ROJAC to celebrate impact with special event
A special celebration is planned to recognize the great amount of development that has occurred since a small group of people pooled their time and passion for Jasper to form the Redevelop Old Jasper Action Coalition 18 years ago.
Formed in 2003, a small group banded together to explore ways to capture elements of Jasper’s past while adding to the cultural and aesthetic beauty of the city’s oldest areas. Now with 400 members, the group is looking back at a list of accomplishments that have changed the face of the city.
Tuesday morning, Dave Buehler, one of ROJAC’s founding members, announced the upcoming celebration the group is hosting. “A Dream Come True — Spirit Night” is planned for September 10. It will include a train ride on the Spirit of Jasper with a bar and hors d’oeuvres followed by a banquet at High Point — the roof of the River Centre. Tickets are $100 per couple and can be purchase from ROJAC members or at the Jasper Chamber office located at 302 West 6th Street. The event is limited to 120 attendees and is on a first-come-first-serve basis.
During the announcement, Buehler marveled at what the group has accomplished over the years. “I was standing on the porch (of the Jasper Train Depot) and looking out here at the train, here is the Marriott, here is the River Centre, here is the beautiful German American Plaza, the trees and the landscaping,” he said. “My god, what this place looked like 18 years ago.”
He explained that when he saw a vision for what the river and oldest part of Jasper could become, you couldn’t even get to the river except through a boat ramp maintained by Indiana DNR.
After the development of the Riverwalk, ROJAC was formed in 2003 to increase economic development through tourism by improving the Old Jasper Riverfront and bringing that vision to life.
The group’s list of projects and subsequent investments around those projects continues to transform the area near the river and downtown. Over the Strassenfest weekend, the most recent addition to the group’s endeavors, the Alexander School House, was celebrated and opened to the public. Information on the schoolhouse can be found here including videos about the history of education in Dubois County.
The Alexander School was built 100 years ago after the first structure burnt down. The original structure was built in 1820 and was one of the first three schools in Dubois County. Originally, it sat near the present Shiloh Church and was known as the Shiloh School. It was moved in 1859 to its present location on the Kellams family farm south of Ireland and renamed the Alexander School after the Alexander descendants of the Kellams family. In 1915, the school burned, and the new school was built in 1918. The Kellams family agreed to donate the schoolhouse to ROJAC and it was moved to its current location near the Schaeffer Barn in 2021.
Other projects the group has facilitated and accomplished include the construction of the Jasper City Mill, the Jasper Train Depot, the addition of the Schaeffer Barn, the Labyrinth and German American Boulevard. Buehler credits these developments with the addition of the River Centre and the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center in areas that used to be the sites of abandoned factories.
“Our citizens love it, they use it and they are proud of it,” Buehler said about the many additions to the area.
ROJAC is a membership-funded group but Buehler likens the membership cost as an investment. “It has been an investment in Jasper and it has paid off big time,” he said adding that the celebration is a way for the group to toot their horn.
“We all worked together. We are a coalition and there is so much more to that than you think but that is what Jasper is all about,” Buehler said. “We are something special here. We got great industry. We got a great hospital and a great school system. But we also have a great town that does things right.”
