EDITORS NOTE: This is the start of a series of essays leading up to the celebration of the  Indiana Bicentennial In December 2016. The essays focus on the top 100 events, ideas and historical figures of Indiana, in chronological order, tying each to a place or current event in Indiana that continues to tell the story of the state.

By ANDREA NEAL

Long before Indiana was Indiana, a river of ice glided across the state, bringing with it monsoon-like rains, mudflows to rival Mount St. Helens and rich sediment deposits that to this day nourish the crops that are the backbone of the Hoosier economy.

Indiana the state has been 200 years in the making. Indiana the place goes back 2 million years to a time when ice sheets blanketed the middle latitudes and shaped the landscape we know today.

Virtually all aspects of modern Indiana were “in one way or another affected by some facet of the Ice Age,” said geologist Anthony Fleming.

Consider the following:

• The rivers that attracted Native American settlements and later the pioneers, that carried flatboats filled with trade goods and powered gristmills and sawmills, are former glacial rivers that drained the melting ice sheets.
• Huge holes carved by advancing glaciers became the Great Lakes. These, along with the St. Lawrence River, linked Indiana to the Atlantic Ocean and Europe.
• Vast ice sheets deposited nutrient-rich soil and then flattened it, giving central and northern Indiana some of the nation’s most productive farmland.
• Aquifers formed during the Ice Age provide most of the water we need for household use and for industry.

To picture Indiana during the Ice Age, Hoosiers must set aside familiar images of forested wilderness and checkerboard farm fields. Instead, conjure up a massive piece of ice molding the land like a potter modeling clay and ending where the hills of southern Indiana begin. Then imagine the ice’s retreat, following by trickles then gushes of running water

Scientists believe this pattern of gliding, melting and receding ice happened at least three times in Indiana’s ancient past. It is almost entirely responsible for the landscape of the northern two-thirds of the state. The geography of southern Indiana is due to bedrock, not glaciers.

Vestiges of the Ice Age can be seen all around, from the Dunes of northern Indiana to a large granite boulder at Potato Creek State Park to central Indiana’s sandstone cliffs.

Andrea Neal stands on the trail over Devil’s Backbone, 6-feet wide, with sheer drop-off on both sides.

A striking example is Pine Hills Nature Preserve near Crawfordsville adjacent to Shades State Park. Glacial melt water there formed two meandering streams — Clifty and Indian creeks — which carved a deep gorge through bedrock and left four narrow ridges rising almost 100 feet. Over one ridge, the pathway is treacherous with sheer drop-off on both sides.

A short distance away, there’s a massive wall of sandstone where the two creeks meet.

It’s not the Grand Canyon, but it proves there’s more to Indiana than flat farmland. Just look around. The Ice Age formed Indiana’s landscape and our identity.

DIRECTIONS to Pine Hills Nature Preserve: From I-74 exit 34, head south on U.S. 231 to Crawfordsville; from Crawfordsville, go south on SR 47 to SR 234; go west on 234 about 10 miles to entry of Shades State Park; take the first right after the gatehouse to trail head.

Andrea Neal is a teacher at St. Richard’s Episcopal School in Indianapolis and adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. She has written extensively about taxes, good governance, higher education, civic education and K-12 reform.

Indiana Policy Review Foundation is a non-profit education foundation focused on state and municipal issues.