The Little Wabash Bottomlands

The area around Golden Gate and the Fisher homestead consists of river bottomland where the Little Wabash has changed it's course and has flooded over the ages. These bottomlands run roughly parallel to the river as best I could tell.

Gravel roads cross the bottoms, and it is usually a half mile or so from ridge to ridge. However, the bottomland run for miles in the east-west direction... as far as the eye can see.

These bottomlands are farmed, but flooding is to be expected. It's so expected that no attempt has been made to pave any of the roads in the area, as asphalt would just be washed out whenever these bottoms fill with floodwaters and the water starts a sheet flow alongside the river.

I was almost expecting a Mississippi bluesman to appear in the middle of one of these crossings.

I was impressed how mom's Saturn wagon handled the gravel roads. It cleaned right up after the trip. The roads were dry, but you could still see water standing where the recent flooding had occcured. That's the same basic flooding we all heard about in the southwest Indiana environs.

The second picture shows the site of the old schoolhouse (Chandler School) where the Fisher girls (and their aunt Hattie) went to school. The school has been recently torn down, but the farmer (or the school district) has generously left a triangular patch of grass where the school once stood.

Although the Fisher homestead is well into Wayne County to the west of Edwards County, the area has always been included in the school district made up of mostly Albion and Edwards County communities and schools. The river's natural boundary, although not determining the border of the two counties, still helped to shape the school district service areas.