Trail marker at The Depot honors Indigenous peoples

Part of ongoing project by Potawatomi Miami Trail Group

The following article by Denise Fedorow, Correspondent for the Goshen News, was published on May 31, 2025

GOSHEN — A trail sign marking the historic trail used by the Indigenous Potawatomi and Miami people was unveiled at The Depot, 1013 Division Street, Goshen Friday morning. The Mennonite Central Committee hosted the event and is the fiscal body for the volunteer group — the Potawatomi Miami Trail Group — who are actively seeking to memorialize the history of the Indigenous people of the region by creating a trail marker system along the route.

Alicia McLeod, peace and justice coordinator with MCC welcomed everyone to the unveiling of the marker and said the 145-mile-long trail would have passed real close to this spot at The Depot. She said, “As we begin, we want to acknowledge with humility the Potawatomi and Miami people and other Indigenous people whose land we currently stand on. We honor the Potawatomi and Miami as generational stewards of this land, and we recognize and lament the forced removals, violence and unjust treaties that forced many from this land. May we strive to be truth-tellers and work towards repair that is rooted in justice and peace.”

They unveiled the sign and then Luke Gascho, retired executive director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College and a member of the Potawatomi Miami Trail Group, shared more information about the sign and the trail. He said there are markings on the first survey map of the area as well as journal entries that mention the trail. “That gives us great accuracy and helps us to know where the trail was,” he said, and told the group gathered for the event that the volunteer group has been working on this project for four years, one part was developing the sign and logo.

Gascho said the trail is important and was used mostly for foot travel, possibly with the aid of dogs pulling items that were transported as this was a time before horses were in the area. He said they carried lots of goods along the trail that starts in a watershed of the Maumee River to the Elkhart River, which then connects to the St. Joe River. He said a lot of the land was very swampy, so they picked high spots and shared “that’s where we get the term ‘highway,’ by the way.”

He said U.S. 33 is on top of the trail in many places. The trail crosses the bridge on U.S. 33 in Benton and there are signs by the Benton Mennonite Church on the trail. He said there’s also a stone with a plaque that was placed there in 1923 that states it is the location of where pioneers crossed the Elkhart River and is the trail settlers came up on, but he said Indigenous people used it for centuries prior to the settlers coming to the area. He said their group’s focus has been on Elkhart County. They know the trail goes through Benton, then goes through the middle of the Goshen Airport and he said it was a very low impact trail. Past the airport it also comes down through the west edge of the Greencroft Property and comes to the east side of Eighth Street Mennonite Church between the railroad tracks and the practice field for the Goshen High School band, then it comes into downtown Goshen.

“Then lo and behold it goes through the old Carnegie Library, right through the mayor’s office,” he said. “Then it’s amazing, it goes diagonally from the southeast corner to the northwest corner of the courthouse property downtown.” The trail continues on the north side of the Elkhart River and goes through the Oakridge Cemetery and at The Depot and MCC Great Lakes it’s only .3 miles from there. The trail splits at Ox Bow County Park and the north side goes up to Niles, Michigan, while the west side of the river goes all the way to Chicago. It also goes through the AMBS (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) property, which is the longest stretch you can actually walk and where they placed the first sign. He shared that it also splits there, and a spur goes up to the St. Joe River at the Sherman Street Bridge, where they could then put canoes in and travel faster on the waterway.

“Ironically today if you go to the Sherman Street Bridge on the southside of it you’ll see a Department of Natural Resources boat access. So, they’re allowing people to put boats in today in the same place the Indigenous people did for a long time,” Gascho said.

Gascho shared that they worked with Potawatomi and Miami people to develop and get input on the signage and logo. He said members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation who had ancestors from here who were forced on the Trail of Death suggested they put in a larger font the names of the people the way that they say them, not the colonized way. Bodéwadmi for Potawatomi and Myaamia for Miami. Although the Potawatomi and Miami people’s graphic artists were too busy to design the logo, they did give input after the organization’s graphic designer produced designs. He shared that the outside medicine circle incorporated the four colors and orientation of the Miami people while the inner medicine circle reflects the colors and orientation of the Potawatomi people. The turtle on the outside represents Turtle Island (which reportedly some Indigenous people called North America) and there are strawberries, which were designed by a Potawatomi artist as they incorporate a lot of floral designs, and the ribbon work is from the Miami people. He said the logo was a “wonderful merging of working together” and said it was a way of remembering those who came before us and a way of doing justice.

STATE RESOLUTION & BLESSING OF THE SIGN

Gascho said that he and Rich Meyer discovered that some signs, like the Trail of Death signs, were approved by state resolution, so they thought they should get a resolution for this sign. So, they met with Sen. Blake Doriot, showed him the map and he agreed to take a resolution to the state senate. On Jan. 30, 2025, the Indiana State Senate approved this as a historic trail.

BLESSING

Amber Falcón, a member of the board at The Depot read a blessing, thanking the Creator for placing us on the earth and all the interconnections with the people and the earth. “We bless these signs today; may they always remind us of the history and presence of the Potawatomi and

Miami (and) may they remind us of walking gently on this earth as the feet of many people did throughout the millennia while walking on this trail. May this sign remind us to love all that you love and to seek reparative justice,” she prayed.