>> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> BRANDON: Coming up, travel to Parke County for a look inside a remarkable historic property.

>> ASHLEY: Check out some happy little trees right here in Muncie.

>> BRANDON: Visit a town in northwest Indiana, once featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not.

>> ASHLEY: And meet an Indiana artist who celebrates her heritage in her work.

That's all on this episode of: >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana"!

♪ >> ASHLEY: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Ashley Chilla.

>> BRANDON: And I'm Brandon Wentz.

And we're coming to you from Minnetrista.

Located in Muncie, just east of Ball State University, Minnetrista is home to a museum, trails, gardens, and some incredible historic homes, all on a 40-acre campus.

It truly is a gem here in Delaware County, and we'll learn all about it in just a bit.

>> ASHLEY: But first, we're headed to the small town of Rockville, where producer John Timm has the story behind the Indiana State Sanatorium.

♪ >> The restoration of historical buildings really gives you an insight into how people lived 100, 150 years ago.

♪ A lot of the older buildings are so much better built than modern buildings are.

♪ I have undertooken several restorations of historic homes.

I've owned large properties before.

I am a civil engineer by profession, and kind of a restoration, historical restorationist by hobby/passion.

♪ My interest in the Indiana State Sanatorium was primarily its location in Indiana, and its just natural beauty.

It rivals state parks in the beauty of its landscape.

It has massive state-built infrastructure, roads, power plants, houses, buildings.

It was the whole package, but also being able to open a new business in Indiana was a big part of it.

The Indiana State Sanatorium was opened up as the Indiana State Tuberculosis Hospital in the early 1900s.

>> All over this broad land of ours, a bitter war is being fought against tuberculosis.

>> It had about 300 tuberculosis patients.

They built a state-of-the-art facility out here in rural Indiana to care for tuberculosis patients and quarantine them from the general population of the state.

The site was originally 600 acres.

It was a self-contained town.

It had its own schools, stores, dairy, orchards, farm fields.

The staff lived on the site with the patients, and it was quite an endeavor.

♪ The site closed in 1968, and was opened again as Lee Alan Bryant Nursing Home Mental Hospital in 1976, and it stayed open until 2011.

In 2011, the site closed again, and was abandoned until we took over in early 2021.

♪ ♪ This is far and away the largest project that we've taken on.

Currently, we have about 220 acres.

We have dozens of buildings.

We have hundreds of thousands of square feet under roof.

We're working to get the entire site on the National Historic Registry as a district, and we'll be restoring all the buildings.

The reason to get on the National Historic Registry is multiple.

The federal government gives a 20% tax credit on money that was spent towards historical restoration.

Having a property on the National Historic Registry also brings tourism.

It's a -- it's a nice marketing bonus.

There are about 20 buildings on the site.

Seven houses, three main hospital buildings, lots of ancillary structures, small garages.

We are sitting in the Indiana State Sanatorium dairy barn, a 14,000 square foot banked barn that was designed by Purdue University in 1914, and then built by the State of Indiana as a model dairy barn.

This facility provided milk products to the Indiana State Sanatorium and the Indiana School for the Blind.

>> The grand plan for this dairy barn is to be an indoor facility that up to 1,000 people can utilize.

We have already been contacted by several different groups to hold weddings here.

We are hosting the local prom here next spring.

We've already talked to music promoters about hosting live music events in here.

♪ >> Some of the other major buildings on the site are the 1908 administration building, about 35,000 square feet that was built in several stages that originally housed the doctors and nurses, the pharmacy, the kitchens for the facility.

>> First time I walked into it, I thought it was a hotel.

I didn't realize it was just admin.

The plans for that building is to turn it into short-term housing, kind of like a hotel.

It will probably have about 24 rooms.

>> There was the five-story building that was built during the tuberculosis era that was dormitories for tuberculosis hospital staff.

There is a modern-ish 1980s era nursing home, an 80-bed nursing home.

So there are lots of major buildings on the site.

♪ >> After we bought the property, someone came and contacted us about doing paranormal investigations here.

The buildings are all still standing.

Most of the buildings have furniture in them, other personal items.

And so there's been some interest in doing tours of the buildings.

And we do private tours where you can rent the area and be the only people here, and we also do public tours where we'll take groups on a guided tour through all the buildings.

♪ >> We're not renovating this property.

We are restoring this property.

Having the old -- the old feeling, making it warm and modern and safe is obviously important, but keeping the history is also equally important.

♪ We're always taking volunteers out here at the Indiana State Sanatorium, if you are interested in history and getting your hands dirty.

We've had dozens of volunteers -- hundreds of volunteer days of people that have come out and helped.

