“People can be, and are, landmarks too,” “Buzz” King told the crowd at the corner.

If anyone is worthy of being one, it’s Frank Hohenberger.

“He did more than anyone to put the words ‘Brown County’ in the minds and on the lips of just plain folks all over the world,” said King, who grew up in a home where Hohenberger, an internationally famous photographer, was a family friend.

On Aug. 29, Hohenberger’s contribution to the preservation of Brown County history and culture was cemented in downtown Nashville. Local volunteer group Peaceful Valley Heritage, the Brown County Community Foundation and the Indiana Historical Bureau worked to erect an official state historic marker in Hohenberger’s honor.

It stands outside the former Nashville House, the building where many of Hohenberger’s black-and-white prints still hang as they have for decades, and within sight of the Bartley House, one of the places where he lived and worked. Hohenberger also was a friend of Andy Rogers and his family, who own both buildings.

Hohenberger shot more than 15,000 photos and negatives over his career, many of them documenting the people and culture of Brown County. “The Liar’s Bench,” showing six men sitting on a bench on the courthouse lawn in 1923, was one of his best-selling prints.

His body of work has been preserved at the Lilly Library at Indiana University; some of it is also in locals’ private collections.

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Hohenberger, an Ohio native, moved to Nashville from Indianapolis in 1917, fascinated by some film he had developed that showed “Southern mountain folk,” according to a story about him in The American Magazine in 1933. “Where did you get these?” Hohenberger asked the customer at the camera shop where he was working. “Down in Brown County” was the answer, and away Hohenberger went to find those “characters” from the photos.

The magazine wrote: “When Hohenberger got out into the hills the people hid from him, in fear that his camera was an infernal machine or, if they knew what it was, because they didn’t want their ‘pitchers took.’ If you got your ‘pitcher took,’ it meant that you left something behind you when you died and you couldn’t sleep peacefully.

“But gradually, Hohenberger made friends with the hill people and persuaded them that there was no harm in letting him point a camera at them and press the bulb.”

Hohenberger sent some photos to the Indianapolis Star, which purchased them. In 1923, he started writing a regular column for the Star, “Down in the Hills O’Brown County.” It was a mix of overheard snippets of conversations among locals and his own observations of Brown County life. He continued writing it until 1954.

Often, Hohenberger would quote locals in dialect, approximating the way they actually spoke. It was humorous and charming to the city folk who read it, but it didn’t exactly endear him to the locals. Intrigued by this culture that Hohenberger described, “furriners” or “outers,” as locals would call them, would flock to the Brown County to find “those pin-headed, bare-footed folks that live in log cabins with dogs and hogs.”

“To the people of the hills,” The American Magazine wrote in 1933, “… Hohenberger will always be an ‘outer.’ But actually he has become an ‘inner,’ for he understands them.”

Hohenberger kept a 50- or 60-year daily diary of his life in Brown County, said James Glass, a historical consultant who helped Peaceful Valley Heritage create this marker. Not everything Hohenberger recorded made it into print for the masses to read. “He had a keen eye for human foibles, which he would talk about in his diary, not so much in his columns,” Glass said.

Ruth Reichmann, whose philanthropy has made this and several other historic markers possible in Brown County, said that it was hard to get the wording right on this marker.

“It was so hard in a few words to capture Frank Hohenberger. … I didn’t like it at first; it was much too stilted and it didn’t bring out the folksy part, you know. That was hard to capture. And the historical bureau wanted to have more on his worldwide,” Reichmann said. “Well, he was worldwide, and in the States he was quite well known, but that wasn’t part of his appeal, especially not here. And if people come here, he is local.”

There’s a difference between “history” and “heritage,” said Jim Schultz, of Peaceful Valley, who spoke at the marker’s unveiling. Heritage is the tradition of the past, he said. History is the chronological record of important events, “but it doesn’t speak to the culture or the tradition of the time.

“What Frank Hohenberger did, his record of the people, is very culturally significant,” Schultz said. “He captured them in their work, in their lives, in the places they lived” — the way they were every day.

“Markers give us the opportunity to return stories to the historical landscape from which they belong, and by doing so, we’re able to examine, commemorate and reflect,” said Casey Pfieffer, the state’s historical marker program director.

“You know, some people had referred to Hohenberger as ‘the sage of Brown County,’ and for good reason. … In his diary, which is now housed at the Lilly Library, Hohenberger once wrote that ‘primitive things are fast disappearing, and we should be on the alert to photograph them as soon as we learn of them.’

“Hohenberger took that statement to heart.”

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Frank Hohenberger is best known for his photographs of Brown County people, but he also wrote a popular column for the Indianapolis Star that introduced the county’s culture to a wider audience — for better or for worse.

Some excerpts, from the Star’s digital archives:

“Jack Woods had a rooster that was bothering his neighbor’s garden to such an extent that he had to do something real quick. As he started toward the huckster’s shop, Stew Buckert wanted to know what Jack was going to do with that fowl under his arm. ‘I’m changing his address,’ Stew learned.”

“The first electric hair clippers to come to Brown county arrived recently and when the juice was turned on for their first job Killian Joy made a rush for the front door and announced that an airplane was passing over.”

“Hugh Aspinall and his friend from the city were driving over the backbone of a very high knob in the region of Selmier hill. ‘This is God’s country,’ Hugh remarked. ‘I think it’s the part of the world that God forgot,’ his friend replied. ‘How do you figure that??’ ‘Well, God created it all right, but I don’t think He’s done anything to it since then.'”

— 1928

“An Indian medicine man was making a desperate effort on a Saturday night to sell his wares without passing out any samples. He finally uncorked a bottle and yelled, ‘Who’s got a headache?’ Cam Larker, leaning against the courthouse wall, said: ‘See me tomorrow morning.'”

“An auto filled with furriners (foreigners) was nearing an industry in Schooner valley and the steam from the sugar vats caused one of the women folks to have the brakes applied rather suddenly. Evidently she had read but not seen a lot for when she was told a cane mill was in operation she wanted to know, ‘Is that where the women folks get the canes to beat up their husbands with?'”

“‘I’ve lived in Columbus and Indianapolis, but I have everything here,’ said an Owl creek woman to some city folks who were much concerned about inconveniences around her home.”

“At the polls last spring a man from Schooner valley came in to vote and was all excited because his woman was out for office and he wanted to be sure he marked his ticket right. Turning to the election board, he said, ‘My God, folks, yuh’ve got t’ help me out — yuh know I kaint read.'”

— 1936

“A little dialogue in the barber shop on a cold morning: ‘Air yuh wantin’ sumthin’?’ ‘Not this mornin’. A feller needs more whiskers.'”

“The town board, in line with its policy to conserve finances, decided to cut down on lighting the village. The clock up the blacksmith shop alley was set for 10 o’clock and it wasn’t long until some bridge players raised a howl. A woman down Main Street commented: ‘Ten o’clock is late enough fer any one t’ b’ out, let alone not bein’ in bed.'”

— 1937

“When the movement was on foot to find out who the oldest people in Nashville were there was a lot of ‘it’s none of your business’ in the air. Now we’re trying to identify the oldest building in the village and a lot of friendly arguments have ensued.”

“‘Mine does too,’ said Monty Spiker when he saw this sign on Road 135 not far out of Morgantown: ‘Honey — Fries — Eggs.'”

“You can take or leave this one, but it was ‘handed’ to me by a filling station operator: ‘A group of people pulled up in front of the place and I thought I was going to sell some gas, but you’ll see as I go along that they tried to gas me. The main mouthpiece, a woman, said, “Where are all those pin-headed, bare-footed folks that live in log cabins with dogs and hogs? Maybe you don’t know. Were you ever away from Brown county? We’re from Tippecanoe county. Did you ever hear of Lafayette?” Right then she had to swallow and I started in. I told her I had been away several times — even as far as Columbus and Bloomington — and she looked as though she thought I was lying. The second time she came up for air she asked, “Can you direct us to where those people live?” I sure could, and I sent the bunch on a wild goose chase, directing them over the Pine Bluff-Oak Grove-and-Watten Hill route. Of course the trip would bring them right back to town and although I never saw them again I’ll bet they had plenty to tell about me when they got back to dear old ‘Tippecanoe.'”‘

— 1938

“According to Jirry Bond, the philosopher, cross-word puzzles are not as popular as they were, but he says his woman ‘uses jist as cross word at me as uv ol’ an’ I’m wonderin’ whaar she’s gittin’ all uf ’em.'”

“Cactus Pete of Greasy creek thinks he has an idea that will interest potato growers; incidentally it is aimed at improving his business. ‘It’s the simplest thing in the world,’ he says. ‘By planting a cactus between potato plants it’ll be a foregone conclusion that when them bugs start on the next bush they’ll get impaled on a needle and they’ll be lingering there until some bird looking for a breakfast happens along.’ When Cactus Pete said ‘impale,’ Chud Rarriden, standing close by, remarked: ‘Yuh shore got an educashun somewhirrs.'”

— 1939

“When the news came over the hills that a man had been badly mangled on Owl Creek, the information carried from mouth to mouth went through so many explanations that by the time Lizzie Thickstun was told she didn’t know there were so many bones in a human being.”

“When hot weather hits us you can expect an inpouring of sparsely dressed men and women folks from off, and the natives sure get their eyes filled. Billy Hobbs thought some folks had escaped from a nudist camp and Snide Thompson, who knows our artists pretty well, thinks it’s silly to spend money to go to school to study figure drawing when one can sit in the shade and make observations firsthand. Toby Matlock said he thought he was seeing things when a lot of long-legged gals crawled out of a car at the state park swimming pool. ‘Looked like an oktypuss were being unloaded,’ he added.”

— 1954

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