Backyard Adventures

BACKYARD ADVENTURES 2014 Pike Publishing 29 For liberty and FREEDOM STORY BY ALDEN HEURING PHOTOS COURTESY WWW.LyLESSTATION.ORG L Y L E S S T A T I O N H I S T O R I C S C H O O L & M U S E U M Lyles Station Historic School & Museum stands as one of the last remaining African-American settle- ments in the Hoosier state, so a visit to the Lyles Station Historic School & Museum, located west of Princeton, is a definite visit for any traveler. The museum features artifacts and biographies of several prominent people who grew up in Lyles Station, such as Alonzo Fields, chief butler at the White House for 21 years. The Heritage Classroom at Lyles Station provides area students the opportunity to experience a day in the life of school children in the early 1900s. The newest building at the site is a restored log cabin, still under construction, that holds a historical connection to Lyles Station, the first black community in Gibson County, and a sentimental connection to Ann Hyneman, of Princeton. "The cabin used to belong to me and my brother, William Scott Rumble," Hyneman said. "We decided to purchase it to save some of our history." Hyneman's grandparents, Ernest Noble Scott and Orpha Iona Scott, built the cabin about a mile and a half from Lyles Station in the early 20th century. Their three daughters—one of them Hyneman's mother— grew up there. "They had three daughters: our mother Ruby Scott Rumble, and her two sisters Lois Scott Lasley and Mildred Scott Binkley," Hyneman said. "The road that went by the cabin was called Scott Orchard Road, because my grandfather had a peach orchard. He was a beekeeper too, and he hired people from Lyles Sta- tion to work on his orchard. I can remember my mom saying he used to be really good to the people he hired. He'd give them peaches and things like that." As the years went on and the daughters moved out and started their own families, the cabin started to run down. The logs were sold to Jim Kolb, who Hyneman said wanted to build his own log cabin. Eventually, by a chance encounter, it came back to the Scotts' descen- dants, then back again to Lyles Station. "By chance, Stan(ley Madison) was talking about a project Lyles Station was doing, and he was talking about this cabin," Hyneman said. "Suddenly I realized, that's my grandparents' cabin. So I said, what if we bought it and donated it to Lyles Station? " Madison, who is the vice president of the Gibson County Visitors and Tourism Bureau, and the chair- man of Lyles Station School and Museum, was looking to expand the historical site, and said receiving the cabin from Hyneman was a boon to Lyles Station and Gibson County's history, as well as to his own plans for expanding Lyles Station. "We've got a lot of good things planned for the Tri- State area in the next one or two years," Madison said. "We want to expand—get more log cabins out here and more activities. Having help from Ann and her brother with this cabin was great." Madison said the Scott cabin will provide a new place for groups who visit to learn about the old days hands- on. Once the cabin was disassembled, he brought the logs to Lyles Station, and after about a year of work, he said the cabin just needs mud between the logs, a loft, and a fireplace. "It will be another one of our fun-and-play spots. Kids can go up in the loft, see how candles are made, and we'll have some of the basic history of log cabins," he said. The cabin went up right behind Lyles Station School and Museum. "When kids come out of the school, they can come right in here to learn about log cabins. We'd like to have a couple of porches so they can be outside even when it's raining." Hyneman said she's more than happy to see her grandparent's cabin restored in the place the Scotts built it so long ago. "I grew up in the Lyles Station area. I've been close to them, helped with some events, and I think what they do is really important to the history of Gibson County. I wanted to be a part of that," she said. "My brother and I both wanted to preserve a piece of history that was important to us. The farm where that cabin sat, my dad grew food from the land, raised hogs—it's a piece of our childhood. If we don't preserve it, it'll be forgotten... Donating it was sort of spur-of-the-moment, but I think it was meant to be." In addition to the cabin, Lyles Station now has a corn maze in the fall and will soon be featured in the Smith- sonian in Washington, D.C. "We're still working closely with the Smithsonian on that project," Madison said. "We're probably looking at 2016 (for the exhibit to be ready)." Coming up next month is Lyles Station's annual Ju- neteenth celebration on June 19. For a full list of events going on this year at Lyles Station, go online at www. lylesstation.org.

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