I want to share with you my greatest find of all. Our train depot. About two years ago, a friend of mine and a co-worker kept trying to introduce me to one of his friends. Her name is Vicki Collins. At the time I was dating this girl who really had no interest in me except for how big my wallet was. I wasn’t really interested in another relationship. So i kept blowing him off.

Finally he told me she needed some help putting in an air conditioner and since I lived nearby, would I stop by there and give her a hand. He gave me her phone number and i decided to call her that evening. When she answered, I told her who I was and what I wanted and she said, no, I think its to late this evening. I kinda figured he had tried to talk me up to her. With that response, I thought, o k then, a little less work tonight.

About a week later, Jim, a friend of mine, and his girlfriend were over and we were sitting around talking and Vicki’s name came up. That day it must have been at least 100 degrees out. I told Jim, I think I’ll give her a call and see whats up. When she answered, it seemed like she was very enthused that I called. We discussed how hot it was and she asked if I would come over and set the unit. Jim and I and his girlfriend loaded up and headed over.

I had been through Lewis before but had never stopped there or had ever worked in the town before. Lewis is a small town in west-central In. The kind of town that you just drive through to get somewhere else. I never dreamed it had so much history. I plan on covering some of that history in my next article.

We finally arrived at her house. I couldn’t see too much because it was so dark out. Ms. Vicki answered the door and wasn’t what i expected. My friend, Shane, Had said she was a blonde and a little “augmentation” and was smoking’ hot. Well when she answered the door, she had her hair up, it was brown, didn’t see any sign of “augmentation”. Come to find out she had just got off work, landscaping and was filthy. She showed us to the window and then to the air conditioner and we began our work. In the meantime, Ms. Vicki went to take a shower.

Jim and I inserted the air conditioner and waited on her to get out of the shower. We waited and waited til Jim finally said are you ready to go. After smelling the scent a freshly showered women that was coming from the bathroom , I replied , well lets wait a few minutes. I hadn’t smelt anything that even came close to that in a very long time.

Well after about an hour, it seemed, Vicki finally at last decided she looked good enough to present herself to company. Now were talking! Shane wasn’t all wrong, WoW! We ended up staying for a few hours talking and having a few cocktails.

As I sat there looking around, I saw a few antiques and she politely gave me some history on some of it. She told me how her house used was an old three-story school-house and the house behind the house was an old train depot. I t was intriguing, so i ask and asked her if we could go take a look. We went out side and when she flipped the security light on , I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was awesome. An old train depot, right in her backyard.

Vicki pointed out the stained glass windows and the chimney. And told me that the train depot was actually moved there around 1972-73. I haven’t been able to find too much info on who moved it here. I do know, Jim Collins, also known as J.C. who was former President of the DIABLOS MOTORCYCLE CLUB, and Vicki’s late husband, purchased it from the Gardner’s around 1980. His plans were to hire a helicopter to lift it off its foundation and move it to a piece of property in the country between Lewis IN. and Hymera IN. In 1997 after a car accident, J.C. contracted some type of kidney cancer and never realized his dream.

Well, no worries J.C. I’m gonna make sure the train depot and Ms. Vicki , are well taken care of. Needless to say, Vicki and I had dated for about three months and by this time we decided to move in together. I ended up moving from a small trailer in Hymera to her house, the old school-house, in Lewis. It didn’t take long to figure out Vicki was the pack rat.

The first time she took me inside the train depot, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was full to the ceiling with all kinds of stuff. You had to crawl over stuff that was on top of stuff that was on top of even more stuff just to get to the master bedroom. Winter was setting in and it was gonna be a long and drawn out process of getting this place ready to move in.

Over the next few months we just kept chippin’ away at it. We couldn’t have done it without some of our friends helping out. we had Gina, a real good friend of both of ours.

When we weren’t busy working, my son John, pictured here with his son Gage and my nephew Danny spent some time clearing the front room and kitchen.

AND SOMEONE HAD TO SUPERVISE !!!!
Another friend of ours, Cindy, spent about two weeks helping Vicki scrubbing the walls down and packing clothes. It honestly took so long, I never thought we were gonna get done.

Our goal was to get it clean enough and make sure the electric was still a-1, so we could at least move in the bedroom, without getting sick or burning up in a fire. I did forget to mention, the place hadn’t been lived in since 2003. Almost 10 years ago.

