Marker to return to historic site

May 08, 2008 11:59 pm

— When the Jackson-McCormick Insurance Agency was destroyed in a July 2005 fire, one of the items salvaged was a historical marker.
The fire started when an apartment tenant fell asleep while cooking French fries.
Built in the early 1900s, the original building at 210 E. Main St. had been renovated by the late Keith McCormick, who operated the insurance agency and was a long-term Indiana state senator representing areas of Boone County.
Steve Jackson, owner of the insurance agency, decided to rebuild on the same location. The new building has a Greek portico theme to commemorate the original.
Wednesday, members of the Boone County Historical Society and Mayor John Lasley joined McCormick to announce the historical marker will soon be reset.
The marker reads in part, “Joaquin Miller ‘Poet of the Sierras’ lived a summer of his boyhood, in or around 1852, in a house which once stood here.”
Miller — whose given name was Cincinnatus Hiner Miller — was not merely a poet, according to the Web site literarytraveler.com. He was a “lawyer, judge, newspaperman, teacher, cook, miner, conservationst” and rode for the Pony Express, according to the site.
He was also, according to the Web site literarytraveler.com, given to hyperbole.
A quarter-century after Miller’s death in 1913, “his secret ‘California Diary’ was unearthed, revealing that many of his unusual experiences were products of his lively imagination.”
After Ambrose Bierce accused Miller of being, “the greatest liar this country has ever produced,” Miller replied, “I’m not a liar. I simply exaggerate the truth.”
Margaret Guildford-Kardell has posted a bibliography of Miller at http://joaquinmiller.com
A sample of his verse:
“Come, listen O Love to the voice of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say,
There are many Tomorrows, my Love, my Love,
There is only one today.”