They've helped clean the buildings.

They've helped restore the land.

They're helping with the historical restoration.

So volunteers are always welcome.

♪ >> ASHLEY: I've tried my hand at a few house renovations, and it is not for me.

So I can't even imagine what I would do with a property that large.

What would you do with something like that?

>> BRANDON: Oh, if it was like that specific property, it would probably be escape rooms and haunted tours.

>> ASHLEY: Want to learn more, just head over to thesanatorium.net.

>> BRANDON: Earlier, we caught up with Katy Maggart to learn all about Minnetrista.

>> Minnetrista has a lot of great meaning.

Like everything we do here, we have a lot of rich history, and the name is just the same.

You break down the name, it means gathering place by the water.

And so we felt like that was a perfect place or perfect name to describe who we are, and what we want to be.

The Ball Brothers, there were five of them, they moved from Buffalo, New York, and they brought their factory which is today Ball Corp.

They do a lot of things now, but in particular, they came and they were known for, you know, the Ball jars.

They were very much involved in the community, and they were a part of creating, you know, Ball State University, Ball Memorial Hospital.

They built their homes right next to each other, along the White River here in Muncie on what is now our campus.

It's a 40-acre campus.

We actually have a whole team, a whole department that is dedicated to preserving and sharing the history, not only of the Ball family, but of East Central Indiana.

And so the Heritage Gallery is a way for us to put some of those items on display.

We have three gallery spaces upstairs.

They rotate all throughout the year.

We like to bring exciting, fun, entertaining, educational exhibits.

In our Oakhurst home, we have Oakhurst Experience.

It's the bottom portion of the home, and it's a great nod to the family that lived there.

They had a world-renowned children's book collection.

If you know anything about canning, which I didn't know much before I started here, they actually -- "The Ball Blue Book" is called the Bible of canning, and that book was actually created in the kitchen in that home.

And so it's a great exhibit that, you know, has a nod, again, to our heritage, to the history, but is really interactive, very fun.

It's great for families to go and enjoy.

And then we have garden spaces that are just beautiful to sit and enjoy.

It's a 40-acre campus.

It's a pretty good-sized campus, and we have some great teams that work very hard to keep it looking beautiful and ready for people to come visit.

>> BRANDON: You can learn more at Minnetrista.net.

>> ASHLEY: Next up, we're staying right here, to learn all about a well-known painter with a less well-known Indiana connection.

Producer Jason Pear has the story.

>> We are at Minnetrista.

We are a museum and gardens in Muncie, Indiana.

We are the home of the Ball Brothers who operated Ball Brothers Glass that brought everyone that iconic Ball jar.

This was the family home of Dr. Lucius Ball, his wife Sarah, and their daughter Helen.

Lucius practiced medicine here in town.

So he actually wasn't involved with Ball Brothers Company.

After it was a private residence, Ed Ball, who grew up just three houses down here on the boulevard, he was really active with getting Muncie's local PBS station set up.

So Ed was able to kind of help -- help WIPB when they needed a home for a station and a studio, utilize this house which was available to do that kind of straight out of the gate in the 1970s.

Any time anyone walks in, they say, oh, it's so small!

This is it.

So it really just is.

It was the former living room of the home.

>> And through a series of happy little accidents, this living room, turned studio, became the home of a television icon.

>> Hello.

I'm Bob Ross and for the next 13 weeks, I'll be your host as we experience "The Joy of Painting."

♪ >> Bob Ross, we all love and know him now as that bushy-haired painter on PBS.

Well, before that, he was a kid growing up in Florida.

His father was a carpenter.

His mother taught him to love nature.

He had always been very creative, doing things with his hands, and he really came to love painting.

>> And I would like to share that gift with you.

>> So one thing led to another, and he went from being an in-person workshop, you know, teacher, to having this really great, fun, TV show that everyone loves.

>> So let's do it!

Let's paint an almighty picture right here.

>> In total, "The Joy of Painting" is 31 seasons.

Bob would come into Muncie four times a year.

He would usually show up on a Sunday.

And then on Monday morning, he would come in, and what they would do is they would shoot all of the openings and closings.

>> Welcome back.

Are you ready to do a fantastic picture with me?

>> And then over the next couple of days, they would film those 13 episodes.

Every episode was done in one shot.

[ Clanking sound ] >> That's the most fun painting.

All right!

Now -- >> In the first year, they had, you know, about 30 stations around the country pick it up, and each year after that, more and more.

And really within just a couple of years, they had almost the entire country.

>> And I think we've just about got that one finished.

>> Pretty popular straight out of the gate.

