THE TRI-STATE AREA
By: Stan Jordan
If you have been reading my columns, you have noticed that I refer to this area as the Tri-State area.
All the way south of the Michigan-Ohio line, through Williams, Defiance, Paulding, Van Wert and Mercer. Mercer readers will pick up the West Bend News in that huge Walmart in Van Wert.
They pretty much span from these counties west in this area of I-469. The counties of Steuben and Lagrange can pick up the West Bend for free at the big Walmart on Maysville Rd. In fact all the area that the Fort Wayne television channel and the other counties in Ohio reach all the way south of Angola, Garrett, Butler, Leo, Harlan, Woodburn and Monroeville.
So to me, the Tri-State area is pretty good size piece of land. Yes sir, up where Ohio, Indiana and Michigan come together.
I am very proud to say, I was born in this area and I will probably expire from here also.
Most of the farming ground in the area is average or above. If we have a good spring and can get the seeds in, in time with a rain or so in July or August, the farmers will have a crop. It usually works out that way.
Right now if you live in the area and you want to work, you can find a job, there are some openings.
There are some mighty fine schools in this Tri-State Dekalb area: Angola, Auburn, Leo, Woodlan, Hicksville, Antwerp, Paulding, Wayne Trace, Van Wert and the Vantage Career Center and a lot more.
I read somewhere that the AGCT for the army at the beginning of WWII for this area was 126. Now that is a good score, because at that time you could go to Office Candidate School (OCS) and become a second lieutenant for about a mark of 110, but most of us fellows were only 18 or 19 and didn’t want to be officers.
As for the weather here in the Tri-State, I don’t think you could ask for anything better. We don’t have a lot of snow, like four feet. We have winter, but not excessive. Yes, we have a rainy season, but not that bad. I think our weather here is almost ideal. Generally if we lose our electric power, it is because some drunk driver hit a pole with a transformer on it.
See ya!
PEOPLE WHO REPORT WILDLIFE
By: Stan Jordan
Over the years a lot of people report to me about seeing some of our wildlife, I really appreciate that and I always have time to talk with them.
For instance our United Parcel driver Van Hanenkratt, who covers this area like a blanket, sees wildlife darn near every day and he tells me about it.
We have a Fed Ex lady driver from the Woodburn area and she reports in every once in a while.
I eat my lunch every day at the “O” and these people take care of this old “Sun Downer” but about twice a week someone in there will relay to me about seeing some of our wildlife, and I’m glad to talk to them.
For instance, my friend Monte was telling me about when he was ice fishing back about 1980. He had caught a blue gill and it was laying on the ice and a big male, snowy owl swooped in and grabbed the blue gill and was gone before they knew what happened.
He said they caught another blue gill and it laid out on the ice and that snowy owl flew in and got that one also.
Now 1980 was close the first time that I saw my first snowy owl. A number of people have seen them over south of Antwerp, Payne and Woodburn.
Mr. Bowman was in the other day and he thinks that you take the last curve of Rd 250 where it backs up against the Indiana line and look off to the north in the trees, he says there is an eagles nest up there. I haven’t been up that way yet.
The other day Scott Good came in the office and he was telling me about a bunch of eagles that were eating fish around the dam in Oakwood. I have heard about those eagles before. I am always ready to talk about our wildlife.
See ya!
PLEASE READ THIS
By: Stan Jordan
Years ago Bob Murphy and Bob Thompson were fishing for blue gills up on Hog– Back and Murphy turns to Thompson and said, “I’ve been a thinking.” and Thompson cut him off quick and said, “I’ll do the thinking.”
They are both gone now, but I just wonder if they get together up there and get some fishing in? Those guys were made for each other.
A lot of times, these two guys and Charlie Mull and I would drive up to the bakery in New Haven and have coffee and some good rolls. That lady called our table the farmers’ table, but none of us were farmers.
Thompson was a constructor of bridges, Murphy was a mechanic for Buick and Pontiac, Charlie retired out of Fruehauf Trailer and I was a retired mailman, but we all fished a lot and talked about it.
I guess I’ve been sweeping the cobwebs out of my head, but I sure have a lot of good memories.
See ya!
NAMES OF SOME OF OUR PIONEERS
By: Stan Jordan
Banks, Carr, Crane, Curtis, Woodcox, Woodcock, Snook, Coffelt, Murphy, Munson, Osborne, Pocock, Doering, Long and the list goes on.
As I read the list, a bell goes off in my head from hearing about them or I knew their children. Curtis, both Woodcox families and Wentworth were the first to settle in the area.
General Curtis settled in Crane Township and called it Craneville. He looked ahead and when they started to dig the canal, he built a store and bar down at the south end of Main Street, up against the canal bank.
For years, all the action in Antwerp was down around the canal and Canal Street. The first house was built there and Antwerp’s first baby was born on West Canal Street in 1846, Thomas Wentworth Lincoln.
In 1841 the name Antwerp was selected and then became a town and township, but under the rulings of Williams County.
In 1844 the 6½ mile Hicksville to Antwerp Pike was made to end at the Maumee River.
In the 1850’s and 60’s the mills and factories were going great as Antwerp was a growing metropolis. In those short years the timbers were used up and the canal was disbanded.
For a period of 30 years, the canal was a very busy place. The railroad came to town in the 1850’s and that helped move the business section up around the railroad.
There was an incident I forgot to tell you about, Conrad Slough carried the mail from Fort Wayne to Defiance on horseback in 1844 at a wage of $300.00 per year. He filled out the contract of the previous carrier who was robbed and murdered while on his route. The cemetery on the River Road is named after him, The Slough Cemetery.
The canal was abandoned in 1880 and the reservoir was destroyed with a lot of fan fare in 1888.
See ya!
