SPEICHERVILLE
                               (ALSO CALLED SPIKER)

                              By Ronald L. Woodward
     
      Speicherville was located on what was the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan Railroad 
line about three miles north of Wabash on State Road 13.  It was established by C.W. 
Speicher and surveyed by James W. Shea on October 16, 1881.  The plat contained 16 
lots.  The town grew and an addition was added October 22, 1883 giving the town 29 
more lots.  A further continuation was made dated February 4, 1898.
     The town began near the tile factory of Daniel McKahan begun in 1879.  The factory 
worked on steam created from water pumped from a well into a tank near a boiler.  As 
many as 12 kilns, of 80 rods each, were burned in a year.  A saw mill owned by Jacob 
Shults and Edwin E. Clapp which had been in operation since 1880.  A post office, store 
and a warehouse were built in 1882 by C.W. Speicher. 
     In the beginning there were about eight dwellings but in 1883 ten more were added.  
In 1887 a wood frame E.U.B. church was established in town.  It was reorganized in 1907 
by the pastor of the Grace E.U.B. Church in Urbana.  In October of 1925 the church 
Sunday School observed a Rally Day which had 105 in attendance.  A short program was 
given consisting of recitations, songs and whistling by Anson Richards with Bertha his 
sister at the piano.  Services were conducted afterwards by the Rev. D.A. Kroft.  The 
church was abandoned in 1957 and its furnishings were sent to Oakwood Park, Lake 
Wawasee for further use.  The church building was sold and converted into a residence in 
the early 1980s.
     C.W. Speicher was a respected businessman and it is said that he issued script in 
payment for purchases which was accepted in other places of business in town.  Mr. 
Speicher's interest were mostly in his elevator, store and butcher shop.  At one time a 
doctor lived in the community.
     Harold Hagee grew up in Speicherville and remembered much about the community 
life.  His mother Daisy E. Myers, when 16 years old (1899) worked for Bill and Florence 
Musselman in the general store which was near the railroad where the elevator now 
stands.  It was later destroyed by fire. The store building was rebuilt at the intersection of 
Indiana 13 and Speicher Road.  It was first operated by the Eads family and then by the 
Fred Fry family.  From 1922 to 1933, Omer F. Hagee operated the store.  He then leased 
the store to Charles Moore.  It stopped operation in 1936.
     Hagee also remembered an early family to the area - William and Anna Reynolds.  
They and their ten children moved overland in 1901 by covered wagon from Virginia.  
With them they brought horses and a cow.  Their last night enroute was spent south of 
Wabash at the flowing well near Southwood High School.
     One of their children got a severe toothache during the night and the next day they 
came to Wabash and had the tooth pulled.  They traveled north to Speicherville where 
they spent the next night.  Reynolds met a young man who wanted a team of horses, so he 
traded him two extra horses for a small house and a couple of lots.  This ended their 
traveling and they settled down in Speicherville.
     At one time the area in and around Speicherville was the center of an oil strike.  Today 
one can still see where the pumps were located and holding stations for oil brought to the 
surface.  It is believed that oil still remains in the area but not enough to make its 
pumping worthwhile.
      In 1919 Speicherville had a population of 50 people.  Fred Frey and Loren Rife ran 
the general stores in town, James G. Reynolds was the blacksmith for the community, 
and there was the Spiker Grain and Coal Company.  In the 1920s the Hess, Rife, Morrow, 
Layton, Reynolds, and the Coburn families lived in and around Speicherville. The Cripe 
Elevator run by John Coburn burned down in the 1920s but was rebuilt.
     About one mile west a pea bindery was located at the northeast corner of Carr Road 
and Dowd Road during the late1930s and early 1940s.  A pea bindery was a place where 
farmers could take their peas still on the vine and have them shelled.  Many farmers 
raised peas in the area which were canned at the Wabash Canning Factory.  
     A one room school house used to sit on the west side of the road in Noble Township at 
the intersection of Indiana 13 and Carr road.  It has since been torn down.  It was attended 
by local children until consolidation took place and students went to Urbana.  In 1962 
Speicherville was selected as the site for a new consolidated high school Northfield.  
Later Sharp Creek Elementary School was built and children from Speicherville were 
sent to that school.  It is located side by side with Northfield High School.  The 
Norsemen of Northfield have brought many honors to the small community. In the 1989-
90 basketball season the Northfield team made it to the state finals.  Their achievement 
was retold in a book by Raymond Moscowitz entitled Small School Giant Dream: A Year 
of Hoosier High School Hoopla.  
     By 1959 Speicherville consisted of the elevator owned by the Farm Bureau, the only 
other business was a garage.  About 15 houses made of the town.  In 2009 Speicherville's 
only businesses are the elevator and schools.  Fifteen houses are located in the 
community with a population of about 70 people.  Yet growth has appeared up and down 
Indiana 13.