RIDERTOWN, In. -- Officials from ridertown.com traveled to Ridertown, Indiana recently, hoping to establish Sister City relations with its non-virtual brethren.

Located (on some maps) on the boundary of Blackford and Jay Counties in East Central Indiana, Ridertown was once a booming village of several residences and an official United States Post Office -- according to the 1895 Atlas of Indiana; compiled, one fears, by Hoosiers.

"We were hoping to set up a cultural exchange to share ideas, thoughts and accomplishments," said ridertown.com CEO Chris Botkin. "Our goal is to proliferate the core values of virtual St. Marys, while seeking out and accentuating commonalties among communities that share our name. We also wanted to see if there was a bar in the town."

The expedition included ridertown.com Vice President of Marketing David Stilwell and three eager and willing students of the St. Marys City Schools District, who had hoped to lay the foundation for a student exchange.

Ridertown is mysteriously absent from the official Indiana Department of Transportation Highway Map, however, a search of the internet revealed the following location coordinates: 40º 26' 8" N and 85º 12' 23" W.

"But without a GPS tracking system we had to follow our noses, since we didn't know exactly where Ridertown was," Stilwell said. That method proved ineffective.

Traveling west through Jay County on St. Rt. 18, the local entourage arrived at the Blackford County Line, and traveled south on a county line road. The county road became St. Rt. 167 with no sign of an organized settlement all the way to the small city of Dunkirk at the southwest corner of Jay County.

"There were a few clumps of approximate residences that might once have been towns, but there were no visible road signs," Botkin said. Invisible road signs remained a possibility, though, so the dauntless group remained undaunted.

With the mystery growing, the decision was made to seek assistance at a Dunkirk business. However, neither of the two employees on duty claimed to have heard of Ridertown, or Al Gore.

"Well, you really can't go by what a long-haired gas station attendant says," quipped a Botkin without daunts.

A search for the Dunkirk Community Library revealed only one morsel of information -- persons placing video tapes placed in the after-hours book drop would be fined $5 -- and the library was closed. Two morsels of information, actually.

Following a hastily convened strategy session, the group decided to retrace its steps as far as St. Rt. 26, and then head east to the Jay County seat of Portland, where surely there would be a library open, or at least a bar, and perhaps an answer to the Mystery of Ridertown.

After arriving in Portland the group sought directions from members of a crowd exiting the local movie theater. The directions turned out to be incorrect. However, the ridertown.com contingent was fortunate enough to happen across what appeared to be a high-ranking city official out for a stagger. His directions led the group right to the library front door where some serious research commenced. In truth, the serious research commenced only after the library front door was penetrated.

"First we went through the door, then we went through local maps, books, files... anything we could find," Stilwell said. ''There was no mention of Ridertown."

About to be daunted, the group resorted to the un-manly tactic