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LaPorte County IN

• 07.28.09
  Little Homestead on a Tiny Island
  LaPorte County IN, Minnesota (0)

  There was a nice-looking Minnesota dairy barn on the other side of the road from my resting place at Oaks Lake. But as I got closer, I saw that it was a former dairy barn. The place looked like it may have been an active farmstead recently, but no longer. Four miles north there was another fine setting for a farm near water. According to the BLM's land patent database, the land shown in these two photos was homesteaded under the famous 1862 Homestead Act. That got me to thinking (for no particularly good reason). I wondered ...
  
  
• 07.01.09
  Door Village Fort
  LaPorte County IN (1)

  On Sunday's ride, as usual I stopped briefly at the site of the Door Village fort that had been built during the Black Hawk war. Since the last time I was here a wooden sign had been added to complement the stone marker that had been erected in 1909. And it looks like the owners of the property have got into the spirit of things by placing a cannon near their front porch. I am not aware that the Michigan militiamen who stayed here on their way to Chicago had any cannons with ...
  
  
• 06.30.09
  Joliet Road
  LaPorte County IN (0)

  Last weekend I salvaged three days of what was supposed to have been a week-long outing. The first day I rode to Bristol, IN (70 miles). We spent most of the second at the Elkhart County Historical Museum and a historic house, ending with a 30 mile ride. On the 3rd I rode 39 miles, ending at Door Village in LaPorte County. The Joliet Road through Door Village and Door Prairie has long been one of my favorite places. It's a part of Black Hawk's old route, aka the Sauk Trail. It's a part that ...
  
  
• 03.27.08
  Michigan Road lands in LaPorte County
  Black Hawk war zone tour - 2004, LaPorte County IN (2)

  This is Joliet Road on Door Prairie in LaPorte County, Indiana, from my 2004 ride to the Black Hawk war zone. It's somewhere between Door Village and Westville. This is a map of Michigan Road Lands from the Indiana State Library. I've drawn the route between Door Village and Westville on it. The road lands are the areas shaded in white. The Michigan Road does not pass through the place shown here, though it isn't too far away to the north. In the 1826 Treaty of Mississinewa, the Potawatomi people ...
  
  
• 03.25.08
  Chicago Trail to Hudson Lake
  Berrien County MI, Black Hawk war zone tour - 2004, LaPorte County IN, St Joseph County IN (0)

  The first time I rode southwest from Niles, Michigan along Black Hawk's old trail, was in 1997 or 1998. I had sampled some of the Sauk Trail in Michigan (US-12) and found the road in poor repair -- not pleasant to ride on in many places. Much of it has since been resurfaced, and is much better to ride on now. But back then, I was glad to find that here was a piece of Black Hawk's old road that was such a pleasant place to ride -- there wasn't a lot of traffic ...
  
  

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