DANA — A sign on the white farm house read “Closed” last week, but local hopefuls were still on site giving a weekday tour.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has announced its plans to close the state’s historic site marking World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle’s home and museum. But “Friends of Ernie Pyle” board member Phil Hess said the group is petitioning to stop the move and will meet with IDNR director Rob Carter on Wednesday in hopes of keeping the facilities open.

Vermillion County Commissioner Tim Wilson said he had learned the state might possibly hand the facilities over to the county, but nothing official has been said.

“It’s not been presented to us yet, but that is what I’ve been told,” he said Thursday afternoon. Wilson described the manner in which state officials informed the museum of its impending closure as “all wrong.”

“It’s gotten a lot of people upset,” he said, adding there is considerable support for keeping the facilities open.

According to Hess, state officials attended the museum board’s regular meeting on Dec. 17 and informed them the state would be dropping the Pyle museum as a historic site. No warning or notice had been given, he said, and many of the board members were in tears over the matter.

If closed, all of the museum’s contents would be moved to Indianapolis, Hess said. To his knowledge, only 2 percent of the state’s historical artifacts are on display there; the rest are stored in warehouses, he said.

IDNR spokesman Phil Bloom disagreed with the no-warning characterization. He said the decision was anything but “spur of the moment.”

“It’s been under the microscope for years,” he said of the museum, which attracts an average of 1,500 visitors annually.

The Culbertson Mansion in New Albany, and historic sites in Vincennes are the state’s next-lowest draws with about 10,000 visitors per year. Everything else under the state banner draws more than 20,000, with the Whitewater Canal Historical Site in Metamora seeing about 127,000 annual visitors.

Bloom said the state will save about $51,000 a year if the museum closes, and all agencies have been asked to cut their 2010 budgets.

“Scrutiny of the site has been going on for some time, for a number of years. But, certainly, the decision was moved along because of the economy’s affect on the state budget. All state agencies were requested to reduce spending and help make ends meet,” he said.

Bloom said the agency plans to add the collection to the World War II exhibit at Indiana’s state museum in Indianapolis, which draws about 250,000 visitors a year, including 70,000 schoolchildren.

Last year, only 179 schoolchildren went to the Pyle museum in Dana. “The legacy will be exposed to a much larger audience,” Bloom said, noting Dana’s size and location as probable factors in the lower attendance.

But if Vermillion County wants to take over the facility, Bloom said, “there are options available,” although he was not certain of a timetable on that decision.

A storyteller’s story

Sitting on the corner of Indiana 71 and Briarwood Avenue, Pyle’s childhood home is surrounded by empty buildings and railroad tracks. But it was an active Vermillion County town into which he was born Aug. 3, 1900, with a school, stores and churches, Hess said.

Today, two Quonset huts sit behind the white house, hosting elaborate displays of World War II artifacts made available in part by a $250,000 grant from Scripps-Howard as well as from donors from across the country.

Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted by the words of President Harry Truman, who said in announcing Pyle’s death in combat to a grieving nation, “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as the American fighting man wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”

Pyle, who wrote the stories of American troops overseas, was killed during a Japanese attack on Ie Shima April 18, 1945, while traveling with U.S. Marines. Initially buried there on the island with U.S. troops killed in combat, Pyle’s body was later reburied at the Army cemetery on Okinawa, then it was moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

The Ernie Pyle monument in Okinawa is one of the few memorials the Japanese allowed to remain after they re-took control of the island after the war.

Pyle is among the few American civilians killed in combat to be awarded the Purple Heart.

And as visitors to the museum quickly realize, Pyle’s impact on a pre-television America, in which the majority of citizens had family fighting overseas, was significant.

Despite the sign that read “Closed,” Janice Duncan was at the museum last week to give Pennsylvania author Lauri Lebo a tour.

Lebo is writing a book comparing the modern economic recession to the Great Depression prior to World War II. She plans to incorporate Pyle’s work. “I’m sort of retracing some of Ernie Pyle’s steps, from the Great Depression to the jobs recovery, where we were then and where we are now,” she explained.

Lebo already knew that Pyle was a nationally renowned writer long before covering battles such as the Normandy Invasion and Okinawa. Following a stint in the U.S. Naval Reserves after high school, Pyle graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism, a career that took him all over the world as a travel columnist. Along the way, he wrote about the lives of common people.

In one of the many videos displayed at the museum, Charles Kurault, host of “On The Road,” credited Pyle’s writing as an inspiration to his own works, with references to Pyle’s contemporary, John Steinbeck, who wrote in a similar vein.

But it was his work as a nationally syndicated war correspondent that brought Pyle’s name into the homes of every American with a soldier overseas, as he wrote about the “G.I. Joes” from small towns across the country.

From American’s entry into the war to its finish, Pyle covered the war from a soldier’s perspective. From the Battle of Britain in 1940 to the sands of North Africa, up through Sicily and onto the beaches of Normandy, the Liberation of Paris and the Battle of Okinawa, the history of the war is detailed in his articles and through the displays in Dana.

