Shoe Corner, Indiana

This video was inspired by an article by Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice back in mid-August. Read it at http://bit.ly/yuTKn

The exact origins of this particular tradition are unclear, but for years, people have been dropping off shoes at the corner of 109th and Calumet (the "Shoe Corner") in unincorporated Hanover Township, Indiana, near the town of St. John. Trice's original article featured an interview with town manager Steve Kil, who remembers his mother driving him past this intersection as a child to inspect the shoe pile.

It had been raining for three days straight, so every pair there was sopping wet the Saturday morning I went out there. I'll have to come another day to leave some pairs and, hopefully, score a used pair of Converse Chuck Taylor low-tops;-)

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[AlLyAnDjOrDy2011]

People say lots of things about that corner and how it started one story was that the ppl that lived in that white house were very poor and they needed shoes so one day everyone threw shoes there so from then on now they through shoes...idk if it's true but it's a story that I've heard..

[TheZeke1974]

There is a shoe tree in Indiana as well....

[edcygan]

I knew if I typed in Shoe Corner on youtube I would find something about it. Great job on the video. We have been going this way for years and we have always wondered the same thing. Where do all the shoes come from then one day we decided to add some ourselves. We never laughed so hard as we drove up to the corner and all the windows went down and the shoes started flying I thought my mother in law was going to pee her pants. To funny we love it

[RayHamburger]

When I first began traveling this route back in 1998 the shoes were only on the southeast corner of the intersection. They would be removed by someone or some thing every week or so only to gradually accumulate again but just on the southeast corner. Within the last several years people have begun tossing them everywhere. I think it added more to the mystery when they were only in that one spot.

[bobandkerstin]

Hi, Ken--

I lived in nearby Griffith IN from 1969-2001 except for four years in Ohio. I would guess it was maybe 15-20 years ago that I first noticed all those shoes there. Some people I asked didn't ever drive by that corner and were thereby clueless. Then one day I asked the right person; she said, "Oh, that's been going on for years -- nobody knows how it got started, but people keep throwing out shoes there."

It's just one of those endless mysteries of the universe, I guess.

[DCride1994]

nice car

[thomaszx2]

This is so true...I pass by this corner every day and wondered why I saw all those shoes. You would think the owner of the house on the corner would put a surveillance camera to catch the culprits.

[montell82]

interesting vid. keep up the good work.

[RyanChristianson]

shit i voted 4 instead of 5, my bad