New Harmony, Two Utopias

The visitor center is almost bigger than the town itself. There you will find information about the historical sites and be able to book guided tours of various places in the town. The large-scale plan of the town on the upper floor is a gook place to begin to orient yourself to the sights, and the open deck at the very top enables you to see the actual places.

Quick Tips:

Leave your can at the visitor's center and walk to the rest of the places.

Best Way To Get Around:

It is possible to drive to the various areas, but it is also very nice to walk along the shady sidewalks. You will need a car to get to New Harmony.

This is a bed and breakfast with a difference--it is actually a cute two bedroom house which will sleep six. Breakfast is in the refrigerator, and the hosts will ask for your preferences. Located close enough to New Harmony to be a good choice for a visit there, it is also a great place for the meeting of a small group. The owners are farmers who will show you around their operation. They are very nice--so nice, in fact, that the Cholpe House is often booked weeks in advance.

The furnishings in this motel are in the Shaker style. Some rooms have fireplaces, which are cozy on a cold winter day. Everything is exceedingly clean and neat. During some seasons there are packages, which include breakfast at the Red Geranium or attractions with the room.

There are so many dishes available at the Red Geranium that it is difficult to describe them all in a short space. The luncheon menu features sandwiches as well as hot foods, with an emphasis on standard American fare served with a flair. For dinner, there are numerous appetizers, including snails and crab cakes, and a number of lovely salads, each named for an area of the world. The entrees include the beef standards of steak and prime rib, chicken cooked several different ways, and several seafood choices. In my opinion, the crowning glory is the Chateaubriand for two, which is beautifully presented with piped duchess potatoes and bright spring vegetables. And it tastes as good as it looks.

The restaurant has a nice ambience, and it is very popular with local people as well as with the tourists. On a weekend night, reservations are necessary.

Travel back in time to Aunt Sallie's Soda Shop. Remember to look up when you enter the place, to see the ninteenth century main street architecture. This is the place to get a soda or a sundae on a hot afternoon. There are lots of ice cream choices here, but the food menu is limited to hamburgers and sandwiches.

Because it has a diverse history, New Harmony celebrates its German past with a Kunstfest in September and a Scottish festival in October. It also has Heritage week in April and Christmas Candlelight Tours in December. From June through August there is a summer theater in one of the original buildings. To find the date of the celebration in a particular year, call 812 682 4488.

I have enjoyed attending the Scottish festival, which had pipe bands, dancing exhibitions, singers and also sports competetions and food available. I plan to try the German festival next year.

New Harmony was founded by a group of German perfectionists, sometimes called the Rappites after their leader, George Rapp. Rapp had previously founded a settlement in Western Pennsylvania call Harmonie, hence the name. However, as was common in many Utopian settlements, with prosperity came worldliness, and his followers had begun to drift away. In an attempt to keep the group together, Rapp moved his followers to the wilderness on the Wabash River, in a relatively unsettled area, in 1814. These German immigrants were hardworking and inventive, and they had wonderfully built houses with mud brick insulation. They prospered here, too, and once again Rapp decided to migrate. He sold the entire settlement to Robert Owen, son of the famous Scotsman who had founded a temporal utopian society in New Lannark, Scotland.
Owen's settlement was less successful than that of Rapp. He attracted intellectuals who were not accustomed to working, and winter farmers who stayed only for a season when their crops failed. Slowly but surely the settlement disintergrated, leaving behind only the buildings, the maze, and some of Owen's descendents.

New Harmony lies on the Wabash River, which is the dividing line between Indiana and Illinois. The Indiana side is mostly hilly, with both crops and dairy farming. The area close to New Harmony is a large river bottom, beautifully green in early spring. It is easy to see why George Rapp chose this spot!

Cross the bridge into Illinois, and you will come to a wonderful farming area which is also in the oil belt. The landowners get two crops here: the one they grow and the one they pump out of the ground. I wonder how much land in this area costs?