Cardinal Greenway - Marion

On the northernmost segment of the Cardinal Greenway, you approach Fairmont, west of the trail.  It's home to the annual James Dean Festival in September.  The city of Marion, Indiana also hosts the annual Mississinewa 1812 Reenactment.  A bit further on is 3200+ acre Mississinewa Lake and its surrounding recreation areas.

 

Also to be found in and around Marion are Indiana Wesleyan University, the largest private university in Indiana; the Cumberland Covered Bridge, last one in Grant County, at the southern edge of Grant County in Mathews, spanning the Mississinewa River; and quilters take note, the Quilters Hall of Fame is located in Marion.

 

One of the more recent natural history finds nearby is in a sinkhole at the Pipe Creek Junior Quarry near Swayzee, Indiana, southwest of Marion.

 

Within the last two decades, this 5 million year old site has yielded a wide range of fossils, from frogs and turtles, to rhinoceros, several species of camel, and a giant land tortoise.  So far, it is a unique cache in eastern North America, because the glacial periods were thought to have scattered or destroyed such remains in the midwest.  Isn't it amazing whose feet may have walked the Cardinal Greenway before any of us came along!?