If you are, say 50 or younger, you may not know the location of this photo. Icon viewers 50 and older recognize it as the East College Avenue bridge, looking toward Harmon Field.
Paul Diller took this photo on a foggy morning in the fall. Who knows, perhaps he even posed the farmer on his tractor.
Some things to notice:
• One wooden sidewalk on the north side of the bridge
• No curb or additional sidewalk anywhere in sight
• Although College Avenue is paved, it appears that it could use a upgrade
Here's a look at the Bluffton College campus from the air in 1949. We know the year because Founders Hall is under construction. It's on the top of the photo just to the right of center.
Paul Diller snapped this photo and then very quickly stepped aside as this giant Lima-built Berkshire steam locomotive barrelled toward him at about 65 miles per hour.
We can only guess what the engineer and fireman thought as they approached a photographer, standing in the middle of the rails.
Coming from Bellevue, it was westbound to Lima, and onto Muncie, Indiana, and headed perhaps as far west at St. Louis.
Here’s a Bluffton ribbon-cutting photo without any information, but we are working on a theory and we are checking it out with our esteemed list of Bluffton history fact-checkers, so stay tuned.
Jim Diller provided this photo, taken by his father, Paul Diller.
Our guess is this is 1960, based on the yellow-orange license plate on a Chevy station wagon. The tan and white car is a 1959 Pontiac.
The persons we’ve identified from left are William “Kaiser” Gaiffe, Clayton Bixel, _____, _____, Wilbur Amstutz (he was mayor from 1960-65), ___, ___, ___.
