Alexander Sganga,
Pranay Shoroff, Julian Belal Ms. Stacy Nall
English 10800
15 December 2015
Hills
and Dales: Old is Gold
West
Lafayette is a town primarily fueled by Purdue University and the business it
brings with its many students from all corners of the world, but it is seldom
recognized that there is a more permanent community that resides outside the
more direct influence of the University.
Though not
nearly as old as some of its neighboring communities, the Hills and Dales
community located just northwest of university campus has been deeply
intertwined with Purdue’s affairs since its conception in the 1920s.
The Hills and Dales community has—for the most part—remained relatively
unaffected by decades of depression, war, and other national crises and many
houses from its original construction remain today as historic icons. One must
wonder then, what kind of a role did politics play throughout the Hills and
Dales community? This chronicle attempts to give its reader a short but
thorough glimpse into the different issues that the community faced from its
construction in the 1920s to present day, as well as compare and contrast the
community’s life with that if surrounding West
Lafayette.
Location
To
understand politics in Hills and Dales it is useful to look at the larger area
that represents Hills and Dales: West Lafayette. Present day West Lafayette
rises above the tumult of its founding. But quite a twisted founding it did
have. As local pastor and councilmember Peter
Bunder of the
Chapel of the Good Shepherd puts it, “The city of West Lafayette has a
checkered history. It’s 3 little towns. For a while you cannot send mail here
because nobody knows what West Lafayette is. [...] It’s land speculators from
the east who buy land along the river and are sort of jockeying for position.”
The jockeying was not a little thing. In the area of what is now West
Lafayette, several settlements popped up before West Lafayette became what it
is today. First, in the 1820s, the settlement of Jacktown came to be. Then in
1836, Augustus Wylie established a settlement peculiarly called “West
Lafayette.” But that is not the West Lafayette of today, this previous
iteration failed. 1855 saw Jesse Lutz found the Town of Kingston and 1860 was the
year the Chaunceys came to town. Well, actually it was not. The Chaunceys were
those eastern land speculators that Bunder mentioned earlier. The Chauncey
family was a wealthy Philadelphia family who never lived in West Lafayette and
might have never even graced its land.
Nonetheless,
the Chauncey family founded the Town of Chauncey. These towns Jacktown, the
Town of Kingston, the Town of Chauncey, and not the previous West Lafayette
were the three towns Bunder mentioned that make up West Lafayette. In 1866,
these towns started cooperating, and, by the turn of the decade, the three
became one. The three became Chauncey. In 1871, Chauncey asked to be annexed by
Lafayette but was denied due to transriver infrastructure costs. It was not
until 1888 that Chauncey changed its name because, as Bunder mentioned earlier,
nobody could send mail there. The town changed its name to West Lafayette, and
all its mail was routed through Lafayette. Afterward, without Lafayette and
with Purdue University, the town of West Lafayette grew to the point that in
1924 it became a city. With growth came the
development of
more neighborhoods and, in the same year as West Lafayette’s establishment as a
city, came Hills and Dales (New Chauncey Neighborhood Plan).
The cooperation
between those three little towns that led to the creation of West Lafayette can
still be seen in the contemporary politics of the area. West Lafayette is a
small city and Hills and Dales is by no means a big community, facts which have
not changed over the recent decades.
Small
sizes mean that each of West Lafayette’s districts are small as well and that
Hills and Dales does not constitute a whole district. Issues can easily extend
between districts, uniting them in sentiment, and, in a similar manner, issues
throughout a district can easily extend between communities. Not only do
districts and communities interact and cooperate, but they have to in order to
further their own desires. A controversy regarding Lindberg Road, the road
that constitutes
the northern border of the Hills and Dales neighborhood, illustrates this unity
between neighborhoods. Lindberg Road had been constructed over some mucky land,
and was beginning to sink into the mud. In 1989, the City Council proposed a
series of maintenance steps that included the widening of the street from 2 to
4 lanes in some areas. Many homeowners living near the streets were not happy
with this plan, and voiced their displeasure. One went so far as to say
“Quality of life means a lot to us that’s why we don’t live in Lafayette”. The
extra lanes would cut into people’s property and the extra traffic that the
road would invite could increase noise pollution. These are both things that
would lower property values, possibly significantly (Higgins).
