duction support for"Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> ASHLEY: Coming up... >> BRANDON: Travel to the great outdoors with Hiker Trailer.

>> ASHLEY: Lace up with an Indiana classic, the Chuck Taylor.

>> BRANDON: And pull up a seat at the Oasis Diner.

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

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

I'm Brandon Wentz.

>> ASHLEY: And I'm Ashley Chilla.

And we're coming to you from the Indiana University Collections at the McCalla in Bloomington.

The Indiana University Collections at the McCalla Building is the central hub for collections housed across all nine IU campuses.

Eight galleries are available for rotating exhibits, bringing together items from across schools and areas of study.

>> BRANDON: And we'll learn all about this dynamic space in just a bit.

But first, producer John Timm takes us to Bartholomew County, to go camping in style with Hiker Trailer.

♪ >> How's those potatoes coming along?

♪ >> Hiker Trailer is generally called a teardrop trailer, referring to the style.

♪ People that don't want to camp in a tent, you have a self-contained vehicle that basically you can sleep in with comfort, including the comforts of heat, air conditioning, 12-volt power.

♪ Hiker Trailer allows you to go anywhere your vehicle can, including off road, and is great for those people who do everything from hiking, biking.

It lets you get out there and have a mobile, safe, secure, comfortable place to sleep.

♪ >> Hiker Trailer originated about 12 years ago.

The concept -- there were a couple of guys.

One of them here, an Indiana native, started the concept of building teardrop camping trailers out of his garage.

That evolved to a small location in Noblesville, which three years ago evolved into us moving the production here to Columbus, Indiana, establishing our dealership here.

And since then, we have grown from operating out of a garage, out of a small location, to the location we are in today, which is approximately 90,000 square feet here in Columbus, Indiana.

We operate a couple other companies in Columbus, Indiana.

One is in manufacturing, one is in fabrication.

We do machining.

So we got involved with Hiker Trailer actually building the frames for them.

Being an avid outdoors person, lifetime camper myself, the idea was very unique.

We saw the value in it.

So we actually moved forward and acquired the company from the original founders.

And from there, have really launched it with the disciplines we had in manufacturing, quality, sales and marketing, to really grow it where it is today and produce a great product.

When we first came in to the ownership role of Hiker Trailers, they were producing about eight a month.

We have since, you know, doubled that thing twice.

So we have produced 50 a month.

I think our plan this year on average is 50 a month.

The choice to build trailers in Indiana is very simple.

Indiana is the RV capital of the world.

So every vendor you could possibly need for your materials, aluminum, steel, you know, Midwest born, it's here.

It's within a couple hours' drive.

We're able to literally go pick up our materials from our supplier.

♪ >> The uniqueness of Hiker Trailer versus other mass produced trailers is just that.

We are custom-made trailers.

>> So from ground up, essentially, you know, it really starts with the initial customer order.

Then once we place the order for the frame, you know, exactly what we need, we get that from our sister company.

They make metal.

Once that bare frame is here, quality is good, then we start wiring it, getting it on wheels.

We build the box.

Once that's together, and it kind of starts looking like a trailer, then we put the rear galley or the kitchen area into the back, put the front shelving in.

Any interior cabinetry, and then from there it moves on and actually gets the side aluminum on, gets the roof, the doors, the windows on.

From there, the next step would be doing all the electrical work, both interior, exterior, and then installing all of the exterior components, like awnings, the roof rack systems, and then the final stage would be all the siliconing, cleaning it up, making it pretty, presentable, and ready to actually be seen by the customer.

♪ >> Each customer is unique.

And we like to start our experience with our customers is, what do you want to do with your Hiker Trailer?

♪ >> We have worked with disabled veterans who needed special access to their trailer.

We have people who want to go long-term off grid.

We have a couple of people, believe it or not, who are living in their Hiker Trailers.

So we like to build a trailer that fits their needs, rather than them have to fit their needs into a trailer that's already there.

It is rewarding to see other Hiker Trailers, and for them to recognize the product.

And in some cases, we've done enough video, YouTube ads, things like that, been to shows, that they recognize myself and who we are and what we do.

>> There's never an unhappy customer on pickup day.

We had, you know, one gentleman come in here and he was literally so overjoyed, because he was just thinking about all the memories he's gonna make with his family with the Hiker that, like, he was literally tearing up.

And it's just always a happy experience.

And that makes everything worth it.

