Page 145 - Demo

143Afterwordhen we were driving around southern Indiana for our first photography book, Lingering Spirit, six years ago, Lynn suggested we ought to do our next one on transportation. To which I responded, %u201cI don%u2019t think there would be much to photograph.%u201d So, we worked on other books, with other themes. And, as we worked on them, I came to see what a good idea she%u2019d had%u2014and how varied such a book could be. As we started to really get into this project, we found not only relics and ruins of automobiles and trucks (and service stations and garages), but the remains of canals, railroads, interurbans, riverboats, even airports. I%u2019d always known, of course, that, in time, vehicles rust and wear out%u2014then they%u2019re usually junked for scrap. And, that their infrastructure%u2014factories, depots, canal locks, railroad bridges%u2014eventually get sold, reused, or torn down. But what truly surprised me was how much remained%u2014how much had simply been walked away from, to sit idle, derelict, and nearly forgotten. In the end, we discovered so much related to Indiana%u2019s transportation heritage, that we had more images to sort through than for any previous book we%u2019ve done.For me, two Hoosiers, whose combined lives spanned a mere century, illustrate the many changes transportation has undergone in Indiana%u2019s brief history%u2014Wilbur Wright and Gus Grissom.In 1867, just two years after Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon, Wilbur Wright was born near Millville, Indiana in a tiny farmhouse on a little-traveled, rutted, dirt road. At the time, Indiana%u2019s canals were becoming pass%u00e9, and railroads were expanding, yet most Hoosiers still traveled on foot, or relied on animal power. As a young man, when the very first horseless carriages were being built by hand, Wilbur, along with his brother Orville, envisioned an even more amazing means of transport%u2014the flying machine. Orville Wright was a high-school dropout. Wilbur completed his required courses, but moved with his family to Ohio so abruptly he never received his diploma. Despite lackWFull-size, authentic reproduction of the Wright Flyer%u2014Wilbur Wright Birthplace, near Millville, Henry Co. (886.15)