Smithville to invest in fiber internet expansion in western Monroe County
Smithville, the cable and internet company based in Ellettsville, is expanding service in the Stinesville community of western Monroe County.
According to a news release from the company, work in Stinesville is scheduled to begin in 2024 and will bring service to 382 homes in the area.
“Design has been completed and fiber construction is getting underway,” the company announced.
Darby McCarty, the chairman and CEO of Smithville, said the Stinesville work is part of “upgrading legacy copper service to high-speed fiber in a number of our long-time rural service areas.”
Stinesville lies about 15 miles northwest of Bloomington, a few miles north of Ind. 46, and is one of the oldest communities in the area. As in other parts of southern Indiana, the limestone industry put Stinesville on the map, beginning in the 1850s.
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“By the 1890s, it was a boom town of nearly 1,000 residents, with stone workers and carvers arriving from all over the world to work in the local quarries,” according to a Wikipedia article.
Stinesville had its own high school and basketball team, “The Quarry Lads.” A carved stone monument at the entrance to town records that era.
But Stinesville lost population in following years as the limestone industry consolidated elsewhere. The 2020 U.S. Census recorded 203 residents of Stinesville.
In the company news release, Smithville reports investing about $10 million in the past 10 months “to design and build high-speed fiber networks in several rural areas of southern Indiana.”
“These include areas in southeast Greene County, the Stanford area southwest of Bloomington, the Indian Hills region in the Gosport area of Owen County, and western Monroe County. “
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Ellettsville-based Smithville expanding rural high-speed internet