Knowing that I'm giving them a product that they are going to be able to make those memories with their families and themselves, you know, for years to come.

I think that's my favorite aspect of this job.

>> BRANDON: Ashley, this strikes me as the kind of thing that might be a requirement if we were to get you to go camping; is that correct?

>> ASHLEY: You know, as a child, my family loved to go camping, and there are just some really great stories about how much I hated it.

[ Laughter ] Not a fan of dirt.

Not really a fan of being outdoors without air conditioning.

So this seems like a nice entryway into camping for me.

I would definitely think about it.

>> BRANDON: Yeah.

Want to learn more?

Just head to the address on your screen.

>> ASHLEY: Earlier, we spoke with Dr. Heather Callaway, the Executive Director of IU Collections to learn all about this unique space.

♪ >> Just east of Indiana University's main campus in Bloomington sits the McCalla building.

Once a high school, this building is now home to Indiana University Collections.

>> University Collections at IU is a new department, and we were established in 2018 to help work with collection stewardship across all of our nine campuses.

So identifying what we have, what we own, where is it located, and then trying to take care of it.

We go everywhere from Gary to South Bend and to Columbus and New Albany, and we partner with and collaborate with the people that care for those collections on those campuses.

They might not be trained in collections management.

So we would work with them and teach them what kind of supplies to get, you know, using acid-free folders and appropriate materials to care for these artifacts.

So they may have just inherited something new, and all of our people are collections trained specifically.

So we're able to really address those unmet needs that they might have.

One of University Collections' goals is to really make sure we don't continue to have hidden collections and orphan collections, things that aren't being cared for or that we don't know we have.

So the biggest key is trying to be able to allow people to have access to those.

So to be able to use them for research and teaching.

And if we work with the collections, then we're able to teach them how to take care of them and steward them, but then also to make them accessible for research.

♪ University Collections at McCalla is a great space that we were fortunate to get, and here we're able to tell the stories of these collections that didn't have a place to tell those stories before.

There are eight different galleries.

Everything from art to science to history and a little in between.

It's literally we can tell any kind of story using the collections from Indiana University, and the stories from across the state.

So, for instance, we have the Herman Wells Exhibit right now, and this is a perfect example of what we're doing.

We have things from five different collections, and you can come in and see, you know, photographs, costumes, other artifacts and things that were part of Herman Wells' life.

University Collections is in the perfect role to be able to tell these stories and engage with the objects but also care for them.

What good is a collection if it's just locked up on a shelf, and if we never get to see it and the students never get to learn from it, and the public doesn't get to enjoy it?

I think that success for a University Collections is for people to come and enjoy and learn more about things from Indiana history.

We have stuff from all over the state.

It's amazing, and the stories are wonderful, and the McCalla building gives us a space and place where we can talk about those things, but also having students come through and learn, having a place where all of the collections can come together and tell their stories and engage with students and faculty members is really ideal.

I can't imagine a better way for us to move into the future.

>> BRANDON: Ashley, did you know -- and this will be kind of a scavenger hunt for all of our viewers -- this building has inside of it a secret Picasso?

>> ASHLEY: Really?

>> BRANDON: Yeah, and it is not where you would think.

See if you can find it.

Let us know.

>> ASHLEY: Want to learn more about this space?

Visit the address on your screen.

Up next, producer Jason Pear takes us to Brown County to uncover the origins of the Chuck Taylor sneaker.

♪ >> Depending on what part of the country you are from or what neighborhood you grew up in, you called them Chucks; you called them Chuck Taylors.

When I was in high school in Chicago -- in the city, not a suburb -- we just called them Chuck Taylors.

♪ Some articles -- some records that I saw said Chuck Taylor invented the shoe.

No, he didn't.

Chuck Taylor invented Chuck Taylor.

That was the invention, and he re-invented himself as time went on.

The shoe was created in 1917, when Chuck was still in high school.

♪ He was born in a log cabin.

Brown County was the last county -- where he was born, no city, just Brown County, was the last county in Indiana to get water and electricity.

He was born in 1901.

I don't think it got -- it received those, you know, modern amenities until later.

♪ They moved to Bartholomew County, a small town there, but he went to high school in Columbus.

And he went to high school -- it was the nearest school to where Chuck lived that had a basketball team.

Not every high school had a basketball team in the teens of the 20th century, but Columbus did.

