County has been good at adapting

Architects and historians use a term most of us never encounter.
It’s something they call “adaptive re-use.”
Strangely and accidentally, Jay County may have become the poster child for that very concept.
What is “adaptive re-use”? It’s taking a structure that has outlived its original purpose, coming up with a new use for it, then making just enough changes so that it maintains its historic character while getting a new lease on life.
And without planning to, that’s something this community has become very, very good at.
Consider, for instance:
•Much of the structure that today houses Arts Place began its life as a car dealership. What is now Hall-Moser Theatre was, in fact, the garage and repair shop.
•The core building of the Jay Community Center was originally built as an armory for the Indiana National Guard.
•A building that was home to the Pennville State Bank, then Citizens Bank, is now a Masonic lodge.
•The Community Resource Center in Portland was, like Arts Place, once upon a time a car dealership.
•The Stewart Brothers Furniture building in Dunkirk is being preserved as a potential new home for the Dunkirk Public Library and the Glass Museum.
•A former Masonic lodge in Redkey is now the home to a thriving restaurant, Li’l Bistro.
•Community and Family Services Inc. is in the process of buying — you guessed it — a former car dealership and will soon be transforming it into a multi-purpose home of everything from an entrepreneurship center to an adult day care for seniors.
•A former service station in Dunkirk was first adapted to become the site of a Jay Emergency Medical Service base and then changed again to become the home of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
•And, of course, the former Weiler Department Store in Portland is now the home of John Jay Center for Learning.
And the list goes on. We’ve just scratched the surface.
One theme runs through all of those examples: Balancing the future with the past, knowing when to preserve historic and meaningful structures and being imaginative to come up with new ways to put them to use.
And that theme speaks volumes. A community that values its past, is committed to its future and knows when and how to adapt is a community that will not only survive and prosper but also hang onto its identity. —J.R.