Lyles or Lyles Station is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Patoka Township,
Gibson County,
Indiana
Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
. The community dates from 1849, although its early settlers first arrived in the 1830s, and it was formally named Lyles Station in 1886 to honor
Joshua Lyles, a free African American who migrated with his family from
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
to Indiana around 1837. Lyles Station is one of Indiana's early black rural settlements and the only one remaining. The
rural settlement
The definition of a rural settlement depends on the country, in some countries, a rural settlement is any settlement in the areas defined as rural by a governmental office, e.g., by the national census bureau. This may include even rural towns. ...
reached its peak in the years between 1880 and 1912, when major structures in the community included the railroad depot, a post office, a lumber mill, two general stores, two churches, and a school. By the turn of the twentieth century, Lyles Station had fifty-five homes, with a population of more than 800 people. The farming community never fully recovered from the
Great Flood of 1913
The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and ...
, which destroyed much of the town. Most of its residents left for economic reasons, seeking opportunities for higher paying jobs and additional education in larger cities. By 1997 approximately fifteen families remained at Lyles Station, nearly all of them descended from the original settlers.
Although most of Indiana's black rural settlements no longer exist as self-contained communities, Lyles Station continues. The restored
Lyles Consolidated School building, which serves as a local living history museum and a community center, and the Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, are two remaining points of interest in Lyles Station.
The "Power of Place" exhibition in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which opened in 2016, features Lyles Station as part of its exhibition on black rural communities in the Midwest. The exhibit includes hundreds of items from the Lyles Station area, including a horse-drawn plow used by Joshua Lyles, clothing, a quilt, and soil from the Greer family farm which has been farmed by the Greer family for over 150 years.
Geography
Lyles Station is located in
Patoka Township, Gibson County, Indiana,
at , approximately west of
Princeton
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...
, in the southwestern part of the state.
By 1900, the settlement bordered the Patoka River on the north; old U.S. 41 on the east; Indiana State Route 64 on the south; and the boundary line with the
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
state line on the west.
Its proximity to the
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
,
Patoka, and
Wabash Rivers, makes it especially susceptible to flooding.
Demographics
Lyles Station, whose early settlers arrived in the 1830s, dates from 1849 and is one of Indiana's early first black rural settlements. As of 2008 it is the only one remaining.
Two other black rural settlements were established nearby: Roundtree, north of Lyles Station, and Sand Hill, two miles south.
[Lyles, "The Story of Lyles Station, Indiana", p. 5.] By the turn of the century, with approximately 800 residents, Lyles Station reached its peak as an active farming community. Lyles Station's population declined after a major flood in 1913; few residents and homes remain.
History
Lyles Station is named in honor of Joshua Lyles (alternate spelling of Liles or Lisles), who was a free African American born around 1800, in
Henry County, Virginia
Henry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 50,948. The county seat is usually identified as Martinsville; however, the administration building (where county offices are located ...
.
[The Registry of Negroes in Gibson County, Indiana (Patoka township), ca. 1852.] He moved with his family to
Montgomery County, Tennessee
Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 220,069. The county seat (and only incorporated municipality) is Clarksville. The county was created in 1796. Montgomery Cou ...
, as a boy and was raised in
Springfield, Tennessee
Springfield is the county seat of Robertson County, Tennessee, United States. It is located in Middle Tennessee near the northern border of the state. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 18,782.
History
US 431 and US 4 ...
. Joshua and his wife, Carparta (Clara), migrated to
Indiana
Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
around 1837. (Six of the couple's thirteen children were born in Tennessee, before their departure.)
[
Numerous articles written about Joshua Lyles assert, without any evidentiary verification, that he was born a slave and freed when he was twenty-eight years old. More recent scholarship citing archival records in ]Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
, Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
, and Indiana provides documentation of family members' status as free persons. A reprint of an ''Indianapolis News
The ''Indianapolis News'' was an evening newspaper published for 130 years, beginning December 7, 1869, and ending on October 1, 1999.
The "Great Hoosier Daily," as it was known, at one time held the largest circulation in the state of Indiana. ...
