MY LITTLE LOG CABIN

What a Dream, What a Nightmare

A true story by
Johnny Forrest Baker

Copyright © 2024–2026 Johnny F. Baker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Johnny F. Baker, except for brief quotations used in reviews and other uses permitted by law.

Smithville, Indiana

Contents

Chapter

Title

6

Growing Up in Smithville, Indiana

7

The Navy

8

Saving the Clear Creek Train Station

9

The John and Cheryl Baker Family

10

The Railroad Museum Years

11

The Haunted Train Begins

12

My Little Log Cabin

13

My Little Log Cabin Is Sold

14

Mom's Will and Trust

15

Looking Back

16

The Future

17

The Bakers Junction Book

Summary

I am Johnny Forrest Baker, a seventy-three-year-old, 100-percent disabled American veteran. This is the story of my little log cabin on our family farm—the cabin my dad, my brother Kenny, and I rebuilt with our own hands.

My mother died in 2023. In her will and trust, she left the log cabin and five acres to me for my lifetime and then to my daughters. My sisters and their families were to receive most of the remaining farm and much of Mom's estate. A long court fight followed. My sisters argued that the whole farm would bring more money if it were sold as one piece. Judge J. G. Bradley ruled that the entire farm could be sold, including the land and cabin I Mom had left to my children and me.

This book tells how the cabin became part of our family, what it meant to us, and how I tried to keep it. It also tells part of my life story: growing up in Smithville, serving in the Navy, saving old railroad stations and train cars, building the Bakers Junction RXR Museum, and carrying on through the Bakers Junction Haunted Train.

This is my account and my understanding of what happened. I am not an attorney. I am a father, grandfather, veteran, builder, and preservationist who wanted to protect a place filled with family memories.

—Johnny Forrest Baker

Dedication

There are too many people to thank them all, but I want to begin with the servicemen and women, past and present, who protected our American freedom and way of life. I am proud to be a veteran.

I started the Bakers Junction RXR Museum in 1976. Through the years, many good people helped me save old stations, move train cars, repair buildings, and keep Bakers Junction alive. I could not have done it without their help, support, friendship, and hard work. I also thank everyone who came to the Bakers Junction Haunted Train and helped make it a family tradition.

This book is especially dedicated to my wife, Cheryl Baker. We were married for forty-three years before she passed away. Cheryl loved being called “the Train Lady.” She put up with me, believed in Bakers Junction as much as I did, and stood beside me even when I went into debt buying train cars and cabooses. We raised three children: Crystal Star, Amber Sky, and Nova Ray. We were blessed with five grandchildren: A.J., Dillan, Anabel Ray, Jason, and Audry.

I am also grateful for my longtime friends and helpers. George Cummings has worked beside me for about thirty years and has helped me more times than I can count. Bob Strong, who worked for the railroad, gave me valuable help after buying a house I built in 1995. My son-in-law James Lane began working at the Haunted Train in 1995 and has continued ever since. Without him, we might not get open every year. Stan and Esther have also operated a food stand at the Haunted Train for many years.

There are many others whose names could fill pages. To every family member, friend, volunteer, worker, and visitor who helped us: thank you. Life would be much harder without your friendship and support.

—Johnny F. Baker

CHAPTER 6

Growing Up in Smithville, Indiana

My hometown is Smithville, Indiana. My name is Johnny Forrest Baker. I was born in 1953 in a doctor's office in French Lick, Indiana. My father was Ed Baker, and my mother was Mary Doney Baker. I had two brothers and two sisters.

My older brother was Kenny. I was born a year after him. Then came my sister Carlon, followed by my sister Mary K., and finally my younger brother Dan. When I was a baby, my dad bought ten acres of land in Smithville, Indiana. It was located in Monroe County, about ten miles south of Bloomington.

Looking back, it was the best place a kid could ever grow up. The ten acres became known as Bakers Field. The property sat in a beautiful valley with a small creek running through it. There was a pond, a barn, and a primitive two-room log cabin that was nearly 200 years old. The cabin had a well for water and an outhouse.

My dad remodeled the old cabin. He turned the back porch into a kitchen, added a bathroom, and converted the attic into two small bedrooms. Inside the cabin, the log walls were covered with old newspapers and cardboard. One newspaper told the story of three brothers who served as marshals and married three Native American women. I wanted to save that newspaper, but it was so old that it crumbled in my hands.

To the east lived dairy farmers Richard and Barb Bartlit and their kids, Tom and Truitt. To the west was a limestone quarry. Less than half a mile north were hundreds of acres of old quarry holes. Those quarry holes became our playgrounds. We explored them, fished in them, and swam in them during the summer.

For a young boy, it was paradise. Smithville itself was a small country town with two stores that sold gasoline. An old railroad bed ran through town, but the tracks had long been removed. Years before, the railroad had been built too close to a cliff south of town, and part of the line had failed. After the railroad left, Smithville slowly declined.

Back in the 1800s, Smithville had been a busy little community with boarding houses and businesses. By the time I was growing up, most of the people were farmers. I attended Smithville School, a small school that taught grades one through twelve in the same schoolhouse. It was a great place to grow up. When I was a baby, Parvin and Pauline Axsom bought land in Smithville and built a gas station, grocery store, and auto repair garage.

Their store was about a mile from our home, just far enough away to make for a good walk. My friends and I would collect empty pop bottles along the road and return them for deposit money. Usually, we could earn enough to buy a bottle of pop and a candy bar. A bottle of pop cost ten cents, and a candy bar cost fifteen cents. Even though Bakers Field was a wonderful place, we grew up poor.

My mother worked first for Indiana University and later for Kroger, where she remained until retirement. My father worked construction and helped build the Indiana University football stadium. When I was three years old, tragedy struck. Dad fell from the stadium and crushed both of his feet and ankles. His injuries were so severe that doctors wanted to amputate both legs.

They told him he would never walk again. But they did not know my father. He was one of the toughest men I have ever known. He refused to let them remove his legs. He told the doctors he would walk again someday.

And he did. It took five long years, and even then he relied on crutches. He walked with a limp and suffered pain for the rest of his life, but he never gave up. While Dad was recovering, he spent months in a hospital bed set up in the front room of our log cabin. Indiana's workers' compensation payments were not enough to replace his lost income.

My mother suddenly found herself working full-time, raising five children, and caring for an injured husband. Those were hard years. We were dirt poor. One Christmas, a charity organization took us children to see the movie Bambi. They also gave us new clothes and a bag of candy.

It was one of the best Christmases I can remember. My Uncle Glen owned a pig farm near Shoals, Indiana. Sometimes he would bring us part of a deer to eat. I was only about five years old, but I would cut off pieces of venison and fry it myself. We heated our cabin with an old coal stove in the front room.

When I started first grade, I knew almost nothing. I didn't even know my ABCs. School was difficult for me. The other children made fun of me because I was poor, wore old clothes, and struggled with my lessons. My first-grade teacher, Miss Martin, was kind and patient.

She tried her best to help me. My second-grade teacher was much stricter and frightened most of the boys. Later, the school placed some of us struggling students into a special class taught by Miss Chambers. She was a wonderful teacher and helped me improve, but I still did not enjoy school. My parents believed I wasn't very smart, so they rarely pressured me about grades.

My older brother Kenny, however, would get punished if his grades slipped. I figured that if I never tried too hard, nobody would expect much from me. Looking back, that wasn't the best way to think, but it made sense to me at the time. As the years passed, things slowly improved. One day, while still unable to walk, my father crawled from his hospital bed to a shed, climbed onto a lawn mower, drove into the woods, dug up a small maple tree, and planted it in our yard.

That tree still stands today, a large and beautiful reminder of his determination. Soon Dad was able to use a wheelchair. He opened an auto repair shop in our old garage and began earning money again. Later he found work with the county highway department, driving trucks, road graders, and rollers. Eventually he could walk again, though with pain and a permanent limp.

No matter how hard life became, my father never quit. And neither did the rest of us. As Dad's health improved, our lives slowly got better. He never stopped working, no matter how much pain he was in. After working for the county highway department, he took a job moving and setting up mobile homes.

Whenever Dad delivered a new trailer to a customer, he was often paid to haul away the old one. Instead of taking those old trailers to a junkyard, he brought them home. One by one, he fixed them up and rented them out. Before long, he had built a small trailer park with six rental trailers. When I was about twelve years old, I worked for Dad.

He paid me twenty-five dollars a day, which seemed like a lot of money back then. But I hated the job. Moving old house trailers was hard work. There always seemed to be wasp nests hidden inside the trailer tongues, and I got stung more times than I can count. Even worse was crawling underneath the trailers to disconnect water lines and sewer pipes.

