Huntington, INJul 23, 2009
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amazing sizes of buildings!
Huntington County Courthouse
Wabash River - there used to be buildings on this point
I came through this town with skinny streets on my way to Decatur and thought buildings were interesting, so I cam back to visit and see what's here. The Wabash River flows through the city and I read that the Wabash and Erie (!!!) Canal came through here before the railroads. But once the railroad came through town, the canal was abandoned.
The traditional churches are big, elaborate buildings, but so is the funeral home! The Huntington Court House takes up a whole block. Citizens are proud that the town is where Dan Quayle comes from. He started his campaign as George H. W. Bush's running mate here and over 12,000 people filled up the streets here to see them together.
There is an unassuming building near the central school and library called the Dan Quayle Center and is the home of the United States Vice Presidential Museum, the only one in the country! Vice Presidents are "second to one"! The lower level of this museum has a plaque with a picture and a story or two about each of the 47 Vice Presidents (remember, Obama is out 44th President). There are also original newspaper articles and other artifacts pertinent to some of the VPs. I hurried my picture taking and found that most of them came out blurry. So, I can't bore you with lots of pictures of plaques. Our Vice Presidents have interesting stories and history making activities, though! The upstairs is all about Dan Quayle's life. Did you know that he met his wife, Marilyn, while they were both in law school in Indianapolis and that they got married 8 or 10 weeks later? The museum talks about his family values and how they were in the spotlight when he gave a speech and mentioned how values are going downhill and TV isn't helping by having Murphy Brown have a baby without a father. It also shows a cartoon where his spelling of "potato" while he was at a school's spelling bee was wrong. But it also has Jefferson with the Declaration of Independence in 1801 and Lincoln giving his Gettysburg Address in 1858! Ha!