Columbus being almost a mid-major city for the state of Indiana.

♪ He was aggressive.

He was the captain of his team as a sophomore.

That stood out to me.

He was not necessarily the star of the team.

They had a couple of good players for a couple of years in the teens for two or maybe three years in the teens.

They went to the state tournament.

They never won the state tournament.

♪ He played for some teams in Indianapolis.

He played most notably, though, in Akron, Ohio.

He played for a year there.

He went to Detroit and it was from Detroit that he goes to Chicago and gets a job working for the Midwest region of Converse.

♪ Converse had its own team.

In the late '20s, for sure, he was the player-coach.

The idea of a player-coach would not have been unusual then.

And they only carried six or seven players.

So the player-coach -- it had to be a player-coach.

And they did exhibitions, basically.

They would come into town and they would challenge local teams.

That was a big deal for local teams because you got to play a traveling team.

The traveling team had some status.

♪ >> He became a full-time salesman, and I know by 1931 -- really 1930 because it shows up in the 1931 yearbook, Converse Yearbook, well regarded, widely distributed.

He already has his picture in it, and he's touting good players across the country.

Well, the next year he has his all-star teams.

He says who are the best players in the country.

So between 1926-'27, when he's a player-coach, he has some prominence to 1930-'31, where it's almost his yearbook.

♪ He was the face of Converse by 1930-'31.

What happened in those intervening years, he was just a good salesman.

There were a few people that remembered him, and they said, yeah, he actually lived out of his -- you know, the trunk of his car.

He had his clothes with him.

He'd go to hotels.

He always put everything on the expense account.

He did not get a large, large salary, but he had no expenses.

♪ Even when he was the sales manager of Converse, he traveled.

He visited places.

Mostly colleges later in his career.

It's fair to say he went to almost every college, and he also went to the NAIA Tournament, which was the small college tournament in Kansas City every year.

Chuck would go there with, like, dozens of pairs of shoes, and he would just outfit people if they wore out their shoe, if they had a problem.

He would give the players his shoes at the tournaments; otherwise, he would sell them.

♪ I know when I was growing up, you would see Ted Williams' name on baseball bats, Mickey Mantle's name.

Everything had an autograph.

Number one, that is his signature, and that was put in '30-'31, when his face starts to show up in the Converse Yearbook.

I don't know that he started that trend.

I think that trend probably -- or that pattern probably existed.

But he exploited it well.

♪ One record says he improved the shoe.

I love that word, he improved the shoe, by suggesting that a patch be put on the ankle.

Today, it's just a vinyl stamping.

It's nothing.

In the early, early shoes, it was a little bit of a rubber or leather patch that had maybe a 16th of an inch thickness.

The fact that it was on the inner ankle does make some sense, because when you're running, you can knock your inner ankle.

♪ The best part of the shoe was the sole.

The sole had good grip.

You could start and stop faster than any other shoe, and, in fact, to this day, the sole is patented.

♪ The game is part of his legacy.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969, just a few months before he died as a contributor.

Not as a player.

Not as a coach, but as a contributor.

His contribution was he -- he was like the Johnny Appleseed of basketball.

♪ >> ASHLEY: Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

>> BRANDON: Up next, producer John Timm takes us to Hendricks County to step back in time at the Oasis Diner.

♪ >> The Oasis Diner is an original Mountain View Diner built in New Jersey back in 1954, and it was shipped here that same year to the Plainfield area.

♪ >> Most diners were built on the East Coast.

So New Jersey is -- kind of back in the day was the hub for where most diners were.

So the company that built this diner was called Mountain View Diners, and they're out of New Jersey.

And, yeah, that's where most diners were constructed back in the day.

They were shipped all over the country, and this is one of the last remaining diners on -- we sit right here on the National Road, US-40, and this is one of the last remaining diners on US-40.

♪ It was open until about 2010, and it shut down.

The owner had health problems, the previous owner, and it had some structural issues.

So it sat empty for a few years.

Then in 2010, it was listed on Indiana Landmarks 10 Most Endangered Buildings List.

And the town caught wind of that, and they got in touch with us, and we decided that we would pick up the diner and relocate it to this location here in downtown Plainfield.

♪ I have a construction company, is my main line of business.

So I was looking for a way to diversify business as well.

So it seemed like a good fit, just because I could see the pathway to get it relocated and rebuilt, and this was a great location here in downtown Plainfield.