'' article appearing in the ''Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel'' on July 26, 1902, may have initiated the information about Joshua Lyles being a freed slave.
Joshua Lyles was among the community's early pioneer settlers. He arrived about 1837 with members of his family. The Lyles family bought land near the confluence of the White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, Patoka, and Wabash Rivers in what is now Patoka Township, Gibson County, Indiana. Joshua and his father, John, are listed in the 1840 census for the township as two of ten free black men who were heads of household.[Polk, "The Truth About Joshua Lyles", pp. 33–34.] The other free black men listed as heads of households in the township's 1840 census were Nelson Bass, Joel Stewart, John A. Morland, Robert Cole, Banister Chaves, Thomas McDaniel, Isaac Williams, and Duke Anderson.[Polk, "The Truth About Joshua Lyles", p. 36.]
Joshua Lyles appeared to have been a successful farmer by 1850. The Agricultural Schedule for the 1850 census identifies Joshua Lyles as the owner of of land, of improved land and unimproved, with a farm valued at $500. Farm implements were valued at $10, the estimated value of his livestock at $247, and the value of the animals slaughtered was assessed at $99. The Schedule also indicates that the previous year (1849), Lyles had 4 horses, 10 cows, and 50 hogs. The Lyles farm produced of butter, of maple sugar, of honey, and 500 bushels of Indian corn.[U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka township, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M432 147, page 6, image 12, Joshua Lyles household.][Agricultural Schedule to U.S. Census of 1850, Gibson County, Indiana.] Joshua Lyles continued farming in Gibson County, eventually increasing his holdings to . He died in 1885.[Lyles, "The Story of Lyles Station, Indiana", p. 4, and Polk, "The Truth About Joshua Lyles", p. 37.] In addition to Joshua, some of his siblings, and his father, three more of Lyles's siblings had moved to the Patoka Township community by the 1860s.[
Shortly after the ]Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
, Joshua Lyles returned to Tennessee to encourage family friends, free blacks, and newly emancipated slaves to settle in Indiana.[ He also provided land to further the settlement's development. In 1864 Lyles donated the land to build a subscription school in the community.][ In 1866 the community was granted a U.S. post office, which was replaced with rural route delivery service in 1917.][ Thomas Cole, another early settler, donated of land for the community's first cemetery.][ In 1870 Joshua Lyles donated of land to the Airline Railroad. In exchange, the railroad built a train station that provided the community with the means to export crops outside the local area. The railroad also offered passenger and mail service, which helped to speed up the settlement's growth.][
Lyles Station reached its peak in the years between 1880 and 1912, when major structures in the community included the railroad depot, a post office, a lumber mill, a school, two churches, and two general stores.] The community incorporated and was formally named Lyles Station in 1886 in honor of Joshua Lyles. By the turn of the twentieth century, the settlement had fifty-five homes, with a population of more than 800 people.[
Unusually heavy rains in the ]Midwest
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
caused the White, Wabash, and Patoka Rivers to overflow their banks during the Great Flood of 1913
The Great Flood of 1913 occurred between March 23 and March 26, after major rivers in the central and eastern United States flooded from runoff and several days of heavy rain. Related deaths and damage in the United States were widespread and ...
. The catastrophic flood destroyed much of Lyles Station.[ The community never fully recovered from the flood. Most of its residents left for economic reasons. Agriculture trends favored large farming operations over the small family farms such as those at Lyles Station. Former residents sought a less risky existence and better opportunities for higher paying jobs and additional education in larger cities.][Lyles, "The Story of Lyles Station, Indiana", pp. 5–6.] By 1997 approximately fifteen families remained at Lyles Station, nearly all of them descended from the original settlers.[ About six families remain in Lyles Station as of mid-2007.
Although most of Indiana's black rural settlements no longer exist as self-contained communities, Lyles Station continues. The community hosts annual reunions and its advocacy group, the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation, preserves its heritage.] The National Museum of African American History and Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), colloquially known as the Blacksonian, is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in 2003 an ...
