Jan. 28, 2005
Winona Lake, IN
Hello, Brianna!
My name is Richard Barnhart. I live in Winona Lake, IN. I teach Computer Information
Systems at Grace College, which is across the street from my house. Winona Lake (the
water) is one of about 100 lakes in Kosciusko County (Kozz-ee-OS-co County). Many
wealthy people from Chicago have summer homes near the lakes. Chicago is about 100
miles northwest of here.
Winona Lake is right next to Warsaw, IN. The combined population of the two towns is
about 15,000. The main east-west highway is U.S. 30 that goes from Merrillville on
the Illinois border to Ft. Wayne on the Ohio border. Although we have a Wal-Mart,
K-Mart, Penney's and Sears, many people go east to Ft. Wayne or north to Goshen to
shop. It is said that you can find anything you want in 45 minutes; it takes 45
minutes to get to Ft. Wayne, Goshen or Elkhart from here!
Lake Tippecanoe is near here, and the Tippecanoe River runs nearby. In 1811, Gen.
William Henry Harrison won the Battle of Tippecanoe by that river, near Lafayette, IN.
In 1840, he was elected President with the slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too!" John
Tyler was his running mate. At his inauguration in January, 1841, it was very cold.
President Harrison caught pneumonia and died a month later, so Tyler became President.
Harrison was President for the shortest time of any president, and the first to die
in office. Most cities in Indiana have a Harrison Street or Avenue.
Many people in Winona Lake work at one of the biomedical companies nearby. Zimmer,
Biomet and DePuy (dee-pew) all have their facilities here. You may have seen the
commercial on TV where the lady is thankful that she can climb hills because of her
DePuy artificial knee. These three companies make most of the artificial knees, hips
and tooth implants in the world.
Donnelly Printing is also located in Warsaw. They print most of the telephone
directories for the whole country. It is likely that your telephone directory at
home was printed here. There are two other printing companies here as well. We
bought our house from the owner of one of these companies.
Indiana is famous for racing. Indianapolis is about 100 miles south of us. There are
many factories that build automobile transmissions, brakes and electrical systems
in Indiana. The parts are shipped to automobile factories in places like Detroit.
There are many farms in our area. Farmers grow a lot of corn and soybeans. This area
produces most of the eggs sold in Chicago. In the fall, we see many truckloads of
corn going to market.
Winona Lake is known for a preacher named Billy Sunday who held revival meetings here
during the 1930s. People would ride on trains from Chicago to attend these meetings in
a huge "tabernacle," a large wooden building with a sawdust floor. When he would
preach, many people would receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. There is a Billy
Sunday museum here, and his house is part of the museum tour.
Many Christian organizations had their headquarters in Winona Lake up until the
1980s and 90s. One of the Grace College buildings still has "Free Methodist Press"
engraved over the front door. Grace College is affiliated with the Grace Brethren
churches. There are many Brethren, Mennonite and Amish churches in this area. On
some roads, we have to watch out for Amish buggies.
I wish you the best in this class project and I hope you learn a lot.
Richard Barnhart