SEYMOUR, Ind. — When the afternoon turns to darkness on Monday, April 8, Seymour, Ind. is hoping for a Great American Eclipse payoff.
The town is in the path of totality for the big event, which means in John Mellencamp's hometown, while the music plays on, anticipation builds.
"There's a lot of roots here," Aaron Rollins, owner of Brewskies Downtown, a Seymour bar, said. "I mean, they call Indiana the crossroads of America for a reason, you know?"
Melissa Capps, a Seymour resident, said travelers will be "coming from all over the world – we're excited about it."
Over at Indiana Vapor Labs in downtown Seymour, owner Ashley Grizzle is hoping to cash in on the elevated foot traffic.
"Anybody traveling is looking for the best deals," she said. "And that's usually where we get pretty good hits off of Google. People are coming in here looking for the best vape shops."
Grizzle said more than anything, she's hoping exposure may lend itself to further developing a growing downtown.
"I think Seymour is going to see a lot more people than what we're used to," she said.
Located smack dab in the path of totality, this town of 20,000, WHAS11 News is told, could see some hundred thousand come April 8.
"It's all over the states and all over the world," Rollins said. "we've already ran into somebody from the Netherlands that is going to stay here until then."
While some locals still don't have their total eclipse plans ironed out just yet, some hotels in the area do.
"We've already got people stacking the hotels as we talked about," Rollins said.
And businesses like Rollin's are drawing up plans too – normally closed on Sundays and Mondays, he said they'll have to make an exception for the event.
"We might be expecting more than 400 people alone," Rollins said. "Which is pretty, pretty hefty for our little kitchen, you know?"
People are prepared to pull out all the stops when the crossroads of southern Indiana finds itself in the crosshairs of a solar spectacle.
"The schools are closing down; I mean, the kids are excited about it," Capps said. "The factories are shutting down. There's holidays, like it's a holiday on their calendar from last year. Like, we've been planning this for a year now."
The total eclipse starts in Seymour at 3:07 p.m. and lasts three minutes and eight seconds. There will also be a partial eclipse from 1:49 p.m. through 4:23 p.m.
If you would like to search your own city or town to find the time in totality, please click here.
For anyone who plans to watch the eclipse, you need to have properly certified solar glasses to do so safely. If you are looking to pick up a pair, you can do so here. There is a limit of two per person.
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