, slated to open its new building in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, in 2016, plans to feature Lyles Station as part of its exhibition on black rural communities in the Midwest.
Education
The first school in what became Lyles Stations was subscription school, where parents paid a fee for their children to attend. Established about 1865, its classes were held in a local church building. The community's second school, a three-room schoolhouse, replaced the earlier school. It was built across the road from the Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church.["History", Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation website, and Lyles, "The Story of Lyles Station, Indiana", p. 5.]
Lyles Consolidated School, which now serves as a community center and museum, was Lyles Station's third school. Although the population of Lyles Station declined after the flood of 1913, a new school was erected to educate the remaining children of the community, when older schools at Lyles Station and nearby Sand Hill and Sugar Bluff were closed as part of a statewide trend towards school consolidation. The school opened in 1919 and was an integrated school until 1922, when it became an all-black public school. (White students were enrolled at Baldwin Heights School in Patoka Township.) Lyles Stations's school was integrated once again in the 1950s; it closed in 1958 due to declining enrollment.
Following its formation in 1997, the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation began plans to restore Lyles Consolidated School for use as a local heritage classroom, living history museum
A living museum, also known as a living history museum, is a type of museum which recreates historical settings to simulate a past time period, providing visitors with an Experiential education, experiential Heritage interpretation, interpretatio ...
, and community center. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1999. After decades of deterioration, fundraising efforts and additional grants provided the financial resources needed to restore the school building to serve as a community gathering place and museum.[
]
Religion
Two churches were established at Lyles Station: Hardshell Baptist Church and Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan theology, Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, connexional polity. It ...
.[ As of 2008 Wayman Chapel AME Church continued to hold regular Sunday services, with an average attendance of fifteen to twenty people. It is the only remaining AME church in Indiana that is located in an agricultural community.
]
Transportation
The Lyles Station train depot for the Louisville-Saint Louis Railroad line, a division of the Southern Railway, provided the community with access to a wider area. Freight, passenger, and mail service also helped increase the settlement's growth. Passenger service at the local depot was discontinued after the community's population declined.[ A ]Norfolk Southern
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
railway line runs along the north of the site.
Points of interest
The restored Lyles Consolidated School building, which serves as a community center and local history museum, and the Wayman Chapel AME Church, are two remaining points of interest in Lyles Station to remind residents and visitor of its heritage as one of Indiana's early rural black communities.
While the Gibson Community Foundation helped with funding for the building restoration, the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation also received grants from the United States Department of Agriculture & Build Indiana. The corporation chose two individuals noted as being experts in physical restoration to lead the project: Architect George Ridgway and contractor Jeffrrey Koester.
Notable people
* Alonzo Fields, the first African American chief butler of the White House, served for twenty-one years under presidents Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
, Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
, and Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
.
* Aaron R. Fisher
Aaron Richard Fisher (May 14, 1895 – November 22, 1985) was an American soldier. He served more than thirty years in the U.S. Army (1911–1947) and was a recipient of several military awards, most notably the Distinguished Service Cross and P ...
, a World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
veteran, was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross.
* Vertus Hardiman, a victim of a U.S. government human radiation experiment at the age of five that left him with a painful skull deformity, became the subject of a documentary film, "Hole in the Head: A Life Revealed".
* Matthias Nolcox was the first principal of Crispus Attucks High School
Crispus Attucks High School (also known as Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet High School) is a public high school of Indianapolis Public Schools in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. Its namesake, Crispus Attucks (c.1723 – March 5, 1770), was an Africa ...
in Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
.
* Reverend Lyman Parks was the first African American mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...
.[Lyles, ''Lyles Station, Indiana'', p. 34.]
Notes
References
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* United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census of 1850, Agricultural Schedule for Gibson County, Indiana.
* United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka Township, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M432 147, page 6, image 12.
*
External links
Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation
website
{{Authority control
Evansville metropolitan area
Unincorporated communities in Gibson County, Indiana
Communities of Southwestern Indiana
Unincorporated communities in Indiana
Populated places established in 1849
1849 establishments in Indiana
Populated places established by African Americans