There were always spiders, snakes, and other things waiting under there. Dad was a hardworking man who expected everyone around him to work just as hard. At Bakers Field, Dad sold one acre of land and used the money to build a rental house. Pop kept building rental houses until he had ten of them, although he later sold most of them. He also sold the trailer-moving business and went to work for the state highway department.

But that did not slow him down. Every evening after work, he came home ready to start another project. My brother Kenny and I were expected to have all the tools laid out and ready before Dad arrived home. If we weren't ready, we heard about it. Together, we built a house from the ground up.

Dad used a backhoe to dig the foundation. We poured concrete footers, laid concrete blocks, framed walls, installed wiring, put on the roof, and completed nearly every part of the construction ourselves. Those long evenings taught me how to work and how to build things with my own hands. One afternoon, I had a flat tire on my bicycle. I pushed it to the gas station in Smithville to have it repaired.

Old Parvin Axsom was busy working on a car, so I had to wait. By the time my bike was fixed, it was nearly four o'clock. As I headed home, I met Dad in the middle of Smithville. He was angry because I had not been home to lay out the tools for the evening's work. Let's just say I learned that being late was not something Dad tolerated.

Dad also owned about ten acres across the road from Bakers Field and another sixty acres nearby. He had purchased the land on contract for about one hundred dollars an acre. The old sixty-acre farm was a mess when we got it. An abandoned railroad bed ran through the middle of the property. For years, people had used parts of the farm as a dumping ground.

There was an old house on the property, and brush, rose bushes, weeds, and honeysuckle had taken over much of the land. For years, we worked to clean it up. We cleared brush, built fences, repaired fields, and slowly turned the neglected property into a working farm. Dad eventually put cattle on the land, and we got horses to ride. Life was hard, but it was also an adventure.

There was always something to do, somewhere to explore, or some new challenge waiting for us. Looking back now, I realize those years taught me lessons about work, determination, and family that stayed with me for the rest of my life. The Log Cabin Around 1970, my brother Kenny purchased a 200-year-old log cabin that was scheduled to be torn down. Dad, Kenny, and I believed it was too important to lose. We traveled north to carefully take the cabin apart, log by log.

It was hard work, but we wanted to save a piece of Indiana history. After hauling the logs home, we rebuilt the cabin on our farm beside the abandoned railroad bed that crossed the property. Each log seemed to carry stories from another time. As we worked, I often wondered about the people who had lived there generations before us. They had built homes, raised families, and faced hardships of their own long before any of us were born.

Rebuilding that cabin became more than just a construction project. It was a way of preserving history and honoring the people who came before us. Before long, the old cabin stood proudly once again in the woods along the old railroad bed running through the farm. Not long afterward, I left home to serve in the United States Navy. But no matter where I traveled, Smithville, Bakers Field, and that old log cabin would always remain a part of who I was.

CHAPTER 7

The Navy

I was nineteen years old. I had been working at Kentucky Fried Chicken since I was fifteen, and I had recently totaled my new car. That left me driving one of Pop's old cars. I was also dating a girl who went to Indiana University. We had signed up to go skydiving, but because I was still nineteen, Pop had to sign a permission paper for me.

I went out to where Pop was working and asked him to sign it. He said he would if I cut my hair. My hair was long enough to touch my ears, and Pop hated long hair. I planned to cut it anyway, so I agreed. Then he said I had to shave, too.

I told him no. So Pop said that I could not use his old car anymore. So I walked ten miles into Bloomington, Indiana, and joined the Navy. At the recruiting office, I met an old friend who was planning to join the Army. He wanted us to enlist together, so we talked to the Army recruiter.

The recruiter said he would guarantee that we would be sent to Hawaii. With the Vietnam War going on, I did not believe him. I went next door to the Navy recruiter and signed up instead. I had always loved the sea, and the Navy was where I wanted to go anyway. It seemed as if life was telling me it was time to do something.

I had totaled my car, my girlfriend had broken up with me, and Dad was on me because of my long hair. I decided it was time to leave Bloomington and see the world. On March 2, 1972, I joined the United States Navy. It was the best thing I ever did and the best decision I ever made. It saved my life.

I enlisted for four years. My plan was to save as much of my pay as I could so that, when I got out, I would have enough money to buy some land. Boot Camp at Great Lakes I went to Navy boot camp at Great Lakes for eight weeks. We started with seventy-five men, but only fifty finished. After years of working for my dad, boot camp was easier than I had expected.

My company commander had nothing on Pop—and the Navy could not beat you the way Pop could. I arrived in March, when it was cold and snowy. One of our punishments was shoveling snow. Being stuck in a barracks with seventy-five men made me glad to volunteer, because it gave me a chance to get outside. I was a nineteen-year-old smart ass, so I earned my share of extra duty.

One snowy night, they made us jump out of bed at four in the morning, wearing only our shorts and no shoes, and run around the big field in a big snow. It did not bother me much. Boot camp lasted only eight weeks, so I knew I could get through it. After graduation, we had a party in Holiday Inn with my boot camp friends and our families. While I was dancing, I bumped into someone and said, 'Excuse me.' He snapped back, 'What did you say?' When I turned around, I saw that he was an ensign, one of the Navy's lowest-ranking officers.

I was supposed to say, 'Excuse me, sir.' He was with his family, and he gave me a hard time—probably to show off in front of them. He embarrassed me in front of my own family, and I decided right then that I would never go to another Navy party. I received two weeks of leave and went home before reporting to my ship. Pop and my brother were putting up hay, and I jumped right in to help. I knew it might be my last chance to work on the farm for a long time.

Waiting for My Ship

I was assigned to the USS Brunswick (ATS-3), a two-hundred-foot ship based in Norfolk, Virginia. The Brunswick was returning from England, however, and did not arrive for quite a while. During that time, I was assigned temporary duty aboard different ships and sent to several Navy schools. I went to firefighting school for two weeks and attended lookout school. Another training exercise used the 'Buttercup,' a section of a ship that sat in a swimming pool.

Water poured through holes in its sides, and we had to plug the leaks before it sank. The training taught us how to keep a damaged ship afloat. I was paid $424 a month, and I sent $400 of it home to my bank account. That left me with a check for only twelve dollars every two weeks. To earn spending money, I stood other sailors' watches for thirty dollars.

I was determined to save enough money to buy land after my four-year enlistment, although I ended up leaving the Navy early. When the Brunswick finally arrived, it had to be completely refitted. Shipyard workers did most of the repair work, while the captain had us stand fire watch as training. For two months, we slept only about four hours a day. We were walking zombies.

Hundreds of shipyard workers came and went around the clock, carrying parts and boxes aboard. Someone had been planting fake bombs aboard Navy ships, and more were planted on our ship than on any other. Some were nothing more than dummy hand grenades, but the captain was furious. With hundreds of workers coming and going, anyone could have carried almost anything aboard without us knowing it. We also had fire drills at all hours.

My job was to carry a heavy ventilation fan to the location of the supposed fire. When the alarm sounded in the middle of the night, I had only a short time to get the fan in place. If everyone did not arrive quickly enough, we had to repeat the drill. Considering all the hours we worked, I figured I was making about twenty-three cents an hour. At last, the ship was ready for sea trials.

During one trip, we towed a target two thousand feet behind us while a battleship fired at it from so far away that the ship looked like a toy. I could see smoke burst from its big guns. A few seconds later, I heard the boom, and a few seconds after that, I watched the shells strike the water near the target. They were only supposed to land close, but one shot sank it. Out at Sea Things happen at sea that most people will never see, and some of them have stayed with me all my life.

One day, under a beautiful blue sky, we came upon a fogbank that looked like a giant wall. As we entered it, I could hold one hand in the sunshine and the other in the fog. It felt almost like dipping my hand into water. Soon the fog was so thick that I could barely see my hand in front of my face. Our foghorn sounded, and through the mist we heard another ship's horn.

When that ship finally appeared, I could hardly see it—even though it was so close that I could have hit it with a rock. The night sky at sea was even more unforgettable. You could see stars from one horizon to the other and all the way around. You will never see a sky like that from a brightly lit cruise ship. Navy life was mostly boring, but moments like those made it worthwhile.

The Hurricane. I was assigned to a ship out of Portsmouth, Virginia. The most exciting thing that happened aboard her was the time we sailed through a hurricane. The ship rolled from side to side and pitched up and down so violently that I used two belts to strap myself into my bunk. I was six feet four inches tall, so naturally I had the top bunk.

