Washington, IN
Washington, IN sits in the heart of southwestern Indiana farmland. The county has one of the largest Amish populations in Indiana — particularly around Loogootee and Montgomery — with horse-drawn buggies still common on country roads. The B&O Railroad Heritage runs through here, with the Daviess County Historical Society maintaining one of the better small-town railroad museums.
Indiana's first state capital and the site of the most important Revolutionary War battle in the west. In 1779, George Rogers Clark marched 180 miles through flooded wilderness to surprise the British garrison here, effectively winning the Northwest Territory for the United States. The massive granite memorial (the largest outside Washington D.C.) is visible from the air along the Wabash River. Vincennes University (1801) is the oldest in Indiana.
When it was completed in 1902, this 200-foot free-span dome was the largest in the world — bigger than the Pantheon in Rome, bigger than St. Peter's Basilica. It held the record until the Houston Astrodome in 1965. Called the 'Eighth Wonder of the World,' the hotel fell into disrepair but was restored in 2007. The circular dome is clearly visible from 3000ft. The dome is most photogenic from the south, with the valley's forested hills as backdrop.
The limestone quarried around Bedford and Bloomington built a startling share of monumental America — the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, the National Cathedral, and some 35 state capitols. The Empire Quarry is the most famous: the pit that yielded 18,630 tons of stone for the Empire State Building. The belt between the two towns is pocked with these workings, active and abandoned, their sheer pale walls dropping to floors of still blue water.
The Salem and St. Genevieve limestone quarried around Bedford built the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, the National Cathedral, the Lincoln Memorial, and 35 of the 50 state capitols. From the air, the massive open-pit quarries are a dramatic landscape — turquoise rectangles cut deep into the earth. The Indiana Limestone Heritage Festival each June celebrates the industry and stonecarving tradition. Just south, the town of Mitchell preserves Gus Grissom's boyhood home — the Mercury 7 astronaut, second American in space, who died in the Apollo 1 fire. The Gus Grissom Memorial includes his Gemini 3 capsule "Molly Brown."