Publication includes images of Modern America Indiana’s Lost National Road

PENDLETON — Most travelers nowadays are not interested in the journey so much as they are the destination, local author David Humphrey said.

It’s one of the reasons many travelers don’t use older national highways to get places as much as they do faster tracks, such as interstates, planes and trains.

Humphrey, a Madison Heights High School graduate, recently released his fifth publication, a photo book titled “Images of Modern America, Indiana’s Lost National Road.”

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The book takes readers along U.S. 40 as it cuts east to west across the state, showing images of what is and what used to be.

Humphrey — married, with a son and living in the Pendleton area — is a photographer at heart, having done that for a variety of newspapers through the years. He is a special needs instructional assistant in the South Madison Community School Corp. and spends a significant amount of his spare time taking photos and writing.

The idea behind the book was to capture images of life along U.S. 40 — some of which reflect life as it once was and others that show how it still is — a state thoroughfare that has become a has-been stretch of road to many.

While at a ballgame in Knightstown a couple of years ago, Humphrey took a stroll down U.S. 40 and noticed many older buildings boarded up.

He said he thought a book to highlighting what has happened along the National Road, both good and bad, would make an interesting visual showcase.

Humphrey made at least five trips across the state from east to west along the route trying to capture images that caught his eye, pieces of history he hated to see fading.

“I just think it’s a shame that we’re not interested in history anymore,” Humphrey said.

He looked at his travels from a historic point of view and captured the images that helped tell the old and new story of U.S. 40.

Humphrey tries to showcase the small towns along the route, hoping to capture history before it is gone.

Many of the photos of older buildings he took the past couple of years are now gone, he said.

Humphrey is hoping people might see the book and get inspired to revitalize some of the areas, if they can.

Greenfield is prominently shown in the book with images of the courthouse, Riley Park and the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home.

While many communities are thriving along U.S. 40, such as Greenfield, he said, the book also points out the places that now belong to the past.

Old barns and homes and dilapidated towns mark much of the landscape along U.S. 40.

“Sometimes progress it isn’t always a good thing,” Humphrey said.

Among his favorite photos, Humphrey said with a laugh, is the image of “Blues Brothers” characters Jake and Elwood he captured outside of the Greenfield Music Center.

“That was something that was unique along U.S. 40,” he said. “I had not seen anything else like that.”

The book features more than 120 color and black-and-white images Humphrey’s took during a three-year period. It’s divided into three chapters, Richmond to Dunreith, Knightstown to Indianapolis, and Plainfield to Terre Haute.