The Shoe Tree: Lose Shoes, Gain Luck
If you have a pair of shoes you've been dying to get rid of, consider taking a road trip to Milltown, Indiana, where you can give your shoes a new home in the Shoe Tree. They'll have plenty of company, and tossing your old shoes into the Shoe Tree might even earn you a little luck.
Legend has it that former NBA player Larry Bird, a native of West Baden, Indiana, has a pair of shoes in the Milltown Shoe Tree. If so, Bird's shoes are just two of hundreds that can be found hanging from the limbs of shoes on every corner of the intersection of Shoe Tree Lane and Devil's Hollow Road in Milltown, Indiana.
On one corner of the intersection is the original Shoe Tree which was struck by lightning. While it still bears a few pair of shoes, it is mostly bare. The damage from the lightning caused most of the tree's limbs to fall off, and now it is not much more than a charred trunk. However, the shoes from the old tree have been transported to another tree in the intersection and plenty of new shoes have been added, so the legend of the Milltown Shoe Tree lives on.
A trip to the Shoe Tree will take you just under an hour from downtown Louisville. However, it is one of those weird attractions that every Louisvillian should see before they die or move away, and it is said that throwing a pair of shoes into the tree will earn the thrower good luck. But you can rest assured knowing that, if nothing else, you'll get some good pictures.
HelloJeffersonville Tip: The shoes on the tree tend to blend in with the tree's leaves in the warmer months. For the best pictures, visit the Shoe Tree in the winter after the leaves have fallen.
Posted on Jun 15, 2011 by Jessica Elliott
