By Crystal Garcia
TERRE HAUTE — A few streets in Terre Haute are getting a makeover.
Terre Haute, in conjunction with the Indiana National Road Association, has been awarded a $270,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration, it was announced Wednesday.
With Terre Haute matching 20 percent of the grant, the city will have almost $338,000 to work with.
Money from the grant will be used to install interpretation sites that will be developed along the Historic National Road (U.S. 40), establish areas for outdoor art sculptures around the Indiana Mile and put the first phase of the Brown Boulevard into place, said Terre Haute’s chief planner Pat Martin.
“Without the National Road traveling through Terre Haute, Terre Haute probably would not have existed,” he said.
Martin said Brown Boulevard will be a “mirror-image” of Ohio Boulevard.
“It’s a signature project,” Martin said.
Brown Boulevard will provide traffic relief for 25th Street, open up new areas of the city for economic development and provide park space or new trails for biking and walking, Martin said.
There will be a lot of interpretive sites along the road, which will be good for school children on field trips or anyone taking a walk who wants to learn something, said INDOT spokeswoman Megan Kaderavek.
“It’s going to make history come alive,” she said.
The grant process lasts between six and eight months, said Joseph Jarzen, director of the Indiana National Road Association and community preservation specialist of the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.
“This year marked one of the most successful years with the byways program,” Jarzen said.
In addition to the $270,000 received for Terre Haute, it also received $128,000 for Cambridge City and $155,000 to make a digital documentary.
Jarzen said these projects are important because developing a site along the Historic National Road gets “people out to explore the Historic National Road, to drive it, to see what’s out there that’s worth preserving and protection.”
“It’s heritage tourism at its peak,” Jarzen said.
Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.
Follow the money
Three Historic National Road projects received a total of $519,000. Aside from $270,000 awarded to Terre Haute, here’s where the rest of the money went:
-- The National Interpretive Center for the Historic National Road (Cambridge City): $128,000 to establish a national center to interpret the Historic National Road. The center will be located at the Huddleston Farmhouse Inn Museum. It will make driving brochures, audio tours and other interpretive media available to travelers.
-- Stories Along the Indiana National Road, a Digital Documentary: $155,000 to produce a digital, multi-use documentary about Indiana’s segment of the Historic National Road. The program will feature well-known Hoosier artists narrating Indiana stories, reading from letters and journals and performing period music.