We're right next to all the trails.

It already had a great following.

People loved the diner, and they had, you know, eaten there for many decades before.

So I had a great following, a great location, and I thought it was a good business opportunity.

♪ And so we picked the building up, drove it down the street, put it in its new location, completely restored it, and opened it about nine years ago.

♪ >> Whenever they would do a survey of our community, it was the number one topic that people wanted to see.

They wanted to see the diner reopen, because people had so many fond memories of it.

When we made the decision to reopen the diner and move it down here, we announced the day that we were going to actually make the move, and the streets ended up being lined up with people from our community.

They were so excited.

Some people had buttons made that I was there when the diner was moved.

The nice thing is the diner was built to be shipped, because they shipped them via railroad back in the '50s.

So it was actually built to be shipped.

So we just put two steel beams underneath the diner where they were originally located, picked it up off the foundation, put it on the back of a semi bed and drove it down the road.

And then we built the foundation here exactly like it was down the street.

♪ Just this front portion was the original stainless steel diner.

The back section was all brand new construction.

Everything up here is original, other than like the lament -- some of the lament on the ceiling we had to replace.

All the countertops are new.

The booths are reupholstered, but they are the original structure of the booths.

So we reused all that we could, but along with that, there's also issues that arise, you know, dealing with an old building, but it's just part of it, and that's part of the appeal and the charm of it, is to be sitting in a piece of history like this.

♪ The signage, we refurbished that.

The front sign that's so vibrant went away at some point.

So we had to completely remanufacture that, but our sign manufacturer is a resident of Plainfield.

And he actually worked next to the diner growing up, and he knew the sign very well.

And so he actually hand painted the palm trees on there, because he knew that's what they would have done back in the day.

So he was very meticulous about making sure that sign looked just like it did originally.

♪ The color scheme and the name and the signage, that was all how it looked originally.

So that was part of our agreement, was to bring it back to its original look, which we think it looks cool because you can't drive by here and not see it.

♪ When you see our menu, it pays tribute to the National Road, US-40 that we sit on.

So we highlight different cities along the National Road with our breakfast specials.

Our most popular breakfast item is the Kansas City.

It's a loaded biscuits and gravy.

♪ We have an Indianapolis special that's our pork tenderloin with sausage gravy on it.

That's a popular one as well.

So we try to tell a little bit of the history with our menu too.

>> Yeah, I'm gonna take the tenderloin slider.

♪ When you first walk in, you are going to immediately see some pictures showing the history of the diner, how it originally looked, also what it looked like when we moved it and what it looks like now.

We're not just a 1950s diner.

We try to celebrate all the decades that the diner has lived through.

The memorabilia on the wall, what we try to do is we have, like, a lunch box display.

We have lunch boxes from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s.

We have a license plate display through all the different years as well.

And then we have a music display on the back wall that has 45s and records and eight tracks.

So it kind of sparks those memories as you come in here.

So you will immediately get a good feeling of back in the day, oh, I remember I had that tape cassette, or that was my first license plate, or I had that lunch box.

♪ The greatest compliment I get is when someone says they come in here and it sparks a conversation that they haven't had in a while about something in their past or a fond memory or something like that.

And that's kind of what we want to do.

♪ We feel like we're just kind of the heart of the community here, and I think our town feels that way about us too.

Like, people feel like we've always been a part of the community, and we've always had a place in their lives, and we're continuing to do that.

♪ >> ASHLEY: I love a good diner!

I mean, what isn't there to like?

You get milkshakes, usually onion rings, some kind of burger.

I actually used to work at a '50s-style diner.

It was one of my first jobs out of college while I was doing an acting gig.

I did this on the side.

And I had so much fun, you know, wearing the skirt and the '50s music, and I would always sort of dance around.

>> BRANDON: I was going to say, is it one of those places you had to, like, stop and sing and dance on the hour?

>> ASHLEY: You didn't have to, but I did.

>> BRANDON: Well, fair.

That's how she got all the tips.

Want to learn more?

Just head to oasisdiner.com.

And as always, we would like to encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> ASHLEY: Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

>> BRANDON: We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we've been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

>> ASHLEY: All right.

Now we have to go find this Picasso.

You might know where it is, but I don't.

So I think that's what we are going to go do.

>> BRANDON: Yeah, I will give you a hot and a cold as we go through this building.

>> ASHLEY: We'll see you next time on -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!