Why this ride
A slower scenic corridor linking historic towns and cultural landmarks. It also links naturally to Hoosier National Forest and historic towns.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Indiana Historic Pathways South Spur
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 264 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 50
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
Check seasonal gates, park access and state 511 notices before publication.
Seasonal context
Apr-Oct
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Vincennes
In February 1779, George Rogers Clark led about 170 men across southern Illinois in the middle of winter, wading through flooded river bottoms, sometimes up to their shoulders in icy water, to surprise the British garrison at Fort Sackville here on the Wabash River. The fort surrendered, and the victory helped secure the old Northwest for the new United States. A grand circular memorial of granite with a ring of columns now stands on the riverbank where the fort once was, and it is one of the most impressive monuments in the Midwest.
Read the complete Vincennes write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Vincennes sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is French Lick.
2. French Lick
Two giant resort hotels a mile apart explain everything about French Lick. Around the turn of the twentieth century, wealthy visitors came by train to these Indiana hills to drink and bathe in the sulphurous mineral springs, and the French Lick Springs Hotel and the West Baden Springs Hotel competed for them with ever more lavish buildings. West Baden's great domed atrium was, when it opened in 1902, among the largest free-span domes in the world, and people called it the eighth wonder of the world. Both hotels have been restored and are open again, with a casino now drawing the crowds the springs once did.
Read the complete French Lick write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
French Lick comes up 70 km in. Next is Bedford.
3. Bedford
Every old stone building in the American Midwest seems to have come from somewhere near Bedford. This is the middle of Indiana's limestone belt, a pale, fine-grained rock laid down in a warm shallow sea long before anything with a backbone walked out of it, and cut from the ground around here in quantities that built the Empire State Building, plenty of courthouses and a good share of Washington's monuments. The quarries still scar the hillsides outside town, and the flooded ones are the swimming holes that made the 1979 film Breaking Away feel so true to anyone who grew up in Lawrence County.
Read the complete Bedford write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
139 km in you reach Bedford. Next is Louisville.
4. Louisville
Louisville sits at the one place where the Ohio River used to fall apart. Just upstream of downtown the river drops over a limestone ledge, the Falls of the Ohio, which once forced every boatman to stop, unload or pay a pilot, and that portage is the whole reason a city grew here. On the Indiana bank, the fossil beds exposed at low water are some of the oldest and richest in North America, a seabed of Devonian corals that you can walk across in late summer. George Rogers Clark started his western campaign from the settlement across the water in what is now Clarksville.
Read the complete Louisville write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Louisville, late in the day.