Marion: A Pictorial History

As travelers on the broad highway to the present, we need to pass through the narrow, tree-lined trails on foot or horseback, cross the sometime-treacherous Mississinewa River on rafts, and avoid the lurking wolves to understand the distance we have come. Long-time Marion residents have mental images and family stories, filed away in the recesses of their minds, t call on for review. Younger residents must rely on old photographs and the written word, to supply the background. All of us depend on those precious, fragile-camera images of times gone by to see what those energetic, ambitious ancestors saw. Before photographs, we must rely on sketches made more than a century ago, to know more about Meshingomesia and Frances Slocum as we search for reasons why so many of today's realities bear their names. Most of our settlers came in a continuing search for a better life. Some sought freedom from slavery and prejudice. They all pitted their strengths against the harsh elements. Tey came from cities along the settled East Coast: from England, Germany, Italy, Wales, Greece and Ireland. They worked with what they found: took clay from mounds to make bricks and pottery: pried huge slabs od stones from the river for sidewalks and curbs: and harvested the abundant trees for industrial and housing needs. They brought old skills and learned new ones - took chances to find a better fuel, make a better bicycle, build a better road for other travelers. And time after time, they contributed the fruits of their labor to improve Marion for all who followed. As we look back at Marion as it was, we must be grateful for those who make it what it is today.