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Classification: Query
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Message Board Post:
MARDENIS
Mardenis used to exist at what was a T intersection of 200E and Hosler Road. The last
commercial structure existing there was an old hotel, I think. It was very run down and
was torn down in the late 1950s or early 1960s to make way for a county road project that
connected CR 200E through the flood plain, over little (Wabash) River and connecting with
CR 200E (Simpson Road) on the south side of the river. Only a sign between the railroad
and Hosler Road just west of the intersection now indicates where Mardenis once stood.
There is one still occupied block home on the north side of the railroad tracks on CR 200E
and several homes on the south side of Hosler Road to the west in the direction of
Huntington.
Before the shortcut mentioned above was completed, to get from CR 200E on the north side
of the river to CR 200E on the south side of the river, you had to turn left onto Hosler
road and drive east about a half mile, cross the river, and turn right on Riverside Drive
Extended?? (now CR 500N) and drive a half mile west to reach CR 200E on the south side of
the river.
MAHON
Mahon was a bustling community 1-1/2 miles southwest of Roanoke on US-24. Its heyday was
during the days of the Wabash and Erie Canal. My father used to tell of the Mahon Post
Office located on the hill on his farm. There was an old dug well that had been filled
but the fill it would sink every once in a whlle and I had occasionally bounced a wheel in
it when I was mowing the pasture.
There is still a cement foundation in the right-of-way between the newer 4 lane US-24 and
the old 24 which is now called North Roanoke Road. The newer 4-lane highway was built in
the late 1940s or early 1950s over the interurban and old Wabash and Erie Canal paths.
County Road 750 enters Mahon from the West and extends westward to the Old Fort Wayne Road
just north of the old Lutheran Church and France Cemetery. Mahon Road extends East of
Mahon, across US-24, the Little (Wabash) River and the flood plain, at a slightly south of
east angle which I believe is along old Indian reservation lines, to Mayne Road on the
East side of the Little (Wabash) River valley.
When I was young in the 1950s-late 1960s, there was a Drake's family run grocery store
and Homer's truck stop at Mahon, as well as a number of houses. The grocery store is
now a family's private garage and the truck stop was torn down in the 1980s and
replaced with an Oasis gas and convience store.