The Bartholomew County Historical Society has given residents a coffee table volume of the past befitting a Twitter age.
That translates to bite-size nuggets of the area’s lore, ranging from Zaharakos’ beginnings to Tony Moravec’s resurrection of the classic eatery, from covered bridges to heavily covered heroes such as Tony Stewart. In short, the book shines literally in short.
For example, Clessie Cummins launch of Columbus’ now-global enterprise of Cummins Inc. is tightly summarized in six introductory sentences, speeding through his connection with W.G. Irwin in a two-page spread heavy with photos.
And therein lay author Tami Stone Iorio’s original intent, anyway, for “Bartholomew County: Celebrating 200 Years 1821-2021”: Focus on a picture book with sparse words to explain — and an index to get readers quickly where they want to go.
“I always will call it a photographic history,” Iorio said, adding that she is thrilled with how it all looks.
The 320-page book, which sold more than 20 copies even before its official launch date, is now available at the historical society, Viewpoint Books, and the Columbus Area Visitors Center for $40. Only 500 copies have been printed for the limited edition, and each local learning institution gets a copy for its library.
Support for the volume came from the historical society, along with grants from the Clarence E. Custer and Inez R. Custer Foundation, Inc., the Walter C. Nugent Foundation, the Bartholomew County Genealogical Society and the Treasure Hunters Antique Club.
Amy Harden worked alongside Iorio to design the book, borrowing bold red stripes and other graphics from the historical society’s timeline exhibit at the museum at 524 Third St. Plus, Harden’s cover, highlighting creatively cropped images of everything from old City Hall to the Bartholomew County Courthouse, already has generated kudos from readers and buyers.
“Even though we are not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, we all do,” Harden said. “We hope that the rich colors and beautiful photos on the cover catch eyes and entice readers to pick it up, look inside and learn more about our county’s history over the past 200 years.”
But Harden passed credit around.
“Tami did a brilliant job in breaking up our complex history into simple bite size pieces,” Harden said. “Looking at pages and pages of text can be overwhelming. We wanted the book to be inviting.
“It can be read cover to cover, but it’s also great to flip through and enjoy a few photos and the quick stories surrounding them.”
Just as with the recently completed county documentary, Iorio was careful to include plenty of details beyond Columbus city limits, and continually asked herself through the compilation and the writing process “Are we diverse enough (in material)?”
“I wanted to make sure that the book purposely reached out to the county’s different areas,” Iorio said.
Hope. Clifford. Azalia. And others.
But there also were limitations. Naturally, time was among them in the year-long effort, considering that Iorio works as a medical doctor. And there were other factors.
“Part of how we chose what we finally included in the book was based upon what we had good images for,” Iorio said.
She added that one of the more enjoyable aspects of the book compilation was finding a number of never-before-seen images of the county. Jason Hatton, historical society board president, touched on that theme at the recent Celebration on the River historical event in which he displayed sketches of the Crump Theatre from nearly a century ago, as most people never before had seen it.
Longtime historical society volunteer Candy Carr already proposed an understandable promotion in a Facebook post about the book.
“This would be a wonderful gift,” Carr wrote. “The historic photos and visuals are so engaging, and the text is succinct and informative.”
