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Ginny's Journeys Ginny's Adventures 2009

Grant County - Coolest Destination Jul 25, 2009

Today was a washout at the campground, so I found some places to explore, all in Grant County. It proclaims it's the coolest destination in the Midwest and has been since 1955 when James Dean became a sensation.

Dean was born and raised in Fairmount. There is a museum there with lots of his artifacts on the first floor, except for a room dedicated to the works of Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield. The second floor contains stuff from Fairmount's past from a bone of a Mastadon, arrowheads, school pictures, band uniforms and instruments, and high school trophies. Fairmount also was home to Phil Jones, a CBS News correspondent who was on 48 hours, and Robert Sheets, past Director of the National Hurricane Center. Let us not forget to honor the guy who made and sold the world's first ice cream cone and the guy who made and sold the first hamburger!

Outside the building is a great big Garfield, dressed in the outfit James Dean wore when he crashed his Porsche on his way to a car race in September, 1955. There are other Garfields in other towns in Grant County, so it seemed like a good idea to find the other 9 of them!

Matthews is the town where the Cumberland Covered Bridge is located. During the flood of 1913, the Mississinewa River carried the bridge a mile downstream! It was brought back by horse and rollers and placed 3 feet higher than before. There was a scare with the floods of 1999, but only a few boards were shaken loose, so the town restored it. It's the town's centerpiece after all. Garfield is here, in his fishing gear.

Swayzee is the only town in the world with that name, so they say. Garfield is here ready to play ball, commemorating the big game in 1964 that went into 9 overtime sessions. The boards behind him were taken from the auditorium bleachers - the school is no longer there.

There is a Rails to Trails path in Sweetser with two railroad cars and a caboose to remember the importance of the railroad in its heyday. While I was taking a picture of Garfield here, a woman and her son and dog were walking by. She told me that the first car can be reserved for parties and meetings and that the second car is a kitchen.

Marion is the county seat of Grant County. The employees of Marion General Hospital paid for the Garfield out front dressed as a nurse. The other Garfield that was at a park was vandalized and is being restored. He was dressed in a jogging outfit and carrying a water bottle. Marie Webster lived here and was a great quilter who wrote a book in the early 1900s and had a quilting business in her house. It is now the Quilters Hall of Fame! I didn't pay the admission and go in because it was close to closing time.

There were/will be 4 other Garfields around the county.

In Upland, he will be dressed as an ice cream loving patron of Ivanhoe's, a restaurant in town. The restaurant sent it back because the colors were wrong! Taylor College is in this town. It was a women's college in Fort Wayne before moving here.

In Gas City, he will be dressed in what a worker would have been wearing when this was a boom town. Natural gas was discovered here in 1887, so the town was renamed from Harrisburg. It was said the supply was inexhaustible, and plans were made for this to become a major city. The town grew from 150 to 3622 in 8 years. The gas ran out, the factories and people left, and the land became farm land once again by 1904. The gas lasted only about 15 years!

In Jonesboro, right next to Gas City, Garfield will be dressed as a fireman and standing outside the fire department, since this town had the first volunteer fire department in the county.

In Van Buren, Garfield was in front of the library, standing on a stack of books with the globe in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other wearing the uniform of the high school Aces basketball team. He was vandalized and is gone now. Van Buren is the popcorn capital of the world! They have a big popcorn festival in August of every year! But most of the happenings are farm related - tractor pulls, farm equipment parades, line dancing, etc. Weaver Popcorn Factory sponsors the festival and I would hope they give away popcorn to spectators!