The fact that Lindberg Road extends far beyond the edge of the Hills and
Dales neighborhood ensured that its controversy involved more than just the
Hills and Dales Community. In fact, the most vocal individuals in the newspaper
article that discussed the Lindberg Controversy were not even residents of
Hills and Dales, but of Blackbird Farms, a nearby neighborhood (Higgins). What
affected one neighborhood affected the other, creating a political bond that it
does not appear will soon be broken.
History
Ross
Ade Stadium and Hills and Dales’ Early Development. Hills and Dales’
foundation was first laid in 1924, the same year that West Lafayette officially
became a city, and continued to grow through the 30s and into the 40s. According
to Tour de Lafayette, “Early settlers and
developers considered the land undesirable due to the hilly topography, but in
the 1920s the land was thought to be ideal for housing development. Young
families associated with the university saw the area's potential.” So, in one
of the biggest political plays of the Hills and Dales’ early
years, that
potential was given the chance to materialize in response to Purdue’s desire to
create RossAde stadium and become part of the Big 10 College Network.
“It
was about that time that David Ross who was one of the influential people at
the university, he was a local industrialist who was a Purdue Graduate and
interested in Lafayette, decided that if Purdue was to be a factor in the Big
10, they had to have a stadium. And he decided that the place to have the
stadium was at the extension of the western campus residential development.
[Jim Shook’s] grandfather and [his] dad had already contract for the piece of
property north of Cary hall and where the stadium is today… and [his] dad said
‘Well what are we going to do about that? Where are we going to go? We need
more housing and we both have a problem.’ And Ross said ‘Well go find a piece
of ground and we’ll work it out.’ … and so they took a gamble and David Ross
bought the piece of ground and traded it for the land for which the stadium is
built. 1925. And they developed a subdivision. I have to give my dad and my
grandfather credit, they did it properly…” (Jim Shook, Interview)
These traded lands became RossAde stadium and Hills and Dales. The Shook
agency, the land developers who ended up with the piece of hilly topography
that was once considered undesirable, looked at the hills and dales of their
plot of land and decided to develop a neighborhood.
A few years after development started, the Great Depression struck the
nation. However, national and small town politics are not always the same.
Hills and Dales and the rest of West Lafayette received fewer scars from the
Depression than the rest of the nation. West Lafayette’s economy was university
driven and the Depression did not remove universities nor the need for them
(Bunder). Purdue University, the main employer in West Lafayette, endured the
depression
with only 2 pay
cuts: 5%, then 10% (Shook). Such actions were much less drastic than the rest
of the nation’s. Even nearby Lafayette had much more of a struggle as stated in
the Journal and Courier article, “Poverty: The Way We Were:” “Within three
months of the 1929 stock market crash, Lafayette’s Monon Railroad Shops laid
off 20 percent of its workforce. Other businessessmall and large followed
suit. [...] 75 percent of the unemployed before 1933, [...] couldn’t get poor
relief (Cullen).” The Great Depression could not even stop Hills and Dales from
building houses. The development of those first World War homage homes in Hills
and Dales was relatively constant until the second World War came along.
Development then stalled for a while during the second World War. However,
after the war, housing demand exploded (Shook).
