ROJAC celebrates 20 years of accomplishments together

In 2003, Dave Buehler gathered a handful of people in a rock parking lot in front of some railroad tracks, an old factory and a few homes built in a flood-prone area of the city.

He laid out a vision for what became a core group of people dedicated to seeing Jasper thrive while remaining connected to its history – the Redevelop Old Jasper Action Coalition (ROJAC).

No longer a rock parking lot, but now paved with a walkway leading to a multi-use residential development with restaurants, gyms and other businesses, a hotel, the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center and nearby restaurants with access to the Riverwalk, the results of that meeting are apparent.

Though Buehler doesn’t want to dwell too heavily on it, that initial meeting came about because of the completion of the Riverwalk in 2000.

“[Afterwards] I had people tell me, ‘They ought to rebuild the mill,'” he explained.

Well, who is ‘they,’ Buehler wondered.

“So, I got the idea to put a group together, and we were going to try to do something about the mill and other things along the river,” he said. “That’s really how it got started.”

The group wanted to take on the restoration of the mill – the historical significance of the mill for the City of Jasper can’t be overstated with the draw it created to the area and its connection to the Patoka River thoroughfare for settlers. However, the mill would have to wait. Between the expense and the amount of red tape that would have to be cut through, the group decided to rebuild the Jasper Train Depot – a replica of one that stood at Newton and Second Street from 1906 to 1970.

Jasper Chamber of Commerce Director Nancy Eckerle was a part of the group that Buehler initially pulled together in the gravel parking lot those many years ago.

Building up steam for the idea, they arranged for a train to visit Jasper over O’Tannenbaum Days that Christmas season.

“Germaine Blessinger and I sold tickets in the street before the depot was built,” Eckerle said.

It worked; people took some rides on the train that had come down from French Lick.

“It sure is a lot nicer to have those tickets available inside the depot,” she laughed.

The depot was completed in 2005 and has become a place that serves as a unique venue for various events.

“We have had bridal showers, baby showers, and more there,” Eckerle said.

It took until 2009 for the city to procure the trains from Crane Naval Base to be transformed into the Spirit of Jasper. Again, a lot of red tape was involved, but this time it was through the different railroad companies that operated the railways in the region and the federal government. Buehler noted that each railroad company had additional maintenance requirements to be accomplished before allowing the train cars to be transported down their tracks.

Now, the train runs consistently through the season, with most passengers being tourists — 87 percent of the 2,074 tickets sold in 2022, according to the Jasper Park and Recreation Department — taking the unique train ride through Dubois County. This year, the route has been extended to Huntingburg for two memorable trips to League Stadium for baseball games, and there are plans to connect French Lick, Jasper and Huntingburg altogether in the future.

The Mill was also completed in 2009 after, among other things, ROJAC, with help from the City, wrangled with the Army Corps of Engineers about waterway rights and DNR over the mill’s impact on carp breeding season. To create the mill along the river while working within those constraints, the decision was made to build a box (image in the slider above) for the wheel and city water fills the mill race to turn the wheel to grind the corn daily between two 200-plus-year-old grinding stones.

In 2005, they painstakingly dismantled the 170-year-old Schaeffer Barn in Ferdinand and reconstructed it in 2006 on the backside of the Hoosier Desk Building near the entrance to the Riverwalk. Now, the barn serves as a location for demonstrations and special events while an herb garden blooms annually on the property. The barn and garden likely provide a backdrop for hundreds of framed family photographs that have been taken there over the years since it was rebuilt.

In 2016, the group added the Riverwalk Labyrinth providing visitors to the trail a moment of quiet contemplation.

The Alexander School House was completed in 2021. First built in 1820, it was one of the first three schools in Dubois County. After being donated by the Kellams family, it was moved from Ireland to its new location beside the Schaefer Barn, serving as a museum to Dubois County’s education system.

Last year, new decorative wreaths began appearing on the streets around Old Jasper leading up to the Courthouse Square. This multiyear project will grow and accent the Christmas season in the downtown area.

In 2022, between the Schaeffer Barn, Alexander School House, Jasper Mill and Train Depot, more than 1,650 people took part in tours and as stated earlier, 2,074 tickets were sold for the Spirit of Jasper season.

You can see more about each of these projects and learn about the nonprofit here.

Looking forward, the group is also focusing on sustaining these additions by creating an endowment to ensure funding is available for maintenance and repairs.

In a way, these projects have become accent points in the Old Jasper area. Each moved the area to a tipping point of economic development that cascaded over the past few years. Now, the old brick factories are gone, and the River Centre and the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center have risen around the vision this group had 20 years ago, framing them in the present while pointing to the future as well as recognizing the city’s past.

They also accent the dedication of the citizens who joined ROJAC and remained a part of it for over 20 years. For others gathered that day in the gravel parking lot with Buehler, the need to beautify the area was apparent, and a love for the city drove it.

“It all seemed doable,” Kim Lottes said about the group’s vision for the area. “We never felt like it was out of reach.”

She had shown up in the parking lot at Buehler’s request.

“We had a lot of foresight,” Lottes laughed, “but we didn’t have the foresight to take pictures of the before.”

Bill Schmitt was the mayor at the time and was also invited to participate in the formation of the group. His government experience made him more pragmatic about the projects they were considering. “It seemed pretty insurmountable,” Schmitt remembered about some of the ideas at the time.

He pointed to Buehler as a driving force.

“Mr. Buehler was on to it,” Schmitt said about Buehler’s doggedness. “It all fell into place, and Jasper is better for it.”

The magic is the dedication of those core members that still meet monthly.

“Every month for 20 years and sometimes more than once a month for special meetings,” Eckerle added.

The list of members has waxed and waned over the years and currently stands at about 400 people. People that believe enough in the city and ROJAC’s progress over the years to continue to contribute their own money in support of each new idea they take on.

“[It is] unbelievable,” Buehler said as he considered the group and all they had accomplished together.

As several of the core members mentioned when interviewed, Buehler echoed that being part of this group is one of the most significant points of pride in his life.

ROJAC will celebrate its 20 years this Saturday in conjunction with the Jasper Chalk Walk. Events begin at 10 a.m. and include chain-saw carving at the Schaeffer Barn, tours of the schoolhouse and stone carvers and music on the porch at the City Mill.