Paula Dunn

From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn A couple of weeks ago, Cynthia Baker emailed to ask if I’d ever written a column about the creation of Morse Reservoir. Not exactly. I’ve covered aspects of the reservoir’s history before, but I’ve never devoted an entire column to it. To be honest, I’ve been a little…

From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn When I was trying to decide on a subject for Black History Month, it occurred to me that most people have probably never heard of Fred Hord. While he lived here, he was one of Noblesville’s most prominent and well liked African American residents. The only reason he’s…

From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn I ran across another story in the old newspapers that was just too weird not to share. The Feb. 22, 1881 Noblesville Ledger includes a rather lengthy article about the mysterious disappearance of a Kokomo tailor, John F. Myers. Three weeks earlier Myers, a collector of rare zoological…

It’s a reader response week! Several people mourned the loss of the Jim Dandy.   Sydney Susie noted that while her mother Barbara Heaton Servies Jerrell loved the Jim Dandy’s Jimbo sandwiches, she herself just missed out on the “cruising the JD” tradition. The big high school hangout in Sydney’s day was Ramsey’s Drive-In. (People…

There’s been so much talk lately about the possibility polio vaccination requirements could be watered down, or done away with altogether, this seemed like a good time to examine the impact polio had on Hamilton County before vaccines were available. If you’re not entirely sure what polio is — after all, it hasn’t existed in…

I would have liked to have written this column before Noblesville’s Jim Dandy closed, but the schedule just didn’t allow it. Nevertheless, the Jim Dandy was such a large part of my life and of the lives of so many other Hamilton County residents, I couldn’t let its passing go unremarked. When I was growing…

Notable Nineties, Sensational Centenarians From Time to Thyme By Paula Dunn Normally, I would have saluted our Notable Nineties and Sensational Centenarians in the last column of 2024, but the holidays interfered with that, so I’m paying tribute to them at the beginning of 2025 instead. For anyone who doesn’t know about the Notable Nineties,…

Time for some reader feedback! After the column on downtown Noblesville fires ran, Michael Kobrowski and Larry Cloud both brought up a blaze that took place March 24, 1957 on the north side of the courthouse square. I didn’t include that fire in the earlier column because: A, there were no deaths or serious injuries,…

Two hundred years ago on Oct. 7, a man named James Hudson went on trial in Madison County for his role in what early local historians referred to as “The Indian Murders.” While it’s questionable whether this was, as some have claimed, the first time in this country’s history that a white man was held…