Toyota Plant and New Harmony

September, 2014.  We were still headed south.  These are some of the stops along the way.  Although we stopped for a few hours in Evansville, IN, I can find no pictures.  

Before arriving at Evansville, we saw signs about a Toyota Plant.  I went online and signed up for a tour.  This plant now only makes Highlanders, including the hybrid.

Did you know Toyota started as a small, family loom business in 1896.

An expanded Toyota Tundra, which was made here until they started producing all trucks in Texas.

Our next stop was Evansville.  We spent several hours along the waterfront.Then it was on to New Harmony, where we stayed overnight at the state park.  

Originally settled in 1814 by the Harmony Society, a group mostly made up of German Lutherans and led by George Rapp.  They sold the property in 1824 and moved back to Pennsylvania.  Although the communal society flourished with steam powered carding and spinning factory, a brewery, distillery and winery, a power driven thresher and a town which had a school, church, store and dwellings for the inhabitants, they started looking for a new place to move by 1824, just 10 years later.  It was said by visitors that it looked much like everyone worked very hard and lived a course life in mostly log cabins, while the Rapp family lived a finer life in a large brick home.

The Owen house, circa 1830.  Robert Owen bought New Harmony from George Rapp and the Harmonists in 1825.

Not a part of either of the communal attempts, the Opera House was built in 1888.

Early attempts at communal living.  It never seems to work.

Brewery back in the 1800s

The brewery.

As a communal environment, the Harmonists had few individual homes.  These dormatory style buildings were called Community House No. 2., built around 1822, just 2 years prior to them leaving and returning to Pennsylvania.

 The West Long Street cabins is where most people lived from 1814-1819.

The Lenz House, circa 1819-1822.

This grainery was built by the Harmonists in 1818.  It has been many things since and remodeled several times, but is now the home of the Rapp Grainery-Owen Foundation.

The backside of the grainery.  

The town currently has a population of about 800, which most of the buildings part of the historical district.