West Baden Springs

Yes, we want you to come visit the resorts, which are absolutely beautiful.

If you haven't been to the French Lick or West Baden, you have to go.

They're just breathtaking.

But there's Big Splash, there's Orleans Farmer's Markets, and there's the Courthouse in Paley.

Of this period, O'Brien said in an interview, he returns home to French Lick.

He briefly enrolls at a vocational school in West Baden Springs and plays on the basketball team.

He drops out.

He gets a job working for the city of French Lick on a trash truck.

The grocery would employ another 40 or so people.

This was an audacious move for Cook Group, whose late founder, Bill Cook, was known for spearheading massive historic preservation and economic development projects in French Lick and West Baden.

And Cook's current president, Pete Yonkman, hoped that other corporations would use the same playbook for creating the manufacturing plant and grocery store as levers for neighborhood success in their communities.

With a budget of about $3.6 million, the Indy Fresh Market opened in fall 2023.

And we've always been an organization that, this goes back to Bill Cook, right, was, he really believed that the best thing you can do for somebody is give them a job.

And he saw how that uplifted communities.

If you look at the work that he did in French Lick and West Baden, as an example, that was a community that had the highest rate of unemployment in the state before that project started.

And now it's on par with the rest of the state.

Yeah, it was a great location.

It was such a great event and, uh, the newly remodeled bowling pavilions at the West Baden, and that was such a great event.

Thank you.

Another example where communities can come together, alongside vendors as well, but just really get to build teamwork and camaraderie.

It was a great location.

Such a great event, and, uh, the newly remodeled, uh, bowling pavilions at the West Baden, and that was such a great event.

Thank you.

Another example where communities can come together alongside vendors as well, but just really get to build teamwork and camaraderie.

Uh, he loved hitting for the sake of hitting.

Larry Bird loved shooting for the sake of shooting, would live in the gym, uh, would live at the, at the outdoor, uh, basketball court, uh, in, in, in West Baden Springs, Indiana, as a boy, uh, would live in the Springs Valley gym in French Lick, uh, and, and, and one of the most haunting scenes in my book, would live at the boys club in Terre Haute in the first year he spends at Indiana State.

Remember, you know, Bird briefly had committed and enrolled at Indiana University to play for Bobby Knight-

Hmm

Yeah.

where texas right when we were getting out of the town that we're in west baden indiana going towards the illinois border it was sharp turns up and down grades i'm like i wasn't falling asleep for that no

no i was worried and i remember when i was driving through the um uh the appalachian mountains it is all twisties and mountainous passes.

And they're not like as high as obviously, you know, Colorado and the Rockies, but, but there's still the, the roads are not straight through the mountains at all.

It was called Pluto

Water, the one from French Lick.

And then when West Baden Springs came along, of course, they had to have their version.

I think it was like Sprite or something.

they have a teepee village next door.

There's this guy down in, um, West Baden that has a, a living model already running.

Yeah.

And what...