We've been working on telling really great stories from our collection, from our community, stories that are connected to our site, and the Bob Ross story was tied to our site.

It's connected to our collection, and it's absolutely a story of our community and a point of pride.

But we really just hadn't done anything with it yet.

>> Well, I think you know what happened already.

>> So what we did is we started talking to the crew that worked on the show, talking to Bob's friends, talking to people that would have been in this space, and really culling their memories about what the space looked like.

If you come to the Bob Ross Experience at Minnetrista today, you will be able to step into that studio space.

You can step right up to Bob's easel.

It's his real easel.

It's part of our collection.

We want to get you right up there next to it, and you can really get immersed in what that really looked like and felt.

And then over in the living room space, you can really see what it was like in the late '80s and '90s to be experiencing Bob at home.

>> Because this is your world, and you can create anything that you want in it.

>> There are six original paintings in the Bob Ross Experience at any one time, and we will rotate those to keep it fresh.

We have 26 Bob Ross originals in our collection here at Minnetrista.

So those will rotate through, and we not only have ones that he painted on the TV show.

We have some that he painted for himself.

>> Okay.

I think we'll sign this one.

>> He wanted his show to be able to live after his lifetime, and in many ways, his message resounds just as much today as it did then.

Be fearless.

Be creative.

Try new things.

For him, it was all about just finding the joy in life, and I think that that's something that just doesn't get old.

>> From all of us here at this station, we wish you happy painting and God bless.

See you next week.

>> BRANDON: You know, people at home may not know this, but we do shoot a little of this out of order, but I had no idea that Bob Ross shot all of his intros at the same time, and then all of his paintings in one take.

Like, can you imagine doing something like that?

>> ASHLEY: I really can't.

Need a little more Bob Ross in your life?

Well, our friends at Ball State PBS produced a wonderful documentary detailing the creation of the Bob Ross Experience.

We'll have a link to that at journeyindiana.org.

>> BRANDON: Up next, we're headed to Lake County to learn about a unique housing development that recently celebrated its 100th birthday.

Producer Jason Pear has the story of Marktown.

♪ >> We're in the Marktown Historic District in East Chicago, Indiana.

We're surrounded on three sides by steel mills, and one side by the BP refinery.

>> A unique location to be sure, and certainly not here by accident.

>> Clayton Mark was an industrialist from Chicago.

His primary plant was in Evanston, Illinois, and he was being robbed by the eastern steel companies.

So he decided he was going to build a steel company here.

>> But Clayton Mark, like other industrialists of the era, had an issue.

>> Workers weren't staying at the job site.

They would move on to some place else, and it was a lack of quality housing.

They didn't want to put their families in tenement houses.

In 1913, they bought 100 and some acres for the plant and Marktown.

>> Mark hired Illinois architect Howard Van Doren Shaw to design his namesake neighborhood.

>> It's referred to as Tudor Revival.

It also represents the Garden City concept that was brought about in England.

They had five floor plans in the original plan for Marktown.

Four-room duplex, six-room duplex, seven-room duplex, six-room singles, and then what we call the Marktown Quad.

Marktown was not only unique for Shaw, but it was more importantly unique for the nation because it set a new standard as to what you had to do if you wanted to make money in manufacturing.

You had to provide quality homes for the workers.

>> Marktown was unique in Northwest Indiana, but not for long.

>> Most of them came in during World War I, which was after this was planned and was being built.

And there's at least two of them in the immediate area, one is called Sunnyside in East Chicago that was built by Inland Steel, and the other one was the Pullman-Standard District over in Hammond.

>> They were copycats in the area and around the country, but Marktown featured something special.

>> Well, we park on the sidewalk, and we walk in the street.

And according to the original blueprints, that's exactly what was planned.

Cars weren't the major form of transportation back then.

>> Years later, when cars were the major form of transportation, this unique arrangement garnered Marktown national notoriety.

>> We made it into Ripley's Believe It or Not.

In 1967, we had our 50th anniversary, and the woman that lived next door was Mrs. Barnett, and she was on the committee, and she wrote Ripley's Believe It or Not.

This was when it was syndicated in newspapers, and she wrote to them.

And they said, we need some more information, and we need a photograph.

So they had a professional photographer come out and take a great photograph of people walking down the 400 block of Spring Street.

>> And the parking situation wasn't the only unique thing about Marktown.

>> When I grew up, if it snowed in the winter and the wind came out of the north, we had pink snow from all the iron oxides.

I thought I grew up in a Dr. Seuss book.

And then when we played baseball in the summer, with short pants on and that, we would go home with white oxides on our leg.

So we were the only neighborhood in America that the kids got their daily dose of iron through osmosis.

