Drinking Deeply ~ In Walnut Grove
Walnut Grove is a small, simple rural society situated in the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Indiana. Once a bustling pioneer town, Walnut Grove is now inhabited by only a few residents who prefer to drink deeply of the serenity rural living offers over the fast pace of today’s urban centers.
Atop a prominent hill, the original Walnut Grove Church boasts a steady congregation of nearby residents for over 100 years. Appropriate, it would seem, the historic spring is positioned at the base of the same hill, like a picture that was meant to be taken.
Vivid local folklore and ancient artifact discoveries show evidence of historic civilizations sustaining themselves for lifetimes from the invigorating spring water that lives in Walnut Grove.
Further, artifacts collected in the past 100 years and even today show strong evidence of Native American tribes sustaining themselves from the Walnut Grove Spring. More than just a typical arrowhead, artifacts like axe heads and other tools known to have been used in large villages have been recovered.
Local stories, woven together like beautiful tapestries, tell of early American settlers in the historic burg maneuvering horse-driven wagons down the steep hill of which the church sits. At the spring face, they collected the natural spring water in oak and poplar barrels for all the townspeople to enjoy.
Only by witnessing the beauty of the setting sun shining through a plush canopy of red and yellow autumn leaves draping the narrow, winding roads; or the pure white blanket of long-fallen winter snow yet to be marked by a living thing – can one begin to grasp the concept of land still so pure and untouched by the outside world.
The area remains a symbol of what it once was, and continues to be today: a lasting portrait of people peacefully and respectfully coexisting with the earth.
