Historical Markers

Historical MemorialsThe Flag Pole

events used to center at the flag pole: the community Christmas tree, VeteransDay memorial, the weekly town band concerts, and community movies. The townPump and watering trough was located near this site. From The Community ClubMinutes, it was recorded that Ora Hawkins was mostly in charge of thearrangements for the annual Veterans Day memorial. Community Club wouldcanvass the business owners to see if they would like to have a summer concertseries or movies.Either weekly free concerts or free movies were organized for the summermonths. The movie screen was hung at the flag pole, water tower, in front of thechurch or lodge hall, facing the west side of the hardware store, or down at theold ball diamond.They would close South Glick Street and make popcorn.A historical community site located in Mulberry was the flag pole. Many community

Bud Harshman can remember playing for the Community Band in Mulberry. Heplayed clarinet. He remembers playing with Cleveland "Gravy" Combs whoplayed bass drum, Sylvester "Vester or Lil Doc" Earhart played snare drum, andtheir director was Karl Kraft from Kraft Music in Frankfort. The stage was at theflagpole on a trailer as the permanent band stand was no longer there or theywould march in parades for community events all around. *

Mulberry CommunityBand at the Mulberry Homecoming; Vester “Doc” Earhart – Far Right

Joanne Dellinger played clarinet in two bands, Karl Kraft's band and the BeardBand. She remembers playing with Gordon Merts who also played clarinet.Madison Chester Peters, Joanne’s father played Coronet, Trumpet, Baritone andBass Horn. Chester was also called on to play Taps at memorials. The bandsplayed in local parades and played all around. Her sister, Mary Caroline Bennettplayed trombone and also played for Freddie Shaffer's All Girl Orchestra, theMulberry School Orchestra, and for the Methodist Church Sunday SchoolOrchestra. This musical family played at home for fun; their mother, SadieFlorence (Combs) Peters, played piano.

Mulberry Community Band with*

Cleveland “Gravy” Combs, his daughter Mariam, Vester “Doc” Earhart, and Lloyd Neher Jr.

Lloyd Neher Jr. played the snare drum. He learned to play drums in the MulberrySchool Orchestra but learned more from Vester Earhart who was in the MulberryBand with him. Mulberry School only had an orchestra at that time and did nothave a band, so the Mulberry Band was another option for playing. Sylvester

Earhart was a neighbor to Nehers. He never married and was full of storiesabout when he played the drums for a national touring circus. Vester told Lloydthat he ran away to join the circus when he was 13 or 14 years old. He playedsnare drum for many years in a nationally touring circus. Lloyd rememberedseeing the colorful circus posters on Vester’s back porch.

State Road 38 – The Jackson Highway

State Road 38 Runs diagonally through the business district in Mulberry, parallelwith the rail road tracks. SR 38 connects Lafayette (beginning at US 52 with aninterchange at Interstate 65 at Exit 168) and Richmond (ending at US 35). Longago, this was called Dayton Pike and then the Dayton Gravel. When it wasgraveled, it required a toll to use. This road was also known as the JacksonHighway, a main route from Chicago to Florida. Bud Harshman remembersMontmorency to Route 10 was an extension of the same Jackson Highwayroute. The Jackson Highway was a main route from Chicago to Florida.

*Picturetaken from Russ Stair’s plane, 1931

East of the Clendenning Brothers Hardware Store was the Jackson HighwayGarage. It was a Chevrolet sales and service dealership named after theJackson Highway. The streets in Mulberry along Jackson Street were dirt. Theyput oil put on them to keep the dust down. No housekeeper was happy about theroads in town tracking up their floors. The Mulberry Centennial Book says thatthere was much traffic from Chicago to Indianapolis, especially during theIndianapolis 500 Race.Bud remembers that during World War II there was a 35mile per hour speed limit on all county and state roads to conserve gasoline.Before there was such a thing as a road atlas, there was a Blue Book fordirections. It included landmarks like trees or large rocks in the directions.Montmorency to Route 10 was an extension of the same Jackson Highwayroute. Bud also remembers when gasoline was rationed. Bud said, “An A stickergot 4 gallons of gas and everyone could get one A sticker. You could get a Csticker then for as much gas as you could justify.”