>> In 1975, Marktown was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2017, it celebrated its 100th anniversary, but the future for Marktown is less clear.

According to Myers, out-of-state landlords have let many of these historic homes deteriorate, and neighboring industry, in an effort to reduce risk, has, for years, been purchasing and tearing down homes in Marktown.

♪ >> It's history.

It's what the National Register said.

It's important to the city, the state, and the nation, and if you can take it one step farther than that, it's a worldwide issue of housing for industries.

This is an opportunity to examine the culture of the nation at that time, because it lives on today.

This is my home.

This is where my family's been.

This is the only place I care to be.

>> BRANDON: So Ashley, I know this is near where you grew up.

Have you ever been?

>> ASHLEY: No.

And as a matter of fact, I had never even heard of it until we talked about it on the show.

>> BRANDON: Look at us.

Still learning about Indiana's hidden gems.

You can learn more at Marktown.org.

>> ASHLEY: And finally, we are headed just up the road to Huntington to meet Native American artist Katrina Mitten.

Producer Todd Gould has the story.

[ Wooden flute music ] >> My bead work and my other arts that I do are an extension of my feelings to what happened to our people.

It's my way of putting it out there of who Miami people are, and what those arts that were lost.

So it's bringing them back.

[ Wooden flute music ] >> Art historians will note that individual works of art are a window into the heart and mind of the artist.

For Katrina Mitten, art is also a window into the past, revealing the history of a people and a culture that once ruled this territory long before Indiana was declared the 19th state in 1816.

A descendant of the Miami tribe of Native Americans, Katrina is a bead artist who is preserving an ancient tradition that was common among the Indian nations that thrived in the Indiana territory more than two centuries ago.

[ Wooden flute music ] >> I was around the age of 12 when I first started doing bead work.

I had found just some small pieces that actually my grandmother had.

And I looked at the technique by looking at the stitches on the back, because the -- the backing had worn away.

So I could see the actual stitches.

And I could see the colors that were used, and I say that my teachers were the bead workers of the past, those that left things behind.

♪ >> Many native artists have been fortunate to receive training and guidance passed down from generation to generation.

But Katrina did not have this advantage.

Instead, she began studying native traditional arts at family gatherings and museum exhibits, and then began essentially to reverse engineer the finished works to determine how a piece was created.

>> There were people in the different tribes further north that had saved -- you know, had still been passing things down through generations, but I was not fortunate to have that.

So I had to start beading by looking at different items that my family had still in their possession.

They were small pieces because a lot of that was lost.

And I started looking at how the technique was done.

♪ >> Katrina's studio is located in Huntington, and her family lineage in this town stretches back to a time before the village was even established.

This house, built in 1833, was one the county's oldest structures, and was the home to Katrina's family, tribal leaders of the Miami Nation during the era of treaty negotiations in the 1830s and '40s.

♪ >> My fourth great grandfather was Chief Richardville of the Miami people.

His uncle was Little Turtle.

Chief Little Turtle was our war chief.

He was held very highly by other leaders, other soldiers, other warriors such as George Washington and Kosciuszko, they thought very highly of him because he was one of the only Native Americans to defeat two United States Armies in battle.

The women are held very highly in our culture, and my family lineage with the Miami people is through the women in my family.

My mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, it goes back.

[ Wooden flute music ] >> During the Indian Removal Act of 1846, most of the families of the Miami Nation in Indiana were forced to move to the Oklahoma territory.

Because Katrina's family were tribal leaders, they were allowed to stay in Indiana, but they were largely forced to assimilate their culture and traditional ways to the white settlers in the region.

Katrina believes that this is the reason many of her native traditions, such as bead artistry, were lost over the years.

Her work to restore this traditional art has led her to establish art history programs in the Huntington schools, where she dresses in native clothing and teaches young audiences about the importance of the area's artistic heritage.

>> I started doing programs at schools here in Indiana, throughout Indiana, where I would set up camp, an 1830s timeframe camp, and I would come in my traditional clothing, and we would discuss everything that has to do with arts.

This was a chance for the children to learn about our culture.

♪ >> Katrina's artwork has been widely acclaimed, and some of her work has been valued at more than $3,000.

She has showcased many of her works in museums across the nation, from regional exhibits at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, to shows in Santa Fe and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. >> I guess a lot of people don't know who the Miami people are.

So I kind of felt it was my responsibility with my art also to tell our story to those who don't know of us.

So it's continuing the story of our people.

♪ >> ASHLEY: You can see even more of Katrina's work at Katrinamitten.com.

>> BRANDON: And before we say good-bye, let's spend a bit more time here at Minnetrista.

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!