Renner is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

American

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

Blackford County Blackford County is located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Indiana. The county is named for Judge Isaac Blackford, who was the first speaker of the Indiana General Assembly and a long-time chief justice of the Indiana Supreme ...

.Blackford County Historical Society's "Ghost Towns in Blackford County, Indiana". Although Renner has been listed as a “populated place” by the U.S. Geological Survey, this description is misleading. Renner was a railroad stop on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad. The land around the railroad stop was originally used to supply timber for railroad crossties, and eventually became a livestock farm. Housing for the families of the employees of the livestock farm was also located nearby. Although it is not known for certain, Renner is thought to have been named for railroad executive John W. Renner. Renner was an executive of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad, and later the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

, and retired with over 50 years of railroad experience. Another community, Rennerdale, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor in 1895. The farm adjacent to the Renner railroad station was owned by Benjamin Johnson. It became known as the Renner Livestock Farm in the early 1890s, and produced prize-winning Hereford cattle, Hampshire hogs, and

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

s – including the horse “Poetry of Motion”, a champion show horse.Shinn, p. 36.
Portions of Shinn’s book have been reproduced on web pages.
/ref> Livestock were shipped from the Renner station, and the railroad made as many as four stops per day. In the early 1900s, the Renner station was considered one of the principle railroad stations in Blackford County. In 1919, Johnson sold all the farm's livestock, and then sold the farm. The farm was purchased by Fred A. Stimson. Stimson had purchased some of the Renner Stock Farm's cattle, and returned them to the Renner Stock Farm. He successfully continued the farm's tradition of award-winning livestock. Early in 1927, Stimson sold the cattle, and general farming was practiced afterward. In 1937, the farm was sold to the Scripps Foundation in connection with

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

(Oxford Ohio).

History

The Renner railroad stop was located in Blackford County's Licking Township, northwest of Hartford City. (See railroad map herein.) The Renner railroad station was used by the nearby Renner Stock Farm to ship

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

all over the world. Although the rail line came to Blackford County in 1867, the farm was not started until the early 1890s. The Renner Stock Farm is credited as the originator of the

beef cattle Beef cattle are cattle raised for meat production (as distinguished from dairy cattle, used for milk production). The meat of mature or almost mature cattle is mostly known as beef. In beef production there are three main stages: cow-calf operat ...

breed of Polled

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...

known as the Bullion 4th.

Railroad

The

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line that ran through Renner was named Union and Logansport Railroad Company by the time it entered Blackford County in 1867, and it was the county’s first railroad. This line was proposed in 1862, and completed to Hartford City in 1867 — running through the

communities of

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Converse Converse may refer to: Mathematics and logic * Converse (logic), the result of reversing the two parts of a definite or implicational statement ** Converse implication, the converse of a material implication ** Converse nonimplication, a logical c ...

, Millgrove, Hartford City, and eventually Renner. The railroad was eventually named Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad.''Biographical and historical record of Jay and Blackford Counties...,'' pp. 759-760. Other names for the railroad since that time include the Panhandle division of the

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

, and

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

. The line is now abandoned east of Hartford City, but still in place west of the city through Renner to

Upland, Indiana Upland (pronounced as "up-land") is a town in Jefferson Township, Grant County, Indiana, United States. The population was 3,845 at the 2010 census. It is most notable for being the home of Taylor University, a Christian college with 2,103 studen ...

Geography

250px, Blackford County railroads 1890s Renner is in

East Central Indiana East Central Indiana is a region in Indiana east of Indianapolis, Indiana, and borders the Ohio state line. The Indiana Gas Boom, which took place during the 1890s, changed much of the area from small agricultural communities to larger cities wi ...

, northwest of Hartford City. The northern half of Indiana, including what became Licking Township and Renner, was flattened by two

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s millions of years ago. These glaciers are also responsible for the rich Blackford County farmland. The region is still

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

-oriented.

Soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

s and

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

are the most popular crops grown in Blackford County, and over are devoted to these two crops.

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

's Indiana CropMA
web site.
/ref> Additional crops and livestock are also grown in the county. A farm still exists in the area, and can be seen via satellite, but the railroad station is gone.

Major highways

Interstate 69 Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway in the United States currently consisting of 10 unconnected segments with an original continuous segment from Indianapolis, Indiana, northeast to the Canadian border in Port Huron, Michigan, at ...

(approximately west)

Adjacent cities

* Upland (about 4 highway miles west) * Hartford City (about 5 highway miles southeast) *

Gas City Gas City is a city in Grant County, Indiana, along the Mississinewa River. The population was 5,965 at the 2010 census. History Gas City was first known as Harrisburg when settled on May 25, 1867, by Noah Harris. It became something of a boom tow ...

(about 10 highway miles west) *

Marion Marion may refer to: People *Marion (given name) *Marion (surname) *Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion" *Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992) Places Antarctica * Mario ...

(about 18 highway miles northwest) *

Muncie Muncie ( ) is an incorporated city and the seat of Delaware County, Indiana. Previously known as Buckongahelas Town, named after the legendary Delaware Chief.http://www.delawarecountyhistory.org/history/docs/lenape-villages.pdf It is located in ...

(about 26 highway miles southeast)

Notes and references

Notes

References

* * * * * * * {{Authority control Former populated places in Indiana Former populated places in Blackford County, Indiana