Indiana Off the Beaten Path® by Jackie Sheckler Finch

Author:Jackie Sheckler Finch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493053568
Publisher: Globe Pequot

Presiding over Clarksville is the town’s own version of London’s Big Ben. The main building of the former Colgate-Palmolive plant at State and Woerner Streets is topped by the second-largest clock in the world, which is a monstrous 40 feet in diameter and has a 16-foot-long hour hand that weighs 500 pounds. (The largest clock in the world, 50 feet in diameter, sits on the former site of a Colgate plant in Jersey City, New Jersey.) No one in Clarksville gets away with saying he doesn’t know the time—the electric-powered clock is said to be accurate to within 15 seconds a month, the clock’s face can be read from a distance of 2.5 miles, and the clock is illuminated at night by red neon tubes.

Until 1931, the Howard Shipyards were in Jeffersonville. During their 107 years in business, the yards produced some 3,000 steamboats, reported to be the finest ever to ply the waters of North and Central America. The J. M. White, the most luxurious steamboat in history, was built here, as were the Glendy Burke, which inspired the Stephen Foster song of the same name; the City of Louisville, the fastest steamboat ever built; and the Cape Girardeau, captured on film for all time in Gone with the Wind.

The steamboat era was flourishing in the 1890s when construction began on the elaborate twenty-two-room Howard mansion at 1101 E. Market St. that today houses the Howard Steamboat Museum. A striking late-Victorian structure, the house features stained- and leaded-glass windows, a Moorish-style music room that contains its original Louis XV furniture, and intricate embellishments that were hand-carved from fifteen types of wood.

You can see all this today, plus a priceless collection of relics that played a role in the golden era of steamboating, miniature models of Howard-built steamboats, and rooms furnished like staterooms on the finest turn-of-the-twentieth-century boats. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 1–3 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday and major holidays. Admission: adults $10; senior citizens $8; students (age six through college) $5. For further details, write the Clark County Historical Society at PO Box 606, Jeffersonville 47131; call (812) 283-3728 or (888) 472-0606; howardsteamboatmuseum.org.

An old-fashioned candy store complete with soda fountain and tin ceiling, Schimpff’s Confectionery in Jeffersonville, open since 1891, is one of the oldest continuously operated family-owned candy businesses in the country. Its cinnamon red-hot squares are a particular favorite, ordered through the mail by people from around the world. All candies are handmade, just as they were a century ago. They’re all scrumptious, and the ice cream’s good, too! There’s even a free candy museum to explore. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; a lunch counter serves soups, sandwiches, and homemade pies. from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Located at 347 Spring St.; (812) 283-8367; schimpffs.com.

Something’s always going on at the 550-acre Huber Farm near Borden. Officially billed as the Huber Orchard, Winery, and Vineyards, it’s open to the public year-round.

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