New Harmony, Indiana

New Harmony is located on the banks of the meandering Wabash River, separating Illinois and Indiana. This small town is tucked into the rural southwest corner of Indiana, yet just 7 miles off Interstate 64. If your image of Indiana conjures a boring, flat landscape of endless acres of soybeans and corn, I suggest you visit New Harmony. This 'needle in a haystack' small town is anything but mundane. Tired of the typical overcrowded tourist-trap small town? Then let me suggest the following prescription for mediocrity in a small town.

1. Start with an eccentric religious order with seemingly contradictory objectives of communal living and celibacy.

2. Add a second equally-eccentric, but secular, society whose goals included the abolition of money and other commodities.

3. Mix into this concoction the following sumptuous ingredients:

- an outdoors (or 'roofless' church)
- streets with a predominance of golf cart and bicycle traffic
- a concentric hedge labyrinth
- nostalgic MacClure park with its unusual two-story shelter house/bandstand
- a Barn Abbey
- the Rapp-Owen Granary - one of the finest examples of timber-framed carpentry I have witnessed
- a compound of all log-cabin structures
- the largest visitors center I have seen in a small town - the 4-story Atheneum
- a cemetery without headstones or grave markers

In my visits to New Harmony, I have yet to encounter a local who isn't friendly, courteous and welcoming. During my recent trip, resident Don Williams spotted me taking photographs and graciously escorted me inside several town historic structures. Don relocated to New Harmony because during his many previous visits to the town, he always experienced "a sense of spirituality and tranquility".

My guess is that you will also discover a new-found sense of harmony during your stay in New Harmony, Indiana.