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Elkinsville, Indiana: The Town That Was · 6 of 13
Elkinsville, Indiana: The Town That Was
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Institutions as Community: Church, School, Store, Post Office

Elkinsville, Indiana: The Town That Was Elkinsville Editorial Committee
institutions church school store post-office dual-function interdependence

Key Principle

Each Elkinsville institution served dual purposes beyond its nominal function. The church was not only worship but the community's only civic institution — combining social gathering, courtship, welfare distribution, rites of passage, and community governance in one building. The school was not only education but the "social center for folks in Elkinsville proper and the surrounding farms" — hosting pie suppers, ciphering matches, Christmas programs, and the Farmers Institute. The store was not only commerce but the primary site of Saturday social gathering, credit extension, and barter. The post office was not only mail delivery but the economic connector linking subsistence producers to distant markets for hides, sassafras bark, and other cash goods.

Interdependence was the operating principle: when one institution weakened, others absorbed its functions — until they couldn't. The church took on the school building (1958–1964) when the school closed. The mail carrier partially replaced the post office's social function after its 1941 closure. But absorption had limits. When the school closed, the church absorbed some of its gathering function; when the store closed, its Saturday social role was simply gone; when the Corps acquired the church (1965), no institution remained to absorb its total-institution functions.

Why This Matters

The dual-purpose character of each institution meant each loss had compounding effects. Losing the store meant losing not just a place to buy groceries but the primary mechanism of Saturday community gathering and the infrastructure of barter credit that made the subsistence-plus economy viable. Losing the post office in 1941 meant losing not just mail service but the channel connecting subsistence producers to New York markets for hides and sassafras bark.

Raymond Lucas's account captures the concentration of function: "There were no televisions, few books, no cars, and few distractions. It was so much easier to have God as the center of your life." (Chapter: Churches) The church filled roles that in larger towns would be distributed across civic halls, theaters, social clubs, and welfare agencies. This single-institution model made community identity inseparable from church membership — and made the church's loss total in a way that losing a single-function institution would not be.

Good Examples

The church as sole civic institution: The Elkinsville Methodist Episcopal Church (built 1894 by Charles E. Spicer's Supply) hosted the Fourth of July all-day meeting, which was the community's de facto civic holiday — people came from Bedford, Columbus, Bloomington, and Nashville by wagon, horseback, and later Model T's. Preaching, singing, dinner on the grounds, children's games, evening ice cream. Courtship: "It was a place where we all went with our dates instead of watching television or going to picture shows." (Bertha Dunning, Chapter: Churches) Welfare: "People didn't have to ask for help. It was understood that the church people and neighbors would take care of those in need." (Chapter: Family Stories — Lucas) Elder Elza Lucas, the primary Pentecostal minister, and his healing ministry substituted for professional medical care that was fifteen to twenty miles away by horse.

The school's five social functions: Pie suppers at the Elkinsville and Browning schools were standing-room-only events with competitive bidding — fundraisers that doubled as courtship venues and community celebrations. Friday afternoons featured ciphering matches that drew families to watch. Christmas programs brought parents in for poems, plays, and treats. The Farmers Institute organized by County Agent R.E. Grubbs brought students from multiple schools together to exhibit vegetables, jellies, and recite James Whitcomb Riley poems. The school was described as "the social center for folks in Elkinsville proper and the surrounding farms" and "school more than any other institution promoted a coming together for all of us in the community." (Chapter: Schools)

The post office as market connector: Bertha Followell's post office (1926–1941) was the shipping depot for the community's cash-earning goods: hides and sassafras bark boxed and mailed to New York buyers, payment checks returned within ten to fifteen days. Postal rates of three cents per letter made small-parcel commerce viable. Storytelling and coffee behind the counter made it a de facto community center. After its closure, mail carrier Clarence Aynes partially replaced these functions — buying cattle and produce from farmers, providing financial help when families faced medical bills — but informal substitution could not fully replicate an official institution with fixed operating hours and postal connections to distant markets. (Chapter: Post Office; Family Stories — Followell)

Counterpoints

The store's dual function also made it fragile: The general store's social role depended on the proprietor's physical presence and health. Without telephone service, proprietors drove to Bloomington and Columbus weekly to restock — a personal-supply model that made the store dependent on one individual. When Mae Whittle "hated being so far away from the doctors and her family," the family left and the store changed hands again. The Elkinsville store changed hands at least seven times: Browning, Hedrick, Duncan, Followell, Wilkerson, Bocock, Deckard — each transition breaking the chain of trust-based credit relationships. Fire destroyed the institution twice. (Chapter: General Stores)

Being saved was a communal rite with coercive elements: The church's total-institution character meant it also governed social standing. Salvation was defined as "a 'Rite of Passage' from a sinful life to a Christian life in the eyes of the Lord, of the church, and the community" — communal recognition was required. The church arbitrated social standing in a community with no other formal civic institution. This was the same concentration that made it irreplaceable and that made its loss total.

Institutional closure cascades had begun before the Corps arrived: The post office closed in 1941 — eighteen years before Corps land purchasing began. The school closed in spring 1958 — a year before 1959 land acquisition started. By the time the Corps acted, the social infrastructure was already significantly weakened. The cascading process was underway before federal intervention; the Corps accelerated and completed a dissolution that had structural economic roots. (Chapter: Schools; Post Office)

Key Quotes

"The Elkinsville School was the social center for folks in Elkinsville proper and the surrounding farms. The school naturally brought us kids together for seven years of teaching, learning, growing and interacting in a social situation." — Elkinsville Editorial Committee, Chapter: Schools

"There were no televisions, few books, no cars, and few distractions. It was so much easier to have God as the center of your life." — Elkinsville Editorial Committee, Chapter: Churches (Raymond Lucas via Carol Cummings)

"Roy and Bertha were more than postmasters over a 15-year period. They were friends and neighbors, working hard and raising not only three sons, but doing a great amount of farming as well." — Elkinsville Editorial Committee, Chapter: Post Office

"But more than a store, Story represented a niche in time. A way of life — a feeling of community." — Elkinsville Editorial Committee, Chapter: General Stores (Robert Cross)

Rules of Thumb

  • Catalog an institution's secondary functions before its primary one — the secondary functions are what communities lose permanently when the institution closes.
  • Institutions that absorb others' functions after closure are themselves at higher risk: the church that absorbed the school's civic role became a larger target for displacement.
  • When the last multi-function institution in a community is lost, the functions it was absorbing are lost simultaneously — the loss is not additive but multiplicative.
  • Single-point-of-failure institutions (dependent on one proprietor's health, one family's tenure) should be analyzed for their fragility, not just their role.

Related References