Elkinsville Road winds its way deep into the Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana. Near the end of the road you will find an old barn and a stone marker for “The Town That Was”. It stands like a tombstone for the town of Elkinsville. The town was founded in 1860 by William Elkin. The rural farming village survived in the beautiful remote wilderness for about a century. It never grew into a large city, but it did have several houses along with a church, school, blacksmith and a post office. As the population of Bloomington grew, it was necessary to have a large source of drinking water.
In the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to dam the Salt Creek and create Lake Monroe water reservoir. They determined that the town of Elkinsville would be in the floodplain and be underwater. In 1964, the government, using eminent domain, acquired the private property belonging to the citizens and businesses of Elkinsville. Most of the houses and buildings were moved or demolished before the reservoir was created.
When Lake Monroe was created and the water stopped rising, the land where the town of Elkinsville remained above water. The elevation of the town had been miscalculated, and it was not necessary to disband the town, but by then it was too late, and the town had already been removed from the Indiana forest. In 2003, the former residents raised enough funds to erect a stone to remember the town. On it is a poem: “That day we moved, we’ll never forget, as goodbyes were said and the sun set. Never again in these hills we’ll roam, but in our hearts this is always home.”
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