The first morning, only three men out of a crew of about one hundred came to breakfast. The ship rolled so badly that we had to keep one hand on our trays to stop them from flying off the table. The sailor across from me had ordered eggs over easy. As the ship rolled, his eggs slid back and forth across his plate. He barf and grabbed it in his hand and ran off.

The other sailor and I stayed and finished our breakfast. By the second day, no meals were cooked. The crew put out crackers, but almost everyone was too seasick to eat. I thought I might get sick, too, and came close a few times. The ship was filthy, with vomit everywhere and sailors carrying buckets in case they got sick again.

Because the ship was only about two hundred feet long, we had to keep a hand on the rails or walls whenever we moved. The waves rose more than twenty feet high. On the third night, I went out on deck. I had to slam the hatch shut as a huge wave crashed down over me. Holding tightly to the handrails, I worked my way toward the bow while wave after wave broke over my head.

I knew that if I washed overboard, I would be a dead man. There was no way I could have climbed back aboard in that sea. When I reached the bow, I grabbed the bull's horn and held on. The ship climbed each great wave and then crashed into the sea so hard that my knees buckled. Another wave would break over my head, and then the ship would begin climbing again.

It was cold, wet, and dark. Eventually, I worked my way back to the hatch. Sailors inside were putting on safety harnesses to come out and get me. Of course, I got in trouble for going outside, but to me it had been worth it. It was one of the most exciting and exhilarating things I had ever done.

The Navy Hospital The day before my ship was scheduled to leave for Hawaii and then Vietnam, my leg swelled so badly that I could hardly walk. The ship's doctor said that if it was not better by the time we reached Hawaii, he would send me to a hospital. An officer saw me struggling and ordered me to go immediately and have it examined. I could see the Navy hospital from my ship. It was considered one of the best hospitals the Navy had.

When I arrived, the doctors cut open my leg and removed a piece of bone. The diagnosis was bone cancer. Two of the three doctors wanted to amputate my leg, and they told me the operation would be on Monday. While a corpsman was shaving the hair from my leg, he accidentally nicked me and apologized over and over. I told him not to worry—they were planning to cut the whole leg off the next morning anyway.

On Monday, however, the third doctor told me about a new radiation treatment he wanted to try. It was the first year the hospital had its cobalt radiation machine, and the doctors began treating my leg. During my first major operation, they opened me from the middle of my chest down my abdomen. They removed my spleen and took a piece of my liver for testing. I spent four or five months in that hospital and saw things I wish I had never seen.

I watched men die with their families gathered around them. I saw terrible wounds and suffering that I still do not want to think about. The sight that affected me most was a young man who had been shot in the face with a shotgun. One day, I walked into my four-man room and saw a long-haired person sitting with his back to me in the bright sunlight. At first, I thought he was someone's wife.

When he turned around, I saw that he was a young sailor whose face had been almost completely destroyed. He had only one eye, set at an angle on the side of what remained of his face. Part of his nose was gone, and one side of his face had collapsed inward. I stepped back in shock. I had never seen anything like it, not even in a horror movie.

After months of treatment, the Navy released me and sent me home for follow-up care at the Indianapolis Veterans Administration hospital. The doctors told me that if the cancer did not return within five years, it probably never would. Surviving cancer—and everything I witnessed in the hospital—gave me a new outlook on life. I had joined the Navy to escape Bloomington, see the world, and save enough money to buy land. I could not have known that the Navy would also lead me to the doctors and treatment that saved my life.

CHAPTER 8

Saving the Clear Creek Train Station

In December 1976, I was driving through Clear Creek on my way into Bloomington, Indiana. I do not know why, but I pulled into the old Monon Railroad station. I wanted to walk around and think about what I was going to do next. I had sold the house I built and made some money from it, but I still did not know whether I would survive bone cancer. My future was uncertain, and I was searching for something meaningful to do with whatever time I had left.

There was a sign on the station door saying that the old depot was going to be demolished. I thought it was a terrible shame that a century-old train station was about to be destroyed. Someone ought to save it, I thought. I went to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad station and talked to the trainmaster, Bob McCall. He told me that no one wanted the old station.

It would cost too much to move, but it had to be removed from railroad property. One man had wanted it but could not afford to have it moved. I also went to the historical society to see whether anyone there would save it, but no one was interested. That was when I decided to save it myself. I did not yet know what I would do with it, where I could put it, or how I could possibly move it.

Somehow, though, I was determined to find a way. I decided that I would use the old Monon station to start a railroad museum and antique shop. If the cancer killed me, perhaps someone else could take it over. If I lived, it would give me something worthwhile to do with my life. I bought the Clear Creek station for one dollar.

That made it mine—and made moving it my legal responsibility. Finding a Home for the Museum: I found what seemed like the perfect place for the museum near my hometown of Smithville, Indiana. The land belonged to Richert and Barb Bartlett, who had been our neighbors all my life. When we were young, we played with their children, Tom and Trudy. The property was at the corner of Scott and Fairfax Roads, on the way to Lake Monroe, where plenty of traffic passed.

It was rough land that would require a great deal of work, but there were no nearby neighbors and no bridges for the station to pass under on the way there. At the time, land was selling for about $2,000 an acre. I bought two acres for $10,000, with an option to buy three more acres later for a parking lot behind Bakers Junction. Getting Permission: Before I could move the old station and begin Bakers Junction Railroad Museum, I needed approval from the Monroe County Planning and Zoning Department, which was only about a year old at the time. I had strong concerns about planning and zoning and the control it gave the government over private land and businesses.

I missed the freer America in which I had grown up, and I feared that the department would someday become far more powerful. Because of that concern, I was determined to obtain the proper zoning and every permit before starting the museum. I did not want to spend my life building something only to have someone come along years later and destroy it. Getting permission took four months and cost more than $5,000. That used nearly all the money I had, even before I could begin working on my own land.

I then had to take out a large, high-interest loan to buy the property and move the station. Planning Bakers Junction Railroad Museum: To receive approval, I had to obtain a planned unit development, or PUD. I was required to prepare a blueprint showing everything I might ever want to build. If something was not included in the original plan, I might not be allowed to add it later. So I dreamed big.

My plan began with a playground in the front yard, followed by a parking lot and two train stations with a deck in front. A train would run across the back of the property. Beyond that would be another parking lot, a row of buildings along the rear of the land, and still another parking area. I included a water tower, a windmill, sidewalks, and a house in the back where I could live. I wanted Bakers Junction to look like an 1800s town, with a train waiting to pull out of the station and a row of old-fashioned shops nearby.

It is amazing how closely the finished museum came to the plan I dreamed up in 1977. At that time, all I owned was one old train station, and I did not even know how I was going to move it. Maybe I was a little crazy, but it often seemed that something was helping and guiding me. Too many times, the right person or the right opportunity appeared just when I needed it.

The planning and zoning board met only once a month, and it did not seem to trouble anyone when my plans were postponed from one month to the next. Finally, after more than four months, I received permission to begin at the Bakers Junction Railroad Museum. In addition to the PUD, I had to prepare surveys and drainage-control plans. I obtained four commercial driveway permits and a traffic-control plan. I also had to get approval from the surrounding property owners, although that part was not difficult because all of the nearby land was open farmland.

By the time the PUD was approved, I was broke. Still, while I waited for the paperwork, I had been preparing the Clear Creek station for its move. Preparing the Clear Creek Station. First, I cut trees and brush from the property. Then I designed a trailer large enough to carry the station.

I bought a load of steel I-beams from Felt's junkyard. When Mr. Felt's trucks hauled scrap steel to the mill, they normally returned empty. He brought a load of I-beams back for me at no charge and sold the steel to me at cost. I bought eight sets of mobile-home axles and paid Reeves Welding Shop to build an enormous trailer—18 feet wide and 60 feet long.

When it was finished, I hauled the steel trailer to Clear Creek without a flag car. It took up almost the entire road, and oncoming drivers had to pull over. I was lucky that no police officer saw me, but I made it to the station. I bought a 20-ton jack and had a sawmill cut a large supply of 6-by-6-inch timbers, each 24 inches long, for jacking blocks. It took me weeks to raise the building high enough to back the trailer underneath it.

Then I hired Iry Bastin to pull the station. I also needed a permit to move the building over the road. I had to travel to Indianapolis and speak with the state highway department because our route included old State Road 37 south of Bloomington. The man there told me that the highway was being transferred to the Monroe County Highway Department, which meant the state permit he gave me might not technically be valid. He gave it to me anyway.