Slowing
of Development. Yet the demand that exploded was not for Hills and
Dales type housing, but for suburban housing. This was the start of a conflict
between national housing trends (influencing West Lafayette) and the local
housing desires (influencing Hills and Dales). Suburbanization took the nation
and West Lafayette too with the dusk of war. Now, Purdue University’s continued
expansion worked against Hills and Dales’ desires. With more students came the
need for more housing but West Lafayette went with population dense suburban
apartments over homey European influenced family homes. This clashed with the
style of Hills and Dales and other historic architecture. As an even greater
affront to the traditional styles of housing, houses were converted to rentals
or destroyed to make way for the suburban apartments (New Chauncey Neighborhood
Plan). This had to be done because land is scarce, and though community members
of Hills and Dales want to uphold the “integrity and value” that their area has
(Shook), Purdue University just needed the living space. Although Purdue
University is still
expanding and little has occurred to
alleviate the concerns of Hills and Dales residents, Hills and Dales still
stands the test of time. In 2002, due to the successful preservation of Hills
and Dales homes, the United States Department of the Interior bequeathed to
Hills and Dales the title of Historic District (“Hills
and Dales Neighborhood”).
Residents
Residential
Concerns. Another important detail to recognize is the demographic
of Hills and Dales’ initial residents. Firstly, the Hills and Dales community
instituted a restrictive covenant that prevented individuals of low economic
status and people of color from living there.
That
really changed
the way the neighborhood developed. Even today, with the restrictive covenant
removed, the
demographic remains primarily white and primarily University
staff. Peter Bunder also remarked that “folks
there had more money than the
people in the rest of the town”. This may be a part of the equation as to why
the residents’ desires regarding the building of sidewalks were respected
throughout the years. Of course,
there are other factors that likely played an
even larger role, such as the fact that they are the people who live
in the
area itself and who would almost certainly put the most effort into being heard
in regards to the issue.
It is also important to remember that Purdue most
certainly dwarfs Hills and Dales (as well as the other local
neighborhoods) in
terms of influence derived from wealth. It is hard to imagine that all of the
West Lafayette
neighborhoods combined would be able to match Purdue’s 2.443
billion dollar endowment (Purdue
University Endowment Fund). However, the
University’s monetary advantage has not always served as an
overwhelming factor
in conflict resolution, such as during the initial development of the
neighborhood when
Purdue wanted to become part of the the Big Ten.
Peter Bunder called Hills and Dales the first suburb in the area and Wes
Shook would say that Hills and Dales had more of a country rural feel. Being a
peculiar rural suburb in the West Lafayette area provided Hills and Dales with
unique characteristics of quietness and seclusion as well as a location within
close vicinity of the campus, something desired by the University’s residents.
The neighborhood still values its isolation and exclusivity enough that it is
in no hurry to add sidewalks, in spite of the fact that it is no longer in a
heavily rural area. According to Peter Bunder, “you can see some of that today,
there is no sidewalks, there is a lot of screaming and yelling whenever the
city attempts to put safe paths to school, sidewalks in”. The resistance to
sidewalks tells
about the local politics. The close vicinity of the neighborhood to Purdue’s
campus makes it extremely convenient for the University’s staff to get to work
easily, but the neighborhood’s rural ostracization also allows residents to
live quietly and raise a family outside the otherwise active and sometimes
rambunctious lifestyle that naturally occurs nearby a large University such as
Purdue. One could surmise that the creation of sidewalks and other activities
that would reduce the neighborhoods relative isolation may make it less
appealing to University faculty. Politically speaking, we can see already that
the two major parties in this community are Purdue (and its students) and the
residents of surrounding West Lafayette, including Hills and Dales. There is a
balance between the University’s agenda and the desires of the community that
is evaluated and maintained every time there is a change that affects either
party.
Even when analyzing the land swap between David Ross and the Shook
agency, one can see the balance between University and the community. In that
arrangement, the way things were done in the negotiation were much more
informal, and really seemed to have less tension than many land disputes that
can be found elsewhere . Both Purdue and the Shook family got what they wanted
with a simple trade of equivalent value, seemingly without struggle. This also
says something about the nature of local politics during this era. The way that
people dealt with local problems during that time seemed kinder and more
negotiable. Having small towns meant that the community was much more intimate,
which increased the empathy that people felt for each other. As a result people
were more inclined towards reaching a satisfactory end result for as many parties
as possible with compromise. On the contrary, National level politics,
evenmoreso International, deals with many more interests and naturally,
because of the lack of
direct empathy,
compromise can seem much less attractive since parties cannot intimately see
the effect of decisions on their opposition.
