Jasper Indiana - Why is your town so nice?

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  • WanderingSol07

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    Aug 7, 2017
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    I seem to remember Jasper had a big school bus manufacturer. My first time through Jasper I saw what looked like a hundred new buses sitting in a fenced lot near downtown. What was the brand?
     

    gregkl

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    Apr 8, 2012
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    I used to travel there on business. I called on the furniture plants there and in Huntingburg.

    I am a first gen American as my mother/father and my older brother immigrated to America from Germany so I always thought the town was kinda cool because of that.

    But, Schnitzel Bank was not good German cooking and the traffic is bad for such a small town. Where does it come from? It seems like there is always a line of traffic running through Jasper at any time during the day.
     

    COOPADUP

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    Aug 8, 2017
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    Drove through Jasper and had lunch there one time. Southwestern Indiana is just a beautiful area. Get to camp down there twice a year about 20 miles from Jasper near Ekerty. My great grandfather was a Dubois county officer back in the 1860s. I think there was a lot of confederate sympathisers that were on his list. At least how the story goes. :dunno:
     

    breakingcontact

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    Mar 7, 2018
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    Southern Indiana
    Coming from the Milwaukee area the first time I went to Jasper I knew what it was about. It's a German town.

    They believe in law and order, keeping up your property, saving money, building stuff. Lots of places in the S/E Wisconsin area are similar.

    They have money because they make money and they don't spend money.

    When I first moved to Indiana both the wife and I were amazed at how Southern it felt. Towns with no curbs, people parking on their lawns, dirty, rundown. It felt more like something you'd see in Alabama than the heart of the Midwest (at least to from our frame of reference).

    We still are amazed when we travel through rural WI. The small towns look like Jasper and not like Terre Haute (not to pick on TH).

    Common thread is the Germans who settled it IMO. It's cultural.
    I've spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and this makes sense.
     
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    Oct 3, 2008
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    On a hill in Perry C
    I seem to remember Jasper had a big school bus manufacturer. My first time through Jasper I saw what looked like a hundred new buses sitting in a fenced lot near downtown. What was the brand?
    Not Jasper. You might be thinking of Mitchell.
    I used to travel there on business. I called on the furniture plants there and in Huntingburg.

    I am a first gen American as my mother/father and my older brother immigrated to America from Germany so I always thought the town was kinda cool because of that.

    But, Schnitzel Bank was not good German cooking and the traffic is bad for such a small town. Where does it come from? It seems like there is always a line of traffic running through Jasper at any time during the day.
    Big reason for the traffic is short sidedness by the city many moons ago. The state and feds wanted to build a bypass around Jasper and huntingburg back in the late 70s/early 80s. City leaders of both towns said nope, it'll take all the traffic away from our downtowns and we can't have that. State and feds said suit yourself, we'll spend the money elsewhere. So now there's about 3 times the traffic as the main roads can handle and every truck that comes and goes to all the local factories has to go through the middle of town. Also the downtowns almost died anyway. Traffic was so bad people absolutely hated going downtown and only went if they had to.
    Drove through Jasper and had lunch there one time. Southwestern Indiana is just a beautiful area. Get to camp down there twice a year about 20 miles from Jasper near Ekerty. My great grandfather was a Dubois county officer back in the 1860s. I think there was a lot of confederate sympathisers that were on his list. At least how the story goes. :dunno:
    Lots of copperheads around here back then. At one time Dubois Co. had one of the largest chapters of the KKK in Indiana. Lots of thinly veiled and not so veiled racism in that area even today.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    Oct 8, 2014
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    Another reason traffic is bad is that US 231 is a well-traveled roadway. It's the best route to get to Jasper / Dale from Indianapolis. Straight shot south of I-69.
     
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