No one could remember who had placed the box upon the
highest shelf of the old records room in the Sycamore County Courthouse. The
label had nearly disappeared. Dust had settled into the cracks of the
cardboard. Had the courthouse roof leaked one more winter, the papers inside
might have been lost forever. It bore no official seal. No inventory number. Only
three words, written in fading ink upon the lid.
Northern Township Papers
Inside were folded newspapers, church bulletins, meeting
notices, handwritten letters, and several pages tied together with worn cotton
string. The earliest paper was dated March of 1911. Its heading read simply:
Petition Concerning the Proposed Manufacturing Works
To the Honorable Board of County Commissioners:
We respectfully request that approval be withheld for the
manufacturing works proposed for the northern townships of Sycamore County.
Such a structure is without precedent anywhere within
Sycamore County. Its size alone recommends caution. It will alter the
appearance of the countryside, require changes to our roads, and permanently
affect the quiet character of the surrounding farms.
Once these things are changed, they cannot be restored.
We therefore ask that the proposal be denied until its
consequences are more fully understood.
Nearly four hundred names followed.
The next document was a newspaper editorial.
The Sycamore County Sentinel
March 28, 1911
SHOULD SYCAMORE COUNTY REMAIN SYCAMORE COUNTY?
There are moments in the life of every community when the
question before it is not merely what shall be built, but what shall become of
the place itself.
The structure our readers have taken to calling the Great
Brick Building is unlike anything previously contemplated within our
borders.
If approved, it will not simply occupy land.
It will forever alter the character of our community. That
is a matter worthy of thoughtful debate.
The following week, citizens gathered in the basement of a
country church.
The clerk who recorded the meeting displayed little interest
in speeches but remarkable devotion to accuracy.
His notes survive.
A farmer observed that the building would stand where his
grandfather had once harvested wheat.
"Applause."
A widow remarked that the view from her porch had
remained unchanged for forty years and wondered whether progress always
required surrendering something beautiful.
"Applause."
A merchant questioned whether one undertaking ought to
reshape an entire community.
"Applause."
A schoolteacher cautioned that history rarely rewarded
communities that embraced every novelty without question.
"Applause."
The clerk never once recorded laughter.
Nor anger.
Only neighbors speaking earnestly of the place they loved.
Tucked among the meeting minutes lay two letters.
The first had evidently been intended for publication.
It never appeared.
Dear Editor,
Much has been said by those favoring the Great Brick
Building.
I do not question their sincerity.
Yet sincerity alone has never built a wise community.
Decisions of permanence deserve extraordinary care.
The building may prove beneficial.
It may prove troublesome.
Either way, our grandchildren must live beside the choice we
make this spring.
I ask only that we proceed slowly.
— A Citizen
The second letter had no envelope.
It appeared to be a reply, though perhaps only to the times
themselves.
My Friend,
I have attended every public meeting.
What strikes me most is not the disagreement.
It is the certainty.
Those in favor know precisely what tomorrow shall bring.
Those opposed know precisely what tomorrow shall prevent.
I envy them.
I have lived long enough to distrust certainty.
Perhaps our obligation is not to predict the future.
Perhaps it is simply to be ready to govern it, should it
arrive.
There is little glory in such work.
It is tedious.
Yet civilization has generally advanced not because one side
defeated the other, but because ordinary people undertook the tedious and
unfashionable work of negotiation.
But I suspect it is the work all the same.
— E.W.
The remaining documents from that spring contained no
dramatic revelations.
Announcements of church suppers.
Advertisements for seed corn.
Baseball scores.
A notice seeking bids to repair a bridge.
Life, it seemed, had continued while the debate occupied
men's thoughts.
The next surviving newspaper was printed fifty years later.
It commemorated the anniversary of the Great Brick Building.
The article recalled families whose livelihoods had begun
beneath its roof.
Roads that had been widened.
Neighborhoods that had grown.
Public improvements that had followed.
It also remembered years when the building had brought
challenges the county had not anticipated.
New standards had been written.
Mistakes had been corrected.
The article concluded with a sentence underlined in pencil
by some unknown reader:
Time revealed that nearly everyone had been right about
something, and no one had been right about everything.
At the bottom of the box rested a single sheet bearing the
letterhead of a local historical society.
It contained only this note.
Collection Note
The foregoing papers concern the public debate held in Sycamore
County during the spring of 1911 regarding approval of what residents called the
Great Brick Building.
Construction proceeded later that year.
For nearly seventy years the building helped shape Sycamore
County's economy, roads, neighborhoods, and generations of local families.
The building was known thereafter as Sycamore Automobile
Works, one of Indiana's early automobile manufacturing facilities.
No further explanation has ever been added.
Perhaps none has ever been needed.
Chip Keller is a small business owner and serves on the Morgan
County Council. The views expressed are his own.
The preceding documents are fictional. The questions they
raise are not.
