A Tuesday in the Gore: Then and Now

Photo courtesy of Dearborn County.org

Stand anywhere in Dearborn, Ohio, Switzerland, Ripley, or Franklin County and you are standing on a piece of ground with an identity crisis for the ages. There is a wedge of land here, bounded by the Ohio River, three state lines, and an old treaty boundary, that the history books nicknamed “The Gore.” 

“The Greenville Treaty of 1795 was signed with the Indians which included all land in the following area: land north of the Ohio River and west of the present Indiana-Ohio state line, and east of a line running north-northeast from the mouth of the Kentucky River (now the site of Carrollton, Kentucky) to Fort Recovery, Ohio. This area formed an elongated triangle which in sewing parlance is called a "gore." Thus, Dearborn County was within the area in the Greenville Treaty that was called the Gore.In the year 1800, the Indiana Territory was created. On March 7, 1803, William Henry Harrison proclaimed all land in the Gore to be called "Dearborn County." The name derived from Major General Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War under President Jefferson. Israel Ludlow began surveying from the first meridian line (Indiana-Ohio state line), and soon after William Ludlow and Benjamin Chambers were assisting in the surveys.” https://townofversailles.com/about-us/history

And it has the strangest distinction in the state: an early settler here could have lived in the Northwest Territory, then in Ohio, then in the Indiana Territory, and finally in the State of Indiana — without ever once moving from his own front porch.

The world rearranged itself around him while he stood still. Honestly, in 2026, that feels relatable. So in honor of the country’s 250th birthday, let us imagine an ordinary Tuesday on this land, then and now.

Morning

Then: You woke when the light did, because the light was the alarm clock and there was no second option. The fire had gone out overnight and someone had to coax it back before anyone ate. Breakfast was whatever the season and the larder allowed. The day’s work announced itself by simply existing: the animals were hungry, the garden watered, and the morning chores began. 

Now: You wake when a small rectangle vibrates on the nightstand, having already been awake in spirit since it buzzed at 2 a.m. with a notification from Facebook. The coffee is at your fingertips, with a simple press of a button. Breakfast is a frozen breakfast sandwich, quick pre-made oatmeal packets, or boxed cereal.. The day’s work announces itself in a glowing list of notifications, which are also, somehow, hungry for response.

The commute

Then: There wasn’t one. Work was where you stood. The longest journey most people made was to the county seat at Lawrenceburg — a genuine expedition, planned for days, undertaken on roads that were dirt, at best.

Now: You can be in Cincinnati in under an hour, in three states before lunch, and on a video call with someone in another time zone before your coffee cools. The roads are paved. The expedition sometimes being from your bed to your desk, sometimes being an hour trip in traffic to Cincinnati to work.

News and gossip

Then: News traveled at the speed of a horse and the volume of a tavern. You learned what happened when someone who was there told someone who told you. By the time word of a faraway event reached the Gore, the event was old, digested, and probably improved in the retelling. Crucially, you knew the person doing the telling and how trustworthy they were.

Now: News travels at the speed of light and the volume of a scream. You can learn about something on the other side of the planet before the people next to it do. And yet — and here is the part that ought to give us pause — many of us could not tell you what happened at last week’s council meeting one mile from our homes. We are drowning in news from everywhere and starving for news from here. Plus, it’s hard to know what’s trustworthy. You don’t know the character of faraway corporate office heads that are deciding what can be told as fact.

Evening

Then: When the sun went down, the day was genuinely over. There was firelight and there were the people in the room with you, and that was the entertainment, the company, and the closing ceremony of the day all at once. You talked. You went to bed early because there was nothing else to do and tomorrow started at dawn.

Now: The sun goes down and our second day begins, lit blue, scrolled through alone-together on the same couch. We have conquered the darkness so thoroughly that we have nearly abolished the evening itself.

So who had the better Tuesday?

It would be easy, and dishonest, to say they did. Their Tuesday included diseases we have cured, labor we have mechanized, and a child-mortality rate that should make any honest romantic sit down quietly. Nobody should want to actually go back. The dishwasher is a miracle and the antibiotic is a bigger one.

But notice what the settler on his unmoving porch had, that we have to work to recover. His attention was undivided because nothing was competing for it. His news was local because local was the only thing that could reach him. His evenings belonged to the people in the room. He knew, intimately, the few square miles he called home, while we can name a hundred faraway places and not the road behind our own house.

Two hundred and fifty years moved the whole world around us while, in some ways, we have been standing on the same porch as that settler — watching the jurisdictions of our attention get redrawn by forces we did not vote for. The good news is the same as it was for him: the land is still here. The neighbors are still here. The council still meets a mile away. We can simply choose, any ordinary Tuesday, to look up and notice it.