Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue
History & Genealogy

Culver, Marshall, Indiana

Culver Military Academy Indian Trails

In an article from the Culver Alumnus of 1975 - W. O. Osborn reflected on the Culver's and the Academy. This is what he remembered of the land acquisition:

E. R. and B. B. Culver, Sr., were just like twins when it came to business. What one said, the other agreed to. They wanted me to buy the little hotel where the motel is now, and I said I would. The day of the closing, neither of them were in town, so I borrowed the money in the name of E. R. and B. B., kept the deed for security, and paid the fellow. When E. R. got back, I asked them how they thought I was going to pay for the hotel. He said he forgot and made me take interest on the money. I didn't ask him for that. Those were the days when they owned the school.

Harvard University made a survey of the Academy's needs for the next 50 years. and among the things they pointed out was the land from where the motel is now, over the high bluff to the town park. It used to be called the Lakeview ground, and now its known as the Indian Trail.

E. R. and B. B. Culver, Sr., bought the land to protect the school and wanted to deed it to the Academy.... One of the other five Culver brothers also was pressuring to build the campus up by the State Rad 10 and not own any lake frontage, to be ornery....

I saw B. B. Culver, Sr. sign over the family's holdings in the school to the Foundation with one stroke of a pen in front of the Main Barracks. He made a little speech and turned over the title tot he Foundation....

This area included the following:
The 1922 Plat map gives a clear detail of this area. On both the 1908 and 1922 it is called the "Lake View Club Grounds"
1850 - I. N. Morris [Isaac N. Morris]
1880 - Lake View Club
1898 - T.H. & I. RR [Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad] Lake View Club
1908 Lake View Club Hotel

Lot 9
Lot 8

Directly behind lots 1-8 in the 1908 Plat map is located park Area and in the 1922 Plat map the area has enlarged and is listed as the Lake View Club Grounds.

Lot 7
Lot 6
Lot 5
Lot 4
Lot 3
Lot 2
Lot 1

Directly behind lots 1-8 in the 1908 Plat map is located park Area and in the 1922 Plat map the area has enlarged and is listed as the Lake View Club Grounds.

Lakeview Club Grounds
Lot 29
Lot 28
Lot 27
Lot 26
Lot 25
Lot 24

1929 - April/May - B. B. Culver and E. R. Culver purchased the Lake view Hotel. Before it could be utilized as an Academy-owned hotel, burned on 15 November 1929. The remaining buildings and tent frames were razed shortly thereafter.

By Bob Hartman: In the early 1950s, the Academy architect W. B. Ittner of St. Louis presented plans for a motel on the bluff just west of the fish ponds. As envisioned, it stretched along much of the shoreline enabling each unit to have a lake view. It proved too ambitious a project and the trustees settled on the less expensive motel which opened in 1960.

When a new site was being considered for the new Woodcraft camp it is implied that some consideration was given to the Indian Trail bluff area by William B. Ittner of St. Louis who had taken over the architectural responsibilities of the academy in 1951. Bob Hartman stated:

Ittner was enamored with the wooded 15 acres west of the Culver Inn overlooking the lake. Though visually impressive, the so-called Indian Trail bluff was rejected because there was little room to expand and access to the lake was difficult.

This photo was taken about 1905 and was en captioned where lake and forest meet. This depicts the entrance into the area known as the "Indian Trails" from the Academy side where the Culver Motels sit today:

Academy trustees showed no interest in developing the tract after the hotel burnt and allowed it to return to nature.

A request was made by the Lake Maxinkuckee Fish and Game Club in 1933 for ground to use as a fish a hatchery. Thus the academy sat two acres aside west of the inn for the purpose of the hatchery. The hatchery was financed and funded by the Lake Maxinkuckee Fish and Game Club. They established three ponds and they were from Academy Road to the lake.

The fish hatcheries were located on the very easterly end of the Indian Trails - as these pictures depicts. The 1922 plat map shows the drive way for the Jungle Hotel
.

and the aerial view of the fish hatcheries shows the - drive way again to the - on the very east edge of the Indian Trails.

CULVER FISH HATCHERY IS PROGRESSING RAPIDLY Culver, Ind., Mar. 18. - The Culver fish hatchery, being built by the Maxinkuckee Fish and Game club, is moving rapidly along so that citizens can already get an idea of what the project will look like when finished.

A fine flowing well has been finished and it is planned to drill one or two more at once. Two of the ponds will be completed next week. Attention will then be turned to improving and beautifying the grounds.

The club is in need of immediate financial assistance as the response of volunteer labor has been greater than contributions of money. But there is considerable of the project that cannot be handled except by the expenditure of money and the club's treasury has been drained by the work done so far.

Water will be turned into the ponds the middle of April and fish will be placed in the ponds at once. The fish will spawn about the middle of May and will be kept in the hatchery until along in September when the fingerlings will have reached a length varying from two to six inches. Then they will be ready for placing in larger bodies of water.

An official of the State Conservation Department looked over the hatchery Monday and declared the prospects indicated a hatchery as good as any in the state.

An invitation has been issued by the Culver Military Academy for all workers on the hatchery to be guests of the Academy at dinner Friday noon of this week at the Canteen as a special treat in recognition of the work these men are doing.
The News-Sentinel, Saturday, March 18, 1933

The uppermost pond was used for fingerlings, and as the fish grew they were released into the middle pond, and then finally a bit mor larger into the third pond before finally being released into the lake. The hatchery became operational by the late spring and remained until a new hatchery was constructed next to the old American Legion Post on Indiana 10 [ the legion property is now or was owned by Mc Carty's]. In the biography of Bruse Odgen it is stated that 16 acres of land was purchased off the north end of his propert by the State of Indiana for the fish hatcheries. - This area is shown by the following maps the first being a cropped section of the 1936 plat map showing no conservation area and the second a 1948 showing the 16 acres marked "conservation":

1980's - The railroad right-a-way that could not be bought up back in 1931 was purchased sometime in the 1980's with arrangement being made by James F. Dickie II, a trustee of the Culver Educational Foundation. The delinquent property taxes on the railroad right-a-way was paid up in full and the property was transferred to the Culver Educational Foundation; also waiving all responsibility to the railroad for any clean-up that was required as they had already salvaged the ties and rails from along the right-a-way.

The area up to the Palmer Hotel and past the Palmer Hotel to the orginial camppus contained what I have given the name to as the 'Unknown Cottages'or the 'Forgotten Cottages'. They did exist - but so far much of their existence and ownership is cloudy - They all became - 'Academy Campus'.

Last updated 15.11.2009

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