However national and small town politics are not always so far apart.
People in Hills and Dales identified with their nation, felt pride and love for
it. This is seen in that during the founding of Hills and Dales, a scant few
years after the first World War, residents decided they wanted architectural
styles that symbolically connected them to their own nation and its allies
(Curtis). And so, the predominant architectural styles in Hills and Dales are
Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and French Eclectic (“Hills
and Dales Neighborhood”).
The primary concern of residents in the community in regards to their
home ownership appears to be property taxes. That is a very well founded
concern, especially since Hills and Dales is what is referred to as a TIF
district. TIF is an acronym that stands for Tax Increment Financing. What it
essentially means is that, as the property values within the neighborhood
increase, extra property taxes can be collected allowing the local governments
to collect more revenue. This is not necessarily the case in all neighborhoods,
where devices such as tax caps can prevent governments from collecting as much
money as they would otherwise like (Bunder).
Naturally, Hills
and Dales would prefer to pay less property tax, especially since their
properties are already considered to be fairly valuable and, therefore, income
taxes are probably relatively steep. Tax concerns for West Lafayette as a whole
are substantiated by the fact that research at the West Lafayette public
library yielded more political articles concerning tax statistics than any
other single category.
The obstacle of property taxes does not prevent Hills and Dales residents
from wanting to preserve their property values, which are fairly high. In fact,
there are currently four onestory
houses within the
community for sale, and their prices range from $129,900 to $219,000.
(realtor.com). It is likely that much of this value comes the state of the
neighborhood, so residents do not take kindly to events that may affect alter
the neighborhood’s state of being, such as in the previously discussed Lindberg
Road fiasco of 1989.
Public Individuals. There are a fair
amount of Hills and Dales residents who have run for public office over the
years. This is logical since the community is full of individuals with the
resources, intelligence, and community concern needed to enter into the
political arena. One example of such a man is Mr. Gerald Thomas. He is a former
Purdue University basketball player and Purdue alumni who ran for City Council
for the first time in 2007 and has held the office for the last two election
cycles (Meeks). Another notable individual is Randy Truit, who currently
represents the local area as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives
in the state capital of Indianapolis. Mr. Truit has a couple of relatives who
have a history in politics as well (Schenkel).
Discoveries
The
political history of the Hills and Dales neighborhood reveals several
relationships involving the community that have done a great deal to define it politically.
One is the relationship between Hills and Dales and Purdue University. This
relationship is one that simultaneously benefits and harms the neighborhood.
The University benefits the neighborhood in several ways. Purdue is and
historically has been the neighborhood’s number one employer, with many of the
residents working either as a professor at the University or as some other
faculty member. The University is also home to some Purdue Alumni and others
who, via their background, have a direct interest in the continued success of
the University (Bunder).
However,
the University’s success has also led to the University’s expansion, bringing
it in close geographical proximity to Hills and Dales and leading to some
interesting occurrences. For example, a Purdue student once invaded a Hills and
Dales home. He did not do it because he had anything malicious in mind. He did
it because he was in such a drunken stupor that he thought that the home was
actually Cary dormitory. This dorm is only a few block away from Hills and
Dales, which helped to facilitate the incident (Smith).
A more neutral way in which Purdue has affected Hills and Dales is the
University’s recent joining of West Lafayette. This directly led to a
redistricting of the city, which went into effect during the 2015 local
election. Since the new rules included a 7,000 resident per district
requirement, Hills and Dales is now a part of a district that is more spread
out than its prior one and includes much of eastern New Chauncey. An additional
change brought about by the annexation of Purdue is that the West Lafayette
City Council has expanded. There are now six council districts with three at
large positions, while there used to be only five council districts with two at
large positions (Bunder). The impact of these changes on both Hills and Dales
and the local government remains to be seen.
The second relationship that helps to define Hills and Dales politically
is its relationship with the rest of West Lafayette. The Hills and Dales is
very politically connected to the rest of the city. In fact, West Lafayette
became a city the same year that Hills and Dales was first founded. There has
never been one in the absence of the other. With the exception of a homeowners
association, which among other things organizes some community events, the West
Lafayette city government has always been the most local government of which
Hills and Dales has been a member. This is true for the other segments of West
Lafayette as well, and acts as a strong tie between them (Bunder).
The final overarching idea to be discussed can best be
described as past Hills and Dales versus present Hills and Dales, or how Hills
and Dales has changed overtime. Surprisingly, the community has not changed as
much over the decades as one might think, politically speaking.
Some things have
certainly changed. For example, there is no restrictive covenant anymore, or at
least not one that is enforced in any evident way. However, the neighborhoods
attitude towards certain issues such as Purdue University’s growth and the
potential addition of sidewalks show that sentiments reflected by the
restrictive covenant, such as a need to protect the neighborhood against
dangerous outside influence, may in fact still be present (Bunder).
The most likely explanation for this consistency of the neighborhoods
political values is probably derived from the fact that there is also
consistency in the community’s demographic. Hills and Dales was founded as a
residential community. With the possible exception of the Church of the Good
Shepherd, Hills and Dales is still completely residential. The community was
originally settled largely by Purdue professors looking to live away from the
hustle and bustle of the school. Today, professor is still the most common
career to be found among residents. Hills and Dales was founded as a white
community. Although there are minorities who live there, it is still
predominantly white. There is no evidence regarding a major demographic change
at any point in the neighborhoods history. This enduring of values is not
uncommon in small town neighborhoods, in fact, it is expected according to Rev.
Bunder, who stated that, “This place was small. This place is still small, and
it’s that size and homogeneity that give the place its identity. So, it is very
stable in terms of its structure. It’s very stable in terms of its ideology.”
Importance
A
beautiful part about being human is the ability of choice. With the ability to
think freely however, comes conflict and democracy. For eons, ever since the
birth of communication, politics has played an enormous role in the development
of the human race and the course of its
history. However,
in the ever rapidly growing population, much of the politics of local
communities gets
drowned out by the buzz of mass media, as the issues of a
single city or town very rarely bears any
importance for outsiders.
So why document the local politics of a town if the profitability is low
and the scope of importance is narrow? The answer is that the information will,
none the less, be of value to someone. Though the rest of the world may not
care so much about the housing conflicts involved with putting up a new
apartment complex in a town that barely anyone has heard of, the residents of
the area care. The documentation of people’s lives, embodied by their memories
of happiness, conflict, and sense of community, deserves to have a place in the
local records or library for future generations to have access. It preserves
the value behind the land that future generations will inherit and allows a
level of respect for it.
For students of Purdue University, it is often easy to forget that there
is more to West Lafayette than the school itself. One would suspect that this
fact holds for a student at any institution of higher learning in a “college
town”. It can be easy to forget that there are many permanent residents of West
Lafayette, whose heritage is to be respected and whose accomplishments are to
be championed. It is hoped that this study paints a picture of the political history of a neighborhood that one could argue has been unfairly
ignored by individuals either passing by or passing through. This picture may
not be the most unique. This picture may not be the most surprising. This
picture may not always be the most flattering. However, this picture contains
the essence of many of the political values and relationships that are
important to Hills and Dales and the historical context of these facets. It
exists for the benefit of Hills and Dales, the benefit of West Lafayette, the
benefit of Purdue University, and the benefit of anyone who
feels inclined to
enlighten themselves on the background of a very special West Lafayette
neighborhood.
Many questions have successfully been answered about the previously
almost undocumented political history of Hills and Dales. However there are
still many questions left unanswered about other neighborhoods in towns all
over the world. Bear in mind the value of the answers to these questions and
the remarkable secrets they may reveal.