Another huge obstacle that was in our way was the garage. The garage was a working gas station that sat 10 ft. behind the train depot. It dated back to the early 20′s (I think) When I started coming around the garage had already been on fire a few years before and there was nothing left except the debris and all the walls which were old school concrete blocks. the real garage was 16 ft. high. 27 block deep and 57 block long. It had started out as a Redi-Mart when it built. Between then and now it had been a few different things. J.C. used it as a working garage and a place to live out his dream of building Bikes. I wish I had pictures of what it looked like when I first saw it.

Needless to say, the code enforcement of Vigo County was on Vicki to get it down and get the debris removed. Well getting it down wasn’t a big chore. I called one of my contractor buddies, Dave Jackson, and he agreed to bring a small bulldozer, if I would pay for expenses, he would take it down and pile it up on the north end of the slab. It would be another 5 to 6 months before we would complete the project.

In the meantime, we had worked our butts off to finish cleaning it out. After emptying the train depot, I took a look around and thought this place is actually in great shape. Only one room needed painting as the rest of the walls are constructed of 2 in. knotty pine tongue and grooved planks that over the years were very well-preserved.

We started in the master bedroom, cleaning the windows and scrubbing the walls and wiping down all the trim with a mixture of Murphy’s oil soap and water. I’d say we spent about three days getting it ready for paint. Finally we got around to Lowe’s and picked out our paint. we decided on a cross between Indianapolis Colts blue and a Kobalt blue.

Just so happened I worked in a carpet store so getting the carpet at cost was a very good perk. Vicki came to town and started looking through everything we had in stock, and we had a lot in stock, and finally decided on a retro style carpet that looked like it was a blue and white. After installing it you could actually tell it was more of a brown and white but fit in perfect. The master bedroom used was the old baggage area and still has the sliding rail door all still in tact. We finally finished the master and took a second to sit back and ponder. I was thinking, that if this room turned out this good, then the rest of this place will be gorgeous.

Even though the well pump was down we decided to move our bedroom furniture in and start staying there. The school-house was only about 100 ft door to door and we walked the track everyday to shower and use the bathroom. Vicki spent the next two to three weeks hanging from the rafters literally wiping down every sq. in. of the remaining down stairs. When she finished those areas up and the other piece of carpet was layed we finished moving in. it was beautiful!!

We still had to figure out what to do about the pump in the well, so we called in a well company to check it out. When they arrived, they unloaded their equipment and began to run a camera down the well. After about thirty minutes,they pulled the camera out and informed us that the well could not be used ,due to all the wire and pipe and the old pump in just an array from someone trying to replace the pump. Apparently someone was trying to replace the pump, got it about two-thirds of the way up and the wiring and pipe came apart and went crashing down to the bottom.

We could do one of two things hire someone to retrieve the old pump or just hook in to the pump of the other house. Vicki was pretty apprehensive about that idea but the well guy assured her it was sufficient enough to handle both households. Boy was he right.

We purchased a pool this past summer when the drought was going on and filled it from water stations in Jasonville and Clay City. We had tried using a salt water system with the pump and I ended up getting way to much salt in it. I had to drain it. this pool holds about 5500 gallons of water and boy was i dreading the fact of making those trips again. That evening I decided to put the hose in for a while and maybe save a trip or two. Well I got busy and forgot about it. The next morning, I was getting ready to head into work and it dawned on me, I had left the hose on all night ! I just knew I had run the well dry or burnt the pump up. I headed over to the pool and to my amazement, the pool was full. I pulled out the hose and it was still running strong after 10 hours. We hadn’t seen rain in over 7-8 weeks. 5500 gallons overnight WOW !! Heck we could supply the town. After bragging about it to the neighbor, it wasn’t long before his well went dry and he asked if he could fill his 500 gallon tank up. Last summer he must have filled at least 4-5 times.

Of course its winter now and we spend most of our evenings sitting in front of the wood stove watching tv and enjoying this old train depot.

I’ve posted a few pics of the inside and outside for you all to check out. My next post will be a pictorial article of the town of Lewis and if you like old train depots and think there interesting, I’m gonna start it out with some cool pictures.