Nappanee Street Department

About Nappanee Street Department

Nappanee's streets carry horse-and-buggy traffic alongside cars, and a plowed lane that's fine for one isn't always fine for the other — the shoulder along Market Street has to stay wide enough for a buggy wheel as much as a tire. The Nappanee Street Department runs the town's own plows through those routes overnight, working street by street past the brick storefronts downtown before the first buggy sets out at daylight. Flat, open farmland surrounds the town on every side, so wind-driven snow finds its way onto Main Street the same as it does the fields beyond the last house. By morning, the crossings are salted and the lanes are wide enough for whatever's headed out, engine or hoof. It's the kind of work nobody notices unless it doesn't get done.