The small community of Lyles Station, near the southern border of Indiana, 40 miles north of the Ohio River, offers a window into the largely unknown story of free black pioneers on the American frontier. African American farmers have been cultivating their own land in and near what became known as Lyles Station since 1815. At its peak, from 1880 to 1913, Lyles Station consisted of 55 homes, a post office, an elementary school, two churches, two general stores, and a lumber mill. This walking plow belonged to Joshua Lyles and was used to cultivate the family farm. 

The Lyles family, led by brothers Joshua and Sanford, recruited other free black families to settle nearby, including the Nolcoxes, Coles, and Hardimans. Joshua Lyles donated six acres to establish a railroad station and, in 1886, the settlement was officially named Lyles Station.

Lyles Station was part of a broad early migration of tens of thousands of free African Americans from the Upper South to the Old Northwest Territories.  Today, only a few homes remain in Lyles Station, but nearly half of the residents are descendants of the original black settlers and the founding spirit of independence, determination, and resilience is still very much alive in Lyles.  Opened to the public in 2003, the renamed Lyles Station Historical School and Museum is a public meeting space and center for learning about the history of the community along the Indiana African American Heritage Trail.

The walking plow pictured above is now in the collection of theSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visitors to the museum can view this object in the “Power of Place” exhibition.

Credits and Sources:

2012.155.11.1-.2 - Walking plow owned by Joshua Lyles, after 1915. Manufactured by: Brinly-Hardy Company. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation.

"History." Lyles Station. Accessed December 31, 2015. http://lylesstation.org/index.html.