Updated 6 April 2001 URL is http://our.tentativetimes.net/city/city.html
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Bluffton, Indiana, the Parlor City
Tours of the decorations at the Bluffton Sewage Utility are available from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. during the holiday seasons. Bet you dollars to doughnuts we have the most festive sewage plant in the United States. We’re always flushed with pride. Good work, guys, and many thanks!!
No, This isn’t an official city page, it’s not stuffy enough, but it is the first page about the Bluffton Indiana area to go on-line. The foremother of all Bluffton pages. We are a little slice of the past, with all the conveniences of today as well as a bright future. And lo, only five years after I made my Bluffton site, the city of Bluffton Indiana has its own website now! For the straight scoop, visit the Official Bluffton Indiana website, though it is not made by yours truly.
Mayor Ted Ellis welcomes you to our city. Come visit a great place to live and work. Here’s our mayor with his family, wife Marge, children Andy and Becky. Have you seen them doing the recycling public service announcement? They have a future on screen! Andy has just become a member of the Bluffton Police Department. We hope Becky will go into public service here, following their Dad and their Grandfather, Mayor Emeritus Tuck Faulkner.
Paris on the Wabash
In the Main Street program, with John Schallert’s assistance, we are about to make Bluffton a place you will have to visit at least once in your lifetime, just like Paris. Only different. No Eiffel tower, but a firespotter tower at the adjacent Ouabache State Forest. We have shopping, dining, sight-seeing, geneology research at the library, hiking, swimming, hottubs at the Holiday Inn Express, art shows at the Community Arts Council, antique-ing and the world’s largest tent at our free, 5 day Street Fair.
Well, it’s a pretty big tent anyway. The biggest we know of. Live poultry show with lots of pheasant, partridge, quail and other fowl make a unique experience at our fair. Have a BBQ sandwich, taco potato, onion blossom, Wisconsin cheese, Cajun Cookin’, Mettler’s fish, Porky’s ostrich burger or a buffalo burger, ride the rides and enjoy the free shows. It happens in late September, every year. To be a part of it, phone the Street Fair Office at (260) 824-4351 for details. If it is closed for the winter, call our Mayor.
You can reach our Mayor by dialing (260) 824-1520. His office is in a restored brick building that houses the new gym we built so everyone can get healthy exercise all year long. Write to Mayor Ted Ellis at the City Building, 128 East Market Street, Bluffton IN 46714. His email is [email protected] If Ted is not in, his assistant, Brenda Jackson, knows almost all the answers, and will find out the rest.
The Wells County Chamber of Commerce has email now! Contact Suzanne Huffman at [email protected] or phone them at (260) 824-0510, or fax them at (260) 824-5871. You can mail them at Wells County Chamber of Commerce, 202 South Main Street, Bluffton, Indiana 46714.
Our Economic Development office has a different phone, (260) 824-9586, or fax (260) 824-1494. You will probably want to site your factory or business here, once you meet us. We are a little slice of the past, with all the conveniences of today as well as a bright future.
The Bluffton Police Department has its own website now!!
There is a fine Bed and Breakfast in Bluffton. Visit it on-line at http://blufftonbandb.tripod.com/
Bluffton Factoids
Bluffton, Indiana is south of Fort Wayne in northeast Indiana, on State Road 1. The population is 8500 to 9000, depending on the estimator. We grow corn, soybeans and wheat around us and have a tomato cannery. There is a State Park adjacent to the city, with a walking path going right to it, (as well as the road.) It’s Ouabache State Park, meaning Wabash in French, go figure. You can call up there and find out all you need to know. Phone 260-824-0926.
Here is the mysterious Wells County Courthouse on Highway 1, on the banks of the Wabash far away. We have gargoyles. Kewl! When you see the Courthouse Tower, you are in the heart of Downtown.
Please visit Bluffton Page Two
Contents of Bluffton, page 2
Here’s the page index. or you can skip down to the comments about the pages.
The Wells County Historical Society has a new address! Visit them at http//wchs-museum.org
Disclaimer
Opinions expressed in Our Tentative Times are solely those of each writer, and probably do not reflect the opinions of anyone else. From time to time even the writers change their opinions. Several of us are of two minds about some things. Sometimes we even report on news without having even one teensy opinion about the subject, but that’s rare. We’re not responsible for chages of location, dates or performers that occur without our being informed of such. Always check before leaving home. Do not consume Nostalgia magazine oftener than thrice a day. Floss regularly. Never ever litter.
Our ISP Provider
You read these pages courtesy of a man with a vision. Terry L. Miller, formerly with Franklin Electric Company, wanted his daughters to grow up with access to the internet. There was no way that would happen here in Bluffton, so he left the security of his position to risk everything on providing Internet access for Bluffton, Markle, Liberty Center, Petroleum, even some folks in Adams County. He risked all and he came out on top, with his consulting business booming, a wonderful staff at Parlorcity Internet, and late arrivals challenging his kindness, his actual charity to our community. I’m grateful to work for Terry and Deb Miller.
A big thank you and three cheers to OnlyInternet.com for bringing us into contact with the world on the Internet!! Only-Internet.net has branched out to other cities. Well-deserved success! Without them I would be silence and darkness. They also have a nice list there of the other Bluffton home pages
Local Stars Shine
For news of some of the local students who have made a mark on the world, click on Bluffton alumni Bluffton alumniSouthern Wells alums or Norwell-Lancaster Central. Send additions!
Amateur Radio Club
The Wells County Amateur Radio Society reactivated in 1996. Keep up to date on the progress.
Club member and local ham Wayne Grove, K9SLQ has a fine home page to which he devotes much time and effort. Retired Bluffton Police officer Mike Gerwig is a ham too. Boy, is he a ham…. no, just kidding. He has an uproarious home page and 11 children.
Why I Love the News-Banner
My thoughts on the wonderful Bluffton News-Banner are now on a separate page,
along with Are There Any Other Blufftons?
The Bluffton Lion’s Club
If you’re a Lion, or just curious, be sure to see the page for the Bluffton Lion’s Club. The Kiwanis disbanded and asked the Lions to take over the Travelogue, and the Lions will do that.
The Bluffton-Harrison Middle School
The Bluffton-Harrison Middle School has its own site! Always changing and growing.
Norwell High School has come on line. I’ll add the URL when I get it.
SIDETRIPS
Cabin fever? One of our best side-trips is Gene Stratton-Porter’s Limberlost Swamp and state historic site in Geneva, Indiana. It has about fifteen pages so far. She’s a world-famous naturalist, writer and Hollywood movie producer, an early feminist of sorts. The Limberlost website includes lodging for the surrounding area.
We also like to run down to Fairmount Indiana to check up on James Dean doings.
Feeling like a little entertainment? There is a huge e-zine about Northeast Indiana music here in Our Tentative Times.
You are encouraged to bookmark this page. Remember Bluffton, and come see us soon.
Bluffton Indiana Factoids is written by Sandra Weinhardt. Send all additions and corrections for the Bluffton pages to me at [email protected]
tons of newspaper are recycled into animal bedding each week by Bluffton’s recycling center.