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NICHES Exhibit - Caretaker’s Cottage West Lafayette History Center

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the Caretaker’s Cottage in West Lafayette to view the exhibition about the history of NICHES.

The cottage itself was built in 1903 as a home for the family that managed the adjacent cemetery, and since being placed on the Historic Preservation’s Endangered List in 2017, the city restored the building and repurposed it into a miniature Lafayette-West Lafayette history museum. 

 

The NICHES exhibit walks viewers through the history of land conservation in Lafayette-West Lafayette, starting with the small group of locals who started the movement to preserve Indiana land. In the late 1900s, the government announced their plans to construct a dam over Wildcat Creek–a plan that didn’t sit well with local environmental enthusiasts. The exhibit displays documents, newspaper clips, brochures, and photos detailing the plans for building the dam, protests and community opposition for the project, and the resulting maps and photos of preserved land symbolizing the community’s triumphs. 

This exhibit, inspired by NICHES 30th Anniversary in 2025, provides viewers with a sense of hope in terms of land conservation. All it takes is a small group of passionate community members to take giant leaps toward nature preservation. 30 years later, NICHES stands by its mission and continues to conserve, maintain, and restore natural Indiana spaces.

You can view the exhibition at Caretaker’s Cottage West Lafayette History Center at 1496 N Salisbury Street. Operating hours are 1-5 Thursday through Sunday. For the full experience, I recommend asking the volunteer on duty for a tour, and they will tell the story behind each exhibition in far greater detail than simply viewing the exhibits alone.