Next, I arranged for telephone and electric-company workers to raise the low overhead lines. I notified the fire department and hospital that the roads would have to be closed temporarily because the old station would occupy the entire roadway. At last, everything was ready. The Day We Moved the Clear Creek Station Early in 1977, 16 people gathered to help move the Clear Creek station. Iry Bastin hooked his large dump truck to the trailer and tried to pull it onto the road, but the wheels were stuck in the mud.

I did not know what we were going to do. Then, at exactly the right time, Bodie Rife came along with his bulldozer. He unloaded it, moved behind the trailer, and began pushing while Iry pulled. Slowly, the old station rolled out onto the road. Then four county sheriff's deputies arrived.

Some people in the Clear Creek community did not want the depot moved. They did not understand that it had to be moved or it would be demolished. Someone complained that we were tearing up the road, but the deputies could see that we were not damaging it. Instead of stopping us, all four officers helped by blocking the roads for the rest of the day. We finally began the slow trip toward Bakers Junction.

With a sheriff's car in front and another behind us, the move looked like a parade. Men rode on the roof, lifting telephone lines over the building as we passed underneath them. People came out of their homes to watch the old station travel down the road. I drove the flag vehicle behind the station and closed each road after it passed. Around ten o'clock that morning, the first vehicle I stopped was driven by old Geaoiry.

He was so drunk that I had to pound on the hood of his truck and tell him he could not get through. I directed him down a side road. The next driver was a woman with three children in her car. She was also drunk and became angry when I told her the road was closed. After arguing with me, she finally turned around to find another route.

When the station left Old State Road 37 and turned onto Fairfax Road, I moved ahead and blocked the next intersection. The first car to arrive was the same woman. Her detour had taken so long that she had ended up behind the station again, and she was even angrier than before. I explained another way around. If she had not spent so much time yelling at me at the first roadblock, she might have had time to get ahead of the station.

Finally, the Clear Creek station rolled onto my land. I was so relieved that I bought a case of Budweiser. We sat together, drank a beer, and traded stories about the day's adventure. That was the beginning of Bakers Junction Railroad Museum. Moving the Ellettsville Station Later, I bought the Ellettsville train station and moved it to Bakers Junction too.

That move cost much more and caused far more trouble. The station was too tall to fit under a bridge, so I had to remove the roof. There was also a large hole beneath the building. I managed to get my trailer under it, but then I had to rent a large crane to lift both the depot and trailer out of the hole and set them in the parking lot. Preparing everything took a month.

When moving day finally arrived, about 20 people were there to help and block the roads. The crew included county sheriff's deputies, electric and telephone-company workers, and state highway workers. At seven in the morning, Iry Bastin hooked his dump truck to the trailer. He pulled forward about a foot—and the trailer hitch broke off. I called Reeves Welding Shop, and they sent a truck to repair it.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon before the trailer was fixed. While the welder worked, I crawled underneath the trailer and train station to jack it up. I was lying on my stomach when the jack slipped out and struck me in the forehead, cutting a deep gash. I wrapped my head to slow the bleeding and kept working. As soon as the repair was finished, Iry hooked up again.

One of the deputies required us to add a log chain between the truck and trailer as a safety measure. The first challenge was a steep hill. Some people were afraid the old station would slide from the trailer and come to rest in the middle of the road, but it stayed in place. At the first turn, one tire was torn from the trailer. We still had seven mobile-home axles beneath it, so we kept moving.

At last, we left the county road and turned south onto State Road 37. Iry drove slowly for most of the trip. About a mile before the Smithville Road turnoff, however, he increased his speed to nearly 45 miles per hour. I was following in the flag truck, thinking that he needed to slow down, when four tires on one side of the trailer blew out. It was getting late, and I had no spare tires.

Luckily, there was a mobile-home company nearby. My brother Kenny went there and found replacement tires. While he was gone, I lay down on the road and let someone bandage my head properly. We were blocking half of the two-lane highway. Drivers passed slowly, staring at my bloody head as it was being wrapped.

They probably thought I had just been hurt, but the wound had been bleeding all day. I had been too busy to worry about it. The cut was only about an inch long, but it bled a great deal. By the time Kenny returned with the spare tires, I had the trailer jacked up. We installed the tires and started moving again.

Soon, Iry turned onto Smithville Road. I was relieved to be off the highway. We closed Smithville Road because the train station took up its full width. The strange procession passed through Smithville and turned onto Fairfax Road with only about a mile left to travel. At last, we reached Bakers Junction.

Iry pulled past Scott Road and began backing down it so he could turn into the property. As he backed up, the safety chain ordered by the deputy became tangled and snapped the repaired hitch from the trailer. The Ellettsville station came to a stop across both Fairfax and Scott Roads. No vehicles could get through, darkness was falling, and I had no way to move it. Then I remembered that Richert Bartlett had recently bought a large bulldozer, which was sitting just over the hill.

I went to get him. He brought the bulldozer over, lifted the trailer, and pushed the old station onto the Bakers Junction property. Once again, luck—and a good neighbor—had saved me. We finally had the Ellettsville station moved and set in place. Building the Dream After moving the two stations, I was broke and deeply in debt.

I had bills and three loans to repay, so I took a job in the Louisiana oil fields. I worked there for a year, earned good money, and paid off most of my debts. When I returned home, I had only one loan left. Then I began living and working at Bakers Junction Railroad Museum. My dad, Ed Baker, my brother Kenny, and I started Baker's Stonework.

I laid stone all day and then came home to work on the museum until after dark. Because of the damage bone cancer had done to my legs, the work was hard and painful. Still, I kept going. I believed I had to build Bakers Junction while I was still physically able to do it. Those were difficult years, but I enjoyed the work.

When I look back today, I am amazed by everything we accomplished. It makes me believe that it took more than luck. Good friends helped me, my family helped me, and somehow the right people kept appearing whenever I needed them most.

CHAPTER 9

The John and Cheryl Baker Family

I met Cheryl Keith in late 1978, after the great Blizzard of '78 left snowdrifts ten feet high. We met at the Gaslight, and she came home with me and never left. We married in 1979 and shared forty-four years together before she passed away in 2022.

Cheryl and I had three children and five grandchildren. Our first child, Crystal Star, had three children: AJ, Dillan, and Anabell Moon. Our second child was Amber Sky Baker. Our third child, Nova Ray, had two children: Jason and Audry.

We lived in the old Clear Creek depot, and it was not an easy life. The old train station was cold and drafty. I spent too much time and money trying to insulate it, but it is hard to turn a hundred-year-old train station into a warm, comfortable home. Still, we raised our three children there, and we did all right.

I planned to build a house at the back of Bakers Junction, but Planning and Zoning stopped that plan. Cheryl loved the Bakers Junction Railroad Museum. She never complained when I spent all our money—and went into debt—buying train cars and railroad cabooses we could not afford. She understood that you will get only one chance to buy a train car or caboose, and if you let it pass, you will never get another.

I knew I would be lucky to live long enough to finish setting up the Bakers Junction Railroad Museum before I died or became too crippled to keep working. We all lived in the old train station until the children grew up and moved out. After that, Cheryl and I lived in the last boxcar. She lived there until she died, and I plan to live there until I die.

I still remember the night I met Cheryl at the old Gaslight bar south of Bloomington, Indiana. It was a cold Friday night in the winter of 1978. I walked in, sat down, ordered a Budweiser, and looked around. I noticed three women I thought I might have a chance with. Cheryl was a six-foot-tall, slim, good-looking woman.

I walked over to her and said, "Where have you been all my life?" She laughed and said, "Sit down, stupid." She was there with her sister Dona and Bill. We talked, danced, and had a good time.

Later, I asked Cheryl if she wanted to go home with me, and she said yes. I told her I would go outside and warm up my old 1950 International Travelall. It did not have a heater, but I still had to let the engine warm up so it would run. Anyway, Cheryl came home with me that night and never left. We married soon afterward and started our family.

Living in the old train station was never easy, but Cheryl did not complain. She worked for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Indianapolis and brought home two hundred dollars a week. I received four hundred dollars a month from my Navy pension, and I laid stone with my dad and brother, earning one hundred to two hundred dollars a day.

We had a good life. It was not without some big ups and downs, but we faced them together. I will tell much more of that story in my next book, Bakers Junction Haunted Train. This book is the story of my little log cabin—and Cheryl will always be part of that story.

CHAPTER 10

The Railroad Museum Years

After I got out of the Navy, I had to decide what I was going to do next. In 1976, while driving through Clear Creek, Indiana, I pulled into the old Monon train station. I do not know exactly why I stopped. Maybe I simply needed a quiet place where I could walk around and think about the future.

On the station door was a sign saying that the century-old building was going to be demolished. I stood there thinking that somebody ought to save it. When it became clear that no one else wanted to take on the job, I decided that I would. That decision became the beginning of the Bakers Junction RXR Museum and antique shop.

I bought land on Fairfax Road near Smithville, Indiana. Over time, I bought and moved two old train stations and three Monon railroad passenger cars onto the property. Moving buildings and railroad cars was difficult, dangerous, and expensive work, but I believed they were worth saving. Each one carried a piece of Indiana railroad history that could have disappeared forever.

Before I could open the museum, I spent four months and about $5,000 getting permission from Monroe County Planning and Zoning. I kept working because I wanted to build a place where families could see the old stations, walk among the train cars, and remember the days when the railroad connected small towns throughout Indiana.

The first ten years were hard, but overall, things went well. Little by little, Bakers Junction began to take shape. I went to antique shops and auctions more often than I probably should have, searching for railroad pieces and other items that belonged in the museum. I knew I had to gather and preserve those things while I was still young enough and able enough to do the work.

Then a long dispute began with neighbors who moved onto the acreage across Fairfax Road. Even before their house was finished, they made it clear that they did not want Bakers Junction there. For the next nine years, the conflict brought my family a great deal of stress and expense. We felt as if we were constantly defending our home, our property, and the museum I had spent years building.

It is a shame to think about how much that struggle cost us. If even half of that money could have gone into restoration, Bakers Junction might have been completely restored and looking better than ever. Eventually, those neighbors moved away. Good people later moved into the house, and country life became peaceful again, the way it should have been all along.

By 1993, after years of collecting, moving, repairing, and arranging everything, I was ready to open the Bakers Junction RXR Museum and antique shop. It had taken nearly two decades of hard work to turn an idea at an abandoned train station into a real place that people could visit.

In 1994, we set up a haunted train in and around the railroad museum as a way to bring people to Bakers Junction. It was fun, the visitors enjoyed it, and our family decided to make it an annual event. What began as a special attraction would eventually become a new chapter in the life of Bakers Junction.

In 1995, another difficult period began when Monroe County officials challenged our use of the property. For three years, I fought to keep our land and keep Bakers Junction open. I took out large loans and sold many of the things we owned to pay the costs of defending the property and the museum.

When I first started Bakers Junction in 1976, I believed Monroe County or the City of Bloomington might help me preserve these pieces of local railroad history. Instead, the long dispute cost me far more than it had cost to establish the museum. By the time it ended, the train stations and railroad cars had been emptied, and much of what I had collected was gone.

Still, Bakers Junction did not disappear. With the museum no longer operating as I had planned, I turned my attention to the haunted train. The Bakers Junction Haunted Train grew out of the railroad museum and gave the old place a new purpose. It allowed families to keep coming to Bakers Junction, making memories among the stations and train cars I had worked so hard to save.

Today, the Bakers Junction Haunted Train opens on the last Friday and Saturday in September, every weekend in October, and on Halloween night. My grandsons, A.J. and Dillan, have also held band concerts in the front yard, and we have rented Bakers Junction for parties and family gatherings.

The Bakers Junction RXR Museum did not turn out exactly as I had once imagined. But saving those stations and railroad cars was still worth doing. The museum, the haunted train, and the memories made there all grew from one decision I made in 1976: somebody needed to save that old Monon station, and I decided that somebody would be me.

CHAPTER 11

The Haunted Train Begins

A New Life for the Old Railroad Museum

The first Bakers Junction Haunted Train opened in 1994. That was one year before Monroe County Planning and Zoning began the three-year fight that eventually brought the Bakers Junction RXR Museum to an end. During 1995, 1996, and 1997, I spent so much money defending Bakers Junction that I had to close the museum and sell nearly everything we had collected.

With the railroad museum standing empty, my wife, Cheryl, and I decided to try something different. With help from family and friends, we turned the stations and train cars into a haunted attraction. That first Haunted Train was pretty simple - even a little lame - but it was fun. The people who came through enjoyed it, and we enjoyed putting it on. We decided to do it again the next year, and Bakers Junction has been home to the Haunted Train ever since.

In 1995, while we were busy preparing the next Haunted Train, the problems with Planning and Zoning grew worse. After ten years of conflict with a neighbor and three more years of disputes with county officials, the railroad museum I had worked so hard to build was gone. Bakers Junction needed a new purpose. There seemed to be only one thing left to do: make the Bakers Junction Haunted Train our main attraction.

By that time, I had also lost my leg and could no longer operate John Baker's stone business the way I once had. Running the Haunted Train was still hard work, but it was work my family and I could do together. Looking back, it sometimes feels as though the Haunted Train may have been what Bakers Junction was meant to become all along.

I had no idea how much work, paperwork, and permitting it would take to operate a haunted attraction. I am fortunate that the Bakers Junction Haunted Train began in 1994, because it was allowed to continue under the requirements that applied when we started. A new haunted house today could cost more than $100,000 just to meet modern building and safety requirements.

A fire sprinkler system alone could cost more than $20,000. We might not even be allowed to use some of our historic railroad cars in a new attraction because their doors are only about thirty inches wide, while newer rules can require thirty-six-inch doorways. Even with our long history, we must obtain a state haunted-house permit and pass a state fire inspection every year.

All of those requirements make it very difficult and expensive for anyone to open a new haunted attraction. What visitors see during a night at Bakers Junction is the fun part: ghosts, darkness, train cars, laughter, and screams. Behind the scenes are months of repairs, decorating, planning, inspections, paperwork, and hard physical labor.

The 2026 season will mark our thirty-third year of operating the Bakers Junction Haunted Train. Today, Bakers Junction includes two train stations, three cabooses, four train cars, a flatcar, a food stand, a playground, and a stage for summer concerts. What began with an old station that was going to be demolished has grown into a place where families can celebrate, hear music, and enjoy a Halloween tradition.

Over the years, I have spent far more money fighting to keep Bakers Junction than I spent buying the land, moving the two stations and railroad cars, and setting everything up in the first place. The struggle cost my family years of work and sacrifice. But when I look at Bakers Junction today and think about all the people who have visited, I know that saving it was worth it.

This book is mainly the story of My Little Log Cabin, so this chapter can tell only part of the Bakers Junction story. My next book, Bakers Junction Haunted Train, will tell the full story of the RXR Museum, the fight to preserve it, and the haunted attraction that grew from its remains.

The Bakers Junction RXR Museum may have closed, but the dream behind it did not die. It changed. The old stations and train cars found a second life, and the Haunted Train kept Bakers Junction alive for another generation.

CHAPTER 12

My Little Log Cabin

My log cabin sits beside the old railroad bed that runs through our family farm, surrounded by woods and tall old trees. The cabin is about two hundred years old. It originally stood in a small town about fifty miles north of Indianapolis, Indiana. My older brother, Kenny Baker, bought it in 1980. Dad—Ed Baker—and I went north and carefully took the cabin apart, loaded the logs, and hauled them back to our family farm in Smithville, south of Bloomington.

We rebuilt the cabin in the woods beside the old railroad bed. It was a tremendous amount of work, but it was also a good time in my life. I enjoyed working beside Dad and Kenny, putting those old logs back together one by one. When we finished, the cabin looked beautiful sitting among the trees. It felt as if it had always belonged there.

Dad bought the sixty-acre farm when I was a young boy. Back then, the place was a terrible mess. Brush, honeysuckle, wild rosebushes, and worthless trees had taken over. People around Smithville had also used parts of the property as a dumping ground for many years. It took our family a long time and a great deal of hard work to clean it up.

An older house stood on the farm, but another family lived there at first, so we did not move onto the property right away. By the time Dad remodeled the farmhouse and our family moved in, both of my sisters had already married and left home. We cut brush, cleared honeysuckle and wild roses, and stacked everything into huge piles. We burned many of those piles in big bonfires. Dad and his friends would buy beer and sit around the fire late into the night. Sometimes we boys managed to sneak a few beers for ourselves.

The farm did not have proper fences, either. Setting fence posts and stretching miles of barbed wire took years. Eventually, all that work paid off. The farm was cleaned up and looking good. Dad kept some cows, and we had horses. It was hard work, but it was a good life.

In March 1972, I joined the Navy and was away for a few years. I was later discharged after I developed bone cancer. While I was gone, Mom and Dad divorced, and Mom received the farm. She tried to keep the cattle, but taking care of them was difficult. The fences needed constant repair, hay cost money, and the cows kept getting loose. I told Mom that she either had to repair the fences or get rid of the cattle before someone was hurt.

One evening, as it was getting dark, I was driving a company truck down Smithville Road toward Bloomington. When I reached the bottom of the hill near Bakers Field Road, six cows suddenly ran into the road. I struck one before I could stop. The cow got back up and ran away, but the collision caused about $2,000 in damage to the truck. My younger brother, Dan, had been trying to bring the cows back to the farm over the hill.

I told Mom that she would have to pay for the repairs to the company truck. She refused. The government offered low-cost farm liability insurance, but Mom had chosen not to buy it. Because the truck belonged to the company, I finally took the matter to small-claims court.

I went to court prepared. I had photographs of the fence line and had witnesses summoned. On the stand, Mom said I could not prove that the cattle belonged to her. She also said a tree had fallen across a good fence, making the escape an act of God. She produced receipts for fence repairs that she said had been deducted from her taxes. My photographs, however, showed only one strand of barbed wire along that section and a tree that appeared to have been down for years.

A homeowner who lived about a quarter mile from the farm testified that the cows had been getting out and tearing up his yard for a long time. Dan was also questioned. When asked whether the cows belonged to Mom, he said he could not say. The judge then asked whether he had returned the cows to Mom’s holding pen, and Dan said yes. Mom had sold the cows before the court date and said in court that she no longer owned any cattle. Kenny also said he did not know who owned them.

I testified that the cows were Mom’s and that I had warned her repeatedly to repair the fences or sell the cattle. I could hardly believe that members of my own family said they did not know who the cows belonged to. The judge ruled that Mom had to pay for the damage. She appealed, but in the end she paid the company for the truck repairs. Mom and I did not speak for a long time after that.

After Mom and Dad divorced, Mom married a man named Bob, who had loved her for years. Bob owned a home and three rental properties in Bloomington, and he was financially comfortable. Dad remarried several times and died with very little. When Bob passed away, he left Mom his money and property.

Later, Mom’s old friend Pete moved in, and they lived together for years. Mom had many expensive antiques and did not like the grandchildren being inside her house, although she did host one pool party and cookout for the family. Pete once told me that he, Dad, and Mom had all grown up together. Pete and Dad entered World War II around the same time, but Dad came home first, married Mom, and started our family. Pete said that if he had returned first, he believed he would have married her.

He also admitted that he resented us children because he thought Mom’s children should have been his. That explained why he did not like us visiting very often.

Mom paid Dan ten dollars an hour to work on the farm. He bush-hogged the fields and helped keep the place looking good. Because much of the farm was not being used, I asked Mom whether Dan and I could plant a large garden and start a tree nursery. Our plan was to sell produce and trees from a farm stand on my property at Bakers Junction on Fairfax Road. Mom liked the idea and gave us permission.

Dan brought his tractor to the farm, and we put a great deal of time, work, and money into planting the garden and young trees. Then my sister Mary K became convinced that we were trying to take over the farm. Someone was hired to bush-hog the garden and trees. Mary K later told Dan that he could no longer hunt on the property. She also believed Mom was paying him too much and said a veteran she knew would mow, bush-hog, and trim the farm for seven dollars an hour.

Dan lost the job, but the replacement never showed up. The farm was neglected again and became overgrown.

When Mom talked with me about her will, she said Mary K wanted to live on the farm and raise horses. Mom asked whether five acres with the farmhouse would be enough. I told her it would not, and that Mary K should have ten acres if she truly planned to keep horses. That is why Mom left her ten acres. Looking back, I wish I had understood the family conflict that was developing around the farm.

Mom gave me the two-hundred-year-old log cabin. My children, grandchildren, and I spent many hours working on it. We camped there sometimes and held cookouts there often. When a large tree fell across the cabin, my good friend George Cummings and I cut it away. I also built a six-foot chain-link fence around the cabin to protect it from animals and vandals. After Kenny passed away and Dan received other property Dad had bought near Bedford, Mom made clear that the log cabin was to be mine.

As Mom grew older, she began showing signs of dementia. Mary K, who had divorced, moved in to help care for her. From then on, it became harder for the rest of us to visit. My sister Carlon and I liked to see Mom and take her to lunch, but Mary K required us to make appointments in advance.

After Mom’s attorneys prepared her will, Mary K had Mom declared incapacitated and placed in a care home. When we visited, the staff told us we could not go to Mom’s room. We had to arrange an appointment so they could bring her to a visiting area.

Soon afterward, Mary K asked a court for permission to sell the farmhouse and the ten acres she expected to inherit after Mom died. About $75,000 of Mom’s money had been spent on improvements to the farmhouse. In court, Mary K reportedly described the house as unlivable. The judge questioned how it could be unlivable after so much had been spent on it and ruled that Mary K would have to wait until Mom died before receiving or selling the property.

Mom died on January 23, 2023. We then received copies of her will and trust. Mom had named Mary K and Carlon as executors. The two of them did not get along, and disagreements soon led to repeated court proceedings.

Mom’s will said the children were to take turns entering the farmhouse and choosing one item at a time, beginning with the oldest, so everyone could have something that belonged to her. Before that could happen, however, Mary K reported that someone had driven down the dead-end road, broken into the house, and stolen Mom’s jewelry, antiques, and furniture. At Mom’s funeral, I noticed a relative wearing a ring that looked like one of Mom’s, although I could not know for certain. In the end, there appeared to be nothing left in the house for the family to divide and Mary K would have us arrested for trespassing if we went on the farm to see what was in the farm house.

Carlon believed Mary K had mishandled Mom’s property and money. I told Carlon that continued fighting would only waste time and estate money. I wanted us to settle the estate and move forward. But the conflict continued. When my grandsons and I returned to check on my log cabin, police arrived and told us that Mary K would have us arrested for trespassing if we did not leave.

At first, I tried to stay out of the disputes. I trusted that Mom’s will and trust would be followed and that I would eventually receive the cabin and land she intended for me and my children. Because Mary K and Carlon could not agree, the judge removed them as executors and appointed an attorney to administer the estate.

The new estate representative arranged mediation. Each family group sat in a separate room while the attorney went back and forth between us. After about four hours, we reached an agreement: I would receive my log cabin and fifteen acres, while my sisters and their families would receive the remaining land to sell. Mom had wanted the farm to remain in the family, and I truly intended to keep my part for my children.

I spoke with Monroe County Planning and Zoning and was told that the farm could be divided in a way that allowed me to keep my land while the rest was sold. After mediation, Carlon initially said I could have the ten acres she had because she had always told Mom she wanted money rather than farmland. I would have been willing to buy her share. After she spoke with her husband, Mike, however, her position changed.

Mary K later applied to divide the farm into ten lots, even though Planning and Zoning had indicated that only three lots could be created without additional requirements. I still believed the family would honor Mom’s will and trust. Then Mary K and Carlon asked the court for authority to sell the entire farm. I was not given notice of the first attempted hearing, and the judge said a hearing could not be held without notifying me. The matter was rescheduled.

My sisters believed I could not afford an attorney to fight the sale. They were right, but I hired one anyway. At the next hearing, the judge said that all of us would have to agree before the entire farm could be sold. I said clearly that I would not agree to sell my log cabin and land.

I did agree to have the property appraised so each person would know the value of his or her share. In my opinion, the appraisals came in far too low. My cabin and five acres were valued at only $70,000. The farmhouse and ten acres, located within Smithville’s high-density development boundary, were valued at only $90,000. I believed both properties could sell for much more. I offered to buy the entire farm, but my sisters refused and said it would be auctioned to the highest bidder.

The legal fights continued. Carlon obtained a court order for an audit of Mary K’s spending from Mom’s funds. The judge eventually ruled that my sisters had to pay their own attorney fees instead of charging any more of them to the estate. By my estimate, tens of thousands of dollars from Mom’s estate had already been spent on lawyers. I had been paying my own attorney all along.

Planning and Zoning had said the property could be divided into three lots. A fourth lot would create additional sewer requirements. I have long disagreed with many of Monroe County’s planning and zoning rules, and I believe those rules give the government too much control over private property. Whatever my opinion of those rules, the planning and zoning witness later confirmed in court that I could keep my portion while the rest of the farm was sold.

My first attorney eventually withdrew because he knew I did not have enough money for a long legal fight. I found another attorney who allowed me to pay one thousand dollars a month. I could not truly afford that amount. I had to decide whether to give up or fight for the land that I Mom had left to my children and me. As a seventy-three-year-old disabled veteran, I knew I might not have many years left, but I decided to fight for my children’s future. I stopped paying other bills and credit cards so I could pay my lawyer.

Mom’s estate was worth more than a million dollars, not including the farm. My sisters and their children were already set to receive most of her money and property. When Mom died, I owed about $20,000. She left me $20,000, which could have paid those debts. I would have been content to live on my income, keep the land, and continue operating the Bakers Junction Haunted Train. Instead, after several years of litigation, my debt grew to more than $50,000.

During the second year of the fight, we appeared before Monroe County Judge J. G. Bradley in Bloomington. Mary K and her attorney sat in one part of the courtroom. Carlon, her husband Mike, and Dan sat in another.

My family, my attorney, and I sat together on the third side. The courtroom itself seemed to reflect how badly the family had been divided.

I was asked whether I was trying to take Dan’s five acres. I said that it was Dan’s land: if he wanted to keep it, he should keep it; if he wanted to sell it, I was willing to buy it. My attorney had summoned a Monroe County Planning and Zoning representative with whom we had been working. She testified that the farm could be divided into three lots. When asked whether I could keep my land while the remainder was sold, she said yes and explained that no planning or zoning rule prevented that arrangement.

My sisters argued that selling the whole farm in one piece would bring more money than selling only their portions. I understood the financial logic, but I believed it was wrong for that extra money to come at the cost of the land Mom had intended for my children and me.

After a hearing that lasted about three hours, the decision rested with Judge Bradley. From my point of view, there were two choices: allow me, a disabled veteran, and my children to keep the cabin and land described in Mom’s estate plan while the rest of the farm was sold, or permit the entire farm to be sold so the other heirs might receive more money.

Judge Bradley ruled that the entire farm could be sold and cheat me and my kids out of the land mom left us in her will and trust. . I felt that the ruling took away the cabin and land Mom had meant for us. My attorney appealed, but the Indiana appellate courts did not overturn the ruling. I was devastated. The farm where I grew up and worked for so many years—and the cabin I had rebuilt with Dad and Kenny—was going to be sold.

To me, the cabin was never just an appraisal number. Every log carried a memory. I could still see Dad, Kenny, and me taking it apart, hauling it home, and raising it again in those old Smithville woods. My children and grandchildren had worked there, camped there, and shared meals there. Losing it felt like losing part of our family history and part of my children’s future.

I also worried about whether my children and I would receive fair compensation from the sale. My attorney told me the other lawyers were arguing that the cabin and land were not worth much. That made no sense to me: if including my land made the whole farm more valuable, how could my share be treated as though it had little value? I feared that years of debt and legal fees would leave us with only a fraction of what the land was worth.

On July 1, 2026, I wrote that the farm had been placed in an online auction scheduled to end on July 29. By then, nearly four years had passed since Mom’s death. I estimated that the family had spent between $200,000 and $300,000 in legal fees. The family had been torn apart, all in a fight over land and money.

People say blood is thicker than water. After everything that happened over Mom’s farm and my little log cabin, I learned that blood is not always as thick as money.

CHAPTER 13

My Little Log Cabin Is Sold

My mother, Mary Elizabeth Koontz Baker, died in January 2023 at eighty-seven years old. Her oldest son, Kenny, had already passed away. Her surviving children were Johnny F. Baker, Carlon Robertson, Mary K. Hunter, and Dan Baker.

After most of Mom's other assets were sold, her estate was worth more than one million dollars, not including approximately sixty-five acres of family farmland. In my understanding of her will and trust, one of Mom's most important wishes was that the farm remain in the family. She left my little log cabin and five acres to me for my lifetime and then to my daughters.

I was the only one who would not agree to sell the land intended for me. My sisters and their families were already set to receive most of the farm and much of Mom's money. They argued in court that selling the entire farm as one parcel would bring more money than selling only their portions.

Judge J. G. Bradley ruled that the whole farm could be sold, including my cabin and land. I believed this decision went against what Mom had written in her estate plan and took from my children and me the place she intended us to keep.

Mary K placed the approximately sixty-five-acre farm in a thirty-day online auction. It sold for $480,000. I believed that price was far too low, especially because land in the area could sell for around $10,000 an acre or more. At the time I wrote this chapter, I had not been told who bought the farm.

The sale left me waiting to learn how much my children and I would receive for the cabin and acreage. Money could never replace the cabin itself. Dad, Kenny, and I had taken it apart, hauled it home, and rebuilt it log by log. My children and grandchildren had worked, camped, and shared meals there. It held a lifetime of memories.

The farm may have been sold, but those memories were not. No auction or court ruling can take away the time I spent building my little log cabin with my dad and brother.

CHAPTER 14

Mom's Will and Trust

My mother, Mary E. Koontz Baker, signed her will and trust documents in 2008. I am not an attorney, but this is my understanding of what those documents said and what Mom intended for her family.

The will identified Mom as unmarried and named her four children: John Baker, Carlon Robertson, Mary Kathleen Hunter, and Dan Baker. It directed that her debts and taxes be paid. Mom appointed Carlon and Mary K as successor co-trustees.

The Mary E. Koontz Trust Agreement was dated August 21, 2008. It said that if Mom died or became mentally disabled in the opinion of a licensed physician, Carlon and Mary K would become trustees. The trust described how Mom’s property was to be held, managed, invested, and eventually distributed. It also preserved Mom’s right to amend or revoke the trust during her lifetime.

After Mom’s death, the trustees were authorized to pay debts and taxes and then distribute the trust property according to her instructions. Mom included specific directions for her household goods, furniture, personal effects, antiques, keepsakes, and other belongings.

Among the named gifts, Mom left the double-globe lamp from her bedroom and her sterling silver tableware to Carlon. Dan was to receive her lawnmower. Certain personal property in Florida was assigned separately to Mary K and Carlon.

Mom also wanted her children and grandchildren to share her remaining personal belongings. The trust directed the trustees to meet with John, Carlon, Mary K, and Dan, along with the named grandchildren. Each of Mom’s children was to choose one item in rotation, beginning with the oldest. The selections would continue until all the personal property had been divided.

The Family Farm

The trust gave special instructions for the family farm in Smithville, Indiana. Mom directed the trustees to have the farm surveyed and to obtain legal descriptions for the tracts that were to be distributed.

As I read the trust, the farmhouse and ten acres were to go to Mary K Hunter, and ten acres were to go to Jeremy Jones. I was to receive a ten-acre interest during my lifetime, subject to the remaining terms of the trust. Most important to me, the two-hundred-year-old log cabin and five acres were to go to me for my lifetime and then to my daughters, Amber Baker and Nova Baker. Dan was to receive five acres. Any remaining farm property was to go to Carlon and Mary K.

The trust also addressed Mom’s Bloomington real estate and her Florida lots. Certain properties were assigned to Carlon, Mary K, and Jeremy Jones, while the remaining property was to be divided among Mom’s four children.

Money and Trusts for the Family

Mom left cash gifts to members of the family. As I understand the document, Mary K and Carlon were each to receive $10,000. I was to receive $20,000 in a trust administered under the document, and Dan was also to receive $20,000 in trust. Sam Robertson, Rebecca Lanier, Amber Baker, and Nova Baker were each listed for gifts of $5,000. Crystal Baker was listed for $2,000, and other grandchildren were to receive $2,000 each.

The trust named grandchildren including Kayla Jones, Kala Jones, Jade Morgan Jones, Little John “A.J.” Baker, and Dillan Baker, as well as grandchildren born after the trust was created. Their funds were to be held until they entered college or trade school.

That is the basic outline of Mom’s will and trust as I understand it. To me, the instructions showed that Mom wanted each part of the family to receive something. She especially wanted the farm divided so that certain pieces could remain with the people she named.

What Happened to Mom’s Belongings

Someone apparently convinced Mom that if she left land to me, I would sell it and put the money into the Bakers Junction Haunted Train. I have often wondered who told her that. The sad part is that I was the one who did not want to sell the land. I wanted to keep the cabin and property for my children, just as Mom’s trust described.

After Mom entered a care home, Mary K reported that someone broke into the farmhouse and stole the contents. By the time the family was supposed to divide Mom’s belongings, we were told that her jewelry, antiques, furniture, and keepsakes were gone. I have strong beliefs about what happened, but I cannot prove who removed the property. We were also warned that if we entered the farm, we would be arrested for trespassing.

The Court Fight

What happened next is still difficult for me to accept. In my understanding, the Monroe County court allowed the entire farm to be sold instead of distributing the cabin and land in the way Mom’s trust described. I believed I had a legal right to inherit and keep the cabin and acreage intended for me and my daughters. The court’s ruling did not give me that result.

My sisters, Carlon and Mary K, supported selling the whole farm because they believed it would bring more money. I opposed the sale. I am a one-hundred-percent disabled American veteran, and I had already put years of work into the cabin with my dad, my brother, my children, and my grandchildren. Losing it was not simply a financial matter. The cabin held our family history.

I spent money I did not have trying to protect the land. By the time I wrote this account, I was more than $50,000 in debt from the fight. I had believed that a properly prepared will and trust would protect Mom’s wishes. When the outcome was different, I felt that the legal system had failed my children and me.

I have long believed that Bloomington and Monroe County are run in ways that favor wealthy and politically connected people. I also strongly disagree with many of the county’s planning and zoning rules. In my opinion, those rules give the government too much control over private property and small businesses. My experiences with Bakers Junction, the family farm, and the courts have made that belief even stronger.

The farm lies within Smithville’s high-density area, so I believed it had significant development value. I could not understand why I was not allowed to keep the portion Mom described for me while the rest was sold. I felt that my rights counted less than the additional money others hoped to receive from selling the property as one piece.

After the ruling, all I could do was wait for the sale and find out whether my daughters and I would receive fair compensation for the cabin and land. That uncertainty was painful. Even money equal to the property’s value could never replace the cabin itself or the memories connected to it.

What the Fight Cost Us

The last several years have been hard. The court fight destroyed my relationship with much of the family I grew up with. During that same period, my tool shop burned down, and I lost tools I had owned and used for fifty years. I fell deeper into debt, and many repairs at Bakers Junction had to wait because I could no longer afford them.

Still, life did not stop. My grandsons, A.J. and Dillan, helped me finish a new patio bandstand in the front yard at Bakers Junction so they could hold summer concerts. My daughter Crystal Star worked on setting up her radio-controlled vehicle course and RC park. I also had to keep working to prepare the Bakers Junction Haunted Train to open on the last weekend of September.

That is what I have always done: face the next job and keep moving. I may have lost the court fight over the cabin, but I still had children and grandchildren who needed me. Bakers Junction still needed work. Life went on, whether I was ready or not.

Lessons from Other Court Experiences

My distrust of the legal system did not begin with Mom’s estate. Years earlier, when I owned John Baker’s Stone Works, I completed a stone-wall job for a doctor under a written contract. The wall was finished and, in my opinion, the work was done properly, but the customer refused to pay. We went to court in Bloomington.

I expected the contract and the completed work to protect me. Instead, the judge ruled against me and required me to return the down payment I had used to buy materials. The customer kept the wall, and I received nothing for my labor. A man who worked for the doctor later told me that the doctor had a history of using court proceedings to avoid paying contractors. Whether every part of that account was true or not, the experience left me feeling that working people could not count on the courts for protection.

When the estate court later allowed Mom’s farm to be sold, those old feelings returned. Once again, I believed I had clear documents and had done everything I was supposed to do. Once again, I felt that the outcome favored people with more money and influence.

Freedom, Government, and Property

I sometimes describe Americans as “free-range slaves.” By that I mean that all people are born under the authority of a government. We need passports and government permission to cross borders, and laws affect nearly every part of our lives. Americans have far more freedom than people in many countries, and I am grateful for that. I am proud to be an American veteran.

At the same time, I believe our freedoms can be taken away little by little. Property rights are part of that concern for me. When government agencies or courts decide what people may do with their land, even when a will or trust expresses a family’s wishes, ordinary citizens can feel powerless.

I know that my anger shows when I write about these events. The cabin was not only real estate. It was something Dad, Kenny, and I rebuilt with our own hands. It was a place where my children and grandchildren camped, cooked out, worked, and made memories. I expected it to stay in our family. Being told that it would be sold felt like losing part of my past and part of my children’s future.

Still a Lucky Man

Even after everything, I know I am a lucky man. I survived bone cancer and more than thirty operations. At seventy-three years old, I am fortunate to be alive. I have three children and five grandchildren. I still have Bakers Junction, the Haunted Train, and work worth doing.

I will probably never understand or accept the ruling that allowed Mom’s farm and my log cabin to be sold. In my heart, I believe Mom’s will and trust should have been followed as written. I will always remember the cabin in the woods and the days Dad, Kenny, and I raised those old logs again.

Courts can order land sold, and money can divide a family, but no ruling can take away the memories of building my little log cabin with my dad and brother. Those memories still belong to me, and they always will.

CHAPTER 15

Looking Back

At seventy-three, I look back over my life and know I am lucky to still be here. I survived bone cancer and more than thirty operations, losing only a few body parts along the way. I have three children and five grandchildren who live nearby. I still have Bakers Junction, and life is good.

When I look around Bakers Junction, I am amazed by how much I managed to accomplish with little money and a great deal of hard, dangerous work. People usually react in one of two ways. Some ask, “Why don't you fix this place up?” Others ask, “How in the world did you get all of this done?”

I moved two old train stations and eight railroad cars, some weighing about thirty tons. I also moved and set up water towers, windmills, and many other pieces. I wish more of my time and money could have gone into restoration instead of disputes with neighbors and Monroe County Planning and Zoning. Before starting, I spent four months and about $5,000 making sure I had the required zoning approvals and permits. I believed that should have protected the museum and our use of the property.

During later disputes, I obtained permits for projects that were stopped. I spent years in hearings and court proceedings defending Bakers Junction, the county never gave a good legal reason for trying to shut down the museum. The fight cost more than moving and setting up the stations and train cars in the first place.

After the Bakers Junction RXR Museum closed, the Haunted Train gave the property a new life. I started it in 1994, and the 2026 season will be our thirty-third year. I loved the museum and antique shop, but I may love the Haunted Train even more. Watching families laugh, scream, and make memories is worth all the work.

I am sorry that rising costs forced me to increase ticket prices. I always wanted admission to remain affordable. Repairs, inspections, insurance, and years of legal expenses made that difficult. I thank everyone who visits, and I especially thank the good people who help us set up and operate the Haunted Train each year.

Monroe County is still a good and beautiful place to live. Most of its people are good people. I strongly disagree with many decisions made by county leaders, but this is still my home.

This book is about my little log cabin, so it tells only part of the Bakers Junction story. I am also writing a larger book about the railroad museum and Haunted Train from beginning to end. There are many more stories to tell.

—Johnny Forrest Baker

CHAPTER 16

The Future

At seventy-three, I know I have lived through a remarkable period in American history. It was never an easy time. There were wars, unrest, recessions, and hardship, but there were also opportunities to work, build, and raise a family.

I worry about the future. Our country faces political division, illegal immigration, extremism, drought, and pressure on water and food supplies. Technology has changed the world, but our society still depends on fragile systems. If those systems fail, even for a short time, many people will not be prepared.

Climate has changed throughout the history of the earth and will continue to change. Whatever people believe about its causes, communities must be ready for droughts, storms, heat, and shortages. Water and food are basic needs. We should never take them for granted.

To me, having a good garden spot can be even more important than having a garden today. It takes years to improve poor soil. Someday, families may again need to grow more of their own food. Knowing how to plant, repair, build, preserve, and make do are skills worth passing to our children and grandchildren.

Human nature has not changed much in five thousand years. There have always been people who steal, cheat, lie, or force their will on others. There have also always been good, hardworking people who simply want to raise their families in peace. Most people, I believe, belong to that second group.

I cannot know what the future will bring. My way is to prepare for the worst, work for the best, and keep faith with my family and community.

—Johnny F. Baker

Back of book

The Bakers Junction Book

I am working on a larger book about my life, the saving and building of the Bakers Junction Railroad Museum, and the Bakers Junction Haunted Train. Some of these true stories may be hard to believe, but I was there.

I started the Bakers Junction Railroad Museum in 1976, ten miles south of Bloomington, Indiana. Over the years, I saved and moved two century-old train stations, cabooses, passenger cars, and other pieces of Indiana railroad history. I chose a large farm field with few nearby neighbors because I believed the location would protect the museum and give it room to grow.

The first ten years went well. Later, disputes with neighbors and Monroe County Planning and Zoning consumed years of work and money. Those conflicts destroyed the museum I had worked so hard to build. The old stations and train cars remained, but the collections were sold and the museum could no longer operate as I had planned.

The Bakers Junction Haunted Train, which began in 1994, gave Bakers Junction a second life. My family, friends, and many loyal helpers kept it going. Each fall, visitors walk through the old railroad property, laugh, scream, and make memories of their own.

I want to thank everyone who helped save Bakers Junction, worked at the Haunted Train, or supported us through the years. I am Johnny Forrest Baker, a 100-percent disabled veteran, born in 1953. This is my short but true story. I hope I am lucky enough to finish the larger book and tell the rest of the story. .

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT

—Johnny Forrest Baker