Here and Gone
~ by Mark Blackwell
I
expect that most states have their share of odd and unique place names. There is a Ding Dong, Texas— it’ s in Bell County wouldn’ t ya know. Iowa has Slickpoo. Maybe it’ s over populated with geese. Hell is in Michigan and regularly freezes over. Kentucky has both Bugtussle and Rabbit Hash. I won’ t bother to speculate on their origins. And Indiana has more than its share of unusual place names.
To begin with, a good part of South America is represented with towns like Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Buena Vista, and so on. Next door, over in Monroe County, there is a community that is called Hindustan, but I can’ t find much similarity between it and India. They also have a little village called Handy— but it isn’ t.
Over to our southwest is the county of Lawrence with Judah, Buddha, Pinhook and Bono. They kind of sound like the makeup of a British R & R band. You can find Bobtown, Spraytown, and Surprise, due south of us, down in Jackson County. Also, in keeping with Indiana’ s Latin American theme, Jackson County has a Tampico.
These places all have curious names, and I’ m sure they have interesting back stories, but for my money Brown county has them all beat.
How can you beat a name like Gnaw Bone? Or what other mountain-less county would have the audacity to host a Pikes Peak. One would think that a community’ s name would be something uplifting or honorific.
Brown County did try honoring folks by naming towns after them.
The county seat was originally named Jacksonburg for President Andrew Jackson but apparently there was another Jacksonburg somewhere, so the named was changed to Nashville in honor of Andrew Jackson’ s hometown in Tennessee.
And then there is Trevlac. It started out as a small community named Richards but then around 1900 a Colonel Calvert, from Ohio, bought land nearby and built a hotel hoping to turn it into a resort. When the Illinois Central railroad came through in 1905 the Colonel thought it would be good advertising to rename Richards after himself. He made numerous overtures to the state legislature to secure the name change. However, it turned out there was already an established Calvert in Indiana. So, the Colonel settled on Trevlac, Calvert spelled backwards.
A lot of what you get with Brown County place names is a degree of honesty— sometimes brutal honesty. One of those places is Scarce o’ Fat Ridge. The ridge earned its name for being one of the most difficult areas in the county for making a living. It was described in a 1920s Brown County tourist guide as,“ a ridge on which the soil is so unproductive that the undernourished cows have to lean up against the fence to bawl.” It goes on to say,“ The roadway is rough and has many bare rocks and ruts. The slopes are seamed with ravines and present a meatless, barren backbone effect.” That’ s honesty. The same honesty applies to Needmore, and Milk Sick Bottoms. Those names speak for themselves.
Stone Head is a community at the“ T” of Hwy 135 S. and Bellsville Pike where a stone mile and directional marker stood. On the square stone pillar sat the head of a rather dapper gentleman with sideburns and a benign expression.
Further north and east of Nashville there is a spot on top of a hill called Bear Wallow. And if you climbed up the hill in the old days, you could find a bear wallow. Back in the 19 th century, Brown County had a reputation for being an excellent bear habitat. And I have it on good authority that
62 Our Brown County • July / August 2019