Republic file photo
The Zaharakos upstairs family living quarters was a part of Saturday’s Open Door Tour.
You could say the Bartholomew County Historical Society’s Open Door Tour Saturday was meant to be an up-and-down affair. Up in the First Christian Church tower, up in the office of the late J. Irwin Miller, down at the entrance of downtown’s underground tunnels, for example.
But the overall result of the 11-stop tour, titled Behind the Scenes, was definitely up, selling a record 475 tickets — breaking the previous record of 400 tickets in 2019 — while raising a record $33,000 for the nonprofit’s work to highlight the area’s past to better understand the present. Organizers had hoped to sell 300 tickets. On the last tour in 2020, they sold 200 for a look at area gardens — purposely focused outdoors because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Diane Robbins, the organization’s executive director, was ecstatic about the latest turnout.
“It was an amazing day,” she said. “So many people commented on how they haven’t seen that many people downtown in decades – not only for the tour, but also stopping by downtown small businesses along the way. It was a beautiful example of the entire county coming together, which is so important in this mostly post-pandemic time.”
One ticket buyer mentioned afterward that “it was great to be a tourist in my own hometown.”
Robbins said that “the success can be attributed to staff, volunteers, locations that opened their doors, and everyone who purchased tickets, and our sponsors.”
The stops included a peek inside the still-being-restored Crump Theatre, now sporting bright new orange and yellow-toned paint on the interior and other improvements, and the never-before-opened-to-the-public Cummins Heritage Center at Plant One on Central Avenue. It includes vintage Cummins race cars, and organizers figured it would be especially popular to current and former Cummins employees.