“Everything is authentic, even the burlap,” Hess said of the numerous displays which coincide with audio readings of Pyle’s columns. Dogs searching for their masters, bullets, guns and mannequins in uniform adorn the museum.

According to the Indiana State Historical Society, Pyle’s column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers during the war. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work and his columns were published in books such as “Ernie Pyle In England,” “Here Is Your War,” “Brave Men” and “Last Chapter.” Burgess Meredith played Pyle in the movie “The Story of G.I. Joe.”

In point of fact, American soldiers in combat have Pyle to thank for added pay received. In a column written from Italy in 1944, Pyle proposed that combat soldiers be given fight pay similar to a pilot’s flight pay. That May, Congress passed legislation giving soldiers 50 percent extra pay for combat service with a bill nicknamed “The Ernie Pyle Bill.”

Not over yet

Hess said the local group initially wanted to work with the state and “go up the chain of command” instead of issuing a hue and cry. But as the bureaucratic wheels grind, he said it really bothers him that the decision comes down to numbers instead of history.

The group already has cut expenses to the bone, he said, noting the museum was only scheduled to be open 308 hours this year. But with the World War II generation now in its 80s or 90s, and less than 12 percent of the U.S. population military veterans, the rural town of Dana is a tough draw, regardless of the caliber of history within.

“If you come to Dana, you come here on purpose,” he said. “You don’t come here by accident.”

The Scripps-Howard Foundation was “horrified” to learn of the possible closure, Hess said, noting the six-figure investment made over the years by that group and others. One of the displays inside the museum contains a patch from every American unit that served in the war, a gift, he said, made by a veteran before he died.

“What a tragedy,” Hess said.

Still, the group hopes to make their appeal in Indianapolis while Vermillion County officials consider assuming the role of caretaker. That move doesn’t exactly thrill Hess, who said the value of the history should be honored.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.

Lebo is writing a book comparing the modern economic recession to the Great Depression prior to World War II. She plans to incorporate Pyle’s work. “I’m sort of retracing some of Ernie Pyle’s steps, from the Great Depression to the jobs recovery, where we were then and where we are now,” she explained.

Lebo already knew that Pyle was a nationally renowned writer long before covering battles such as the Normandy Invasion and Okinawa. Following a stint in the U.S. Naval Reserves after high school, Pyle graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism, a career that took him all over the world as a travel columnist. Along the way, he wrote about the lives of common people.

In one of the many videos displayed at the museum, Charles Kurault, host of “On The Road,” credited Pyle’s writing as an inspiration to his own works, with references to Pyle’s contemporary, John Steinbeck, who wrote in a similar vein.

But it was his work as a nationally syndicated war correspondent that brought Pyle’s name into the homes of every American with a soldier overseas, as he wrote about the “G.I. Joes” from small towns across the country.

From America’s entry into the war to its finish, Pyle covered the war from a soldier’s perspective. From the Battle of Britain in 1940 to the sands of North Africa, up through Sicily and onto the beaches of Normandy, the Liberation of Paris and the Battle of Okinawa, the history of the war is detailed in his articles and through the displays in Dana.

“Everything is authentic, even the burlap,” Hess said of the numerous displays which coincide with audio readings of Pyle’s columns. Dogs searching for their masters, bullets, guns and mannequins in uniform adorn the museum.

According to the Indiana State Historical Society, Pyle’s column was published in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers during the war. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work and his columns were published in books such as “Ernie Pyle In England,” “Here Is Your War,” “Brave Men” and “Last Chapter.” Burgess Meredith played Pyle in the movie “The Story of G.I. Joe.”

In point of fact, American soldiers in combat have Pyle to thank for added pay received. In a column written from Italy in 1944, Pyle proposed that combat soldiers be given fight pay similar to a pilot’s flight pay. That May, Congress passed legislation giving soldiers 50 percent extra pay for combat service with a bill nicknamed “The Ernie Pyle Bill.”

Not over yet

Hess said the local group initially wanted to work with the state and “go up the chain of command” instead of issuing a hue and cry. But as the bureaucratic wheels grind, he said it really bothers him that the decision comes down to numbers instead of history.

The group already has cut expenses to the bone, he said, noting the museum was only scheduled to be open 308 hours this year. But with the World War II generation now in its 80s or 90s, and less than 12 percent of the U.S. population military veterans, the rural town of Dana is a tough draw, regardless of the caliber of history within.

“If you come to Dana, you come here on purpose,” he said. “You don’t come here by accident.”

The Scripps-Howard Foundation was “horrified” to learn of the possible closure, Hess said, noting the six-figure investment made over the years by that group and others. One of the displays inside the museum contains a patch from every American unit that served in the war, a gift, he said, made by a veteran before he died.

“What a tragedy,” Hess said.

Still, the group hopes to make their appeal in Indianapolis while Vermillion County officials consider assuming the role of caretaker. That move doesn’t exactly thrill Hess, who said the value of the history should be honored.

Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.