The only other Laconia, USA

LACONIA — The City on the Lakes has a distant cousin, Laconia, Indiana, a town numbering 50 residents at the last census within its 0.05-square-miles perched a mile-and-a-half north of the Ohio River in the southeastern reaches of the state.

Tom Huckaby, a resident of 42 years who calls himself "still a newcomer," said that how the town got is name is a mystery and, in light of the Greek origin of the word, an ironic one. "We're not laconic around here," he explained.

The town was platted, or mapped, in 1816, by John Boone, Daniel Boone's nephew, and was the commercial center of Boone Township for much of the 19th century. Originally the town was drawn to the river, where produce and merchandise crossed back and forth on ferries at Tobacco Landing. Tobacco Landing Road is till the primary north-south thoroughfare through town.

Laconia once boasted a furniture factory, which was destroyed by fire in 1880, three general stores, ringing the town square, three hotels, millinery stores, pool rooms,. a barber, doctor and dentist as well as a bootlegger.The Laconia General Store, built in 1927, remains the lone commercial building at the center of the four block square town. There are two churches, one Presbyterian and one Methodist, both dating from 1874. And Laconia, once a center for the distribution of mail, still has a post office.

The town is home to a pair of major league baseball players. Merrill "Pinkie" May played for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1939 to 1943 and retired with a lifetime batting average of .275. (His son Milt May, enjoyed a career of 15 years in the major leagues as a catcher with five teams, compiling a lifetime batting average of .263.) Gary Timberlake, the second son of Laconia to reach the majors, pitched for a week with the Seattle Pilots, in 1969, surrendering seven hits, nine walks and six runs.

In 2001, Doris Faith, the town historian, told the "Indianapolis Monthly" that the closure of the high school in 1958 , followed by the closure of the elementary school in 1985, "may have been the town's downfall".

Huckaby said that in the 1980s the town found a generous benefactor, Bill Cook of Bloomington, who made his fortune manufacturing medical devices and supplies. In 1984, Cook purchased and restored Cedar Farm, said to be the only plantation north of the Mason-Dixon Line, from the descendants of Jacob Kinter, who built it in 1837. Overlooking the Ohio River, floodwaters reached the ceiling on the ground floor in 1937 and crept to within 30 feet of the house fifty years later. The 2,700 acre estate includes a columned manor in the classic revival style along with an ice-house, carriage house, smokehouse, cookhouse, school house, cabins and barns, all of which were restored or rebuilt.

When the failure of its underground fuel tanks threatened the future of the Laconia General Store, Cook purchased the property and replaced the tanks. Donna Smith, one of several clerks at the store, said "we're an emergency grocery store and sell a little bit of everything." The store serves as the meeting place for the town.

Cook also acquired the deserted school building, originally constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1933 after fire destroyed Clay Hill College. He converted the school to a community center with a handful of apartments. "

Huckaby said that whatever Cook did was done "first class," including importing mahogany from Honduras to replace the window frames in the converted school. "I doubt the general store was turning a profit when he bought it and its questionable if its profitable even now," he said, adding that its value to the town cannot be counted.

As the population dwindled, the town council recognized the lack of a sewer system as a major constraint on the growth of the community. While state law prescribed that a septic system could not be permitted on any lot of less than an acre, the lots in Laconia were less than half an acre. In 2000 the town was awarded a federal grant of $260,000 to construct a sewer system. During the following decade the population, which had slid from 75 in 1990 to 29 in 2000, nearly doubled.

Huckaby, who owns and operates a greenhouse in Laconia, said that the town is something of a bedroom community for Louisville, Kentucky, some 30 miles to the east. He said a number people in town commute to the General Electric and Ford plants in Louisville and farm 200 or 300 acres around Laconia.

Small and quiet, Laconia, said Huckaby is a pleasant place to live, not least for its natural surroundings, which feature acres of protected forest and steep 300-foot high bluffs overlooking the Ohio River.

"When I google Laconia," Huckaby said, "New Hampshire always comes up first. Send me some information about your Laconia."