Carol Johnson, Southern Indiana Business Report
Bacon, Indiana, population undetermined, is a small community in southeast Orange County that is about to get a lot bigger come Saturday, April 15.
Portillo’s, a Chicago-based fast casual chain famous for Chicago-style hot dogs, is coming to Bacon to celebrate the launch of a new menu item, the Rodeo Burger, a char-broiled burger topped with American cheese, three strips of Portillo’s own bacon, onions, onion rings and barbecue sauce served on a brioche bun.
A Bacon Rodeo will be at Harned Chapel from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The event is limited to 220 people and as of Tuesday, nearly all spots were reserved. Activities include inflatable axe throwing, inflatable mechanical bull ride, jumbo slide and music by Lick Creek Band. There’s no parking at the event; guests will take a bus from the Orange County Community Building on Sandy Hook Road in Paoli.
Lick Creek Band member Eric Harmon wrote a song just for the launch. The band will perform “Find the Simple Pleasures at Portillo’s” at the event.
Much ado about Bacon
The marketing department at Portillo’s was looking for a community or town with Bacon in its name for the product launch when it found Bacon, Indiana.
Kristal Painter, executive director of the Orange County Economic Development Partnership, got involved and has worked with the Portillo’s team and residents of Bacon as well as those with connections to Southeast Township to coordinate Portillo’s visit with Orange County residents and resources.
Painter said when she first learned of Portillo’s interest in coming to Bacon, she, like a lot of people in the area, was unfamiliar with the community. Bacon was once a thriving community, with a school and a post office from 1904 until 1935. Today, the center of Bacon is the Harned Chapel Church, where a congregation continues to meet. A few houses are scattered near the church.
“From the people I’ve met, it’s a great, tight-knit group of people,” Painter said.
In February, a Portillo’s team came down and visited Bacon, meeting Doris (Free) Stroud, a woman in her 90s and lifelong resident of Bacon, her daughters Denise Stroud and Cathy Ingle, and Roger and Valerie Moon, Paoli residents who grew up just a few miles from Bacon – Valerie in Fargo and Roger in Valeene. Denise Stroud returned a few years ago to Orange County after retiring from her career as a pharmacist in the Chicago and Wisconsin areas.
After meeting with the Portillo’s team and ironing out logistics and determining how the community would be represented, residents were on board with the celebration.
With the Bacon Rodeo and promise of more than 200 guests, there is a renewed enthusiasm among those who call Bacon home.
“I was talking to Denise (Stroud) and she said, ‘This might be the thing that puts Bacon back on the map,” Painter said. “They are still very passionable about their community and they are excited about this.”
Although neither of the Moons ever lived in Bacon, they are well versed in the communities occupying Southeast Township.
In 2021, Roger Moon produced a video documentary about Valeene. But the documentary’s content expanded beyond Valeene to celebrate all of Southeast Township, where generations of families – Strouds, Frees and Moons included – made their homes and built friendships spanning the two centuries since Orange County’s first white settler John Hollowell migrated from North Carolina and settled in what later became Valeene.
“When I, with the help of many others, put together the documentary, I made a point of stressing it was for anybody who felt a strong connection to Valeene and all of Southeast Township. That clearly includes Bacon,” Roger said. “I said, as part of the documentary, that I had set out to tell the story about a place, but that it was far from a single story. It was the combination of countless stories about the place, about its people and about its spirit. We now are happy to have Portillo’s come to Southeast Township, and to Bacon specifically, to experience firsthand the rural community spirit that we love to celebrate.”
“Proper” small communities such as those in southern Orange County really aren’t defined by boundaries.
“People growing up close proximity in rural areas such as these are united more by common experiences and lifestyles than by ‘city’ limits,” Roger said.
Roger recalled the meeting with the Portillo’s team as he, Denise, Doris and Cathy Ingle, learned how Bacon might be part of the celebration.
“We weren’t convinced we had much to sell,” Roger said. “Some may know the answer to this, and I would love to know, but I’ve yet to learn how Bacon even got its name. Bacon still has the church. It once had a general store and a post office, and I’ve heard talk of a distillery or two having been there in a much earlier time. But a lot of water has flowed down Bacon Creek and into the Patoka River since those days. The only sign that would even suggest anybody had arrived in Bacon was a highway sign telling travelers they were turning onto Bacon Ridge Road.”
But the locals who sat down to share Bacon’s story with Portillo’s were wrong. The Portillo’s folks were impressed enough by what they saw and heard that they wanted to move forward with the plan.
Vallory McCormack, Portillo’s marketing director, said their online search didn’t yield much information about Bacon, but after meeting the residents in February and learning about the community, the decision to come to Bacon was easy.
“That’s what made it the perfect place to launch because who would know bacon better than the people of Bacon, Indiana,” said McCormack.
Following the celebration, each resident of Bacon will receive a gift box of Portillo’s products as a thank you for being part of the event.
Footage from the celebration will be used as Portillo’s prepares for the product launch.
In Indiana, Portillo’s has locations in Indianapolis, Avon, Fishers and Westfield.
The Rodeo burger will be on the Portillo’s menu from May 1 to Sept. 3.
Portillo’s has eight Indiana locations:
- Fort Wayne
- Westfield
- Indianapolis
- Merrillville
- Fishers
- Schererville
- Mishawaka
- Avon