans will want to visit the gravesite of Abraham Lincoln’s sister, Sarah Lincoln-Grigsby, and the reconstructed brick farmhouse of William Jones, Lincoln’s first employer.
The Jones home is accessible by foot trail for serious adult hikers, but it’s a long walk and part of the route is along the busy road. The best option is to drive there via Highway 162 by going west two miles to Gentryville.
The 1,500-seat outdoor Lincoln Amphitheatre was built to offer concerts and other entertainment throughout the year, but there are no programs scheduled this year. Indiana Department of Natural Resources personnel expect to reopen it with a new “Lincoln Drama” in 2009.
Across Highway 162, the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial will gratify history buffs. Its
half-moon museum is faced with bas-relief sculptures and Lincoln quotations. There is no fee to visit the memorial. The grave of Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, is on the property, which is also the site of a working 1820s-era pioneer farm.
On the afternoon that we visited the farmstead, goldfinches were harvesting seeds from sunflowers, a dove cooed in a tree overhead, and a costumed woman swept out the cabin. In the barnyard, a man fed a cow, sheep and chickens. Another man did leatherwork in a nearby shed. In the summer, Indiana Department of Natural Resources personnel enact daily demonstrations of pioneer trades.
Thomas Lincoln, Abe’s father, moved his family to what is now Spencer County in 1816, the year that Indiana became a state.
In 1934, archaeologists uncovered remnants of the cabin where the future president lived for 14 formative years as a boy and teenager. The bronzed hearth and foundation of the simple home can be seen up close and touched, a visible remnant of the early life of the 16th president of the United States, who was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War.
The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth is Feb. 12, 2009. Indiana’s two-year birthday celebration for “Honest Abe” began on Feb. 12, 2008, and concludes on Feb. 12, 2010.
Harmonie State Park
- 3451 Harmonie State Park Road
- New Harmony, IN 47631
- 812-682-4821
- Established in Posey County in 1966
- 3,465 acres
- 3½ hours and 200 miles from Indianapolis
- 2 hours and 130 miles from New Albany
- Where to go to Mass:
- Holy Angels Church
- 423 South St.
- New Harmony, IN 47631
- 812-838-2535
- Mass time: 9:15 a.m. Sunday
While I admired yellow sundrops blooming along the roadside, my husband, John, kept an eye peeled for a serious cup of coffee.
As we drove toward Harmonie State Park, skirting Evansville, we resisted the temptation to hunt down a coffee shop and eventually found a decent cup of java at New Harmony’s excellent Red Geranium Restaurant.
Harmonie State Park is quite large, covering 3,465 acres. Its boundary bisects the middle of the Wabash River, where it meets the Illinois state line. By road, Illinois is 10 minutes away.
The park boasts a boat ramp, a swimming pool, nature center, cabins, campsites, picnic shelters, fishing, horse trails, bicycle trails and wildlife ponds.
Not being campers, we stayed at New Harmony Inn in the historic town located four miles north of the state park. This was the best of both worlds: wilderness and air conditioning.
Historic New Harmony appeals equally to those in search of history, a spiritual retreat or simply a great meal.
George Rapp founded the town in 1814 as a utopian experiment for German immigrants fleeing religious oppression. When the community failed, he sold the town to Scotsman Robert Owen in 1824.
Owen sought to establish an ideal, although secular, society. He organized the state’s first free public school and library to provide equal education for boys and girls as well as America’s first kindergarten.
The Workingmen’s Institute, established in 1838 by industrialist William McClure, is the state’s oldest continuously operating public library. It also serves as a museum and art gallery.
A reconstructed Rappite log cabin village stands in stark contrast to the modernistic visitor’s center, the Atheneum, which offers guided walking tours. Golf carts can be rented, but we enjoyed meandering on foot, peering into gardens and reading carved inscriptions on walls.
The town is famous for its non-denominational Roofless Church, a walled garden anchored by a scalloped canopy over a large sculpture of the “Descent of the Holy Spirit.”
New Harmony has two labyrinths. The Harmonist Labyrinth is a boxwood maze leading to a tiny stone chapel, and the Cathedral Labyrinth is a rose granite replica of the one at the renowned Chartres Cathedral in Paris.
New Harmony is a quiet, charming town. It has three bed-and-breakfast inns and a handful of shops offering antiques, pottery, stained-glass and more, but it is not overly commercial.
The 89-room New Harmony Inn sits on 125 acres with a conference facility and covered swimming pool.
A pine thicket is dedicated to 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich, whose ashes are buried there. The banks
of the inn’s lake and a grove called “Our Lord’s Woods” feature original religious sculptures, including two of St. Francis of Assisi.
(Patricia Happel Cornwell of Corydon is a correspondent for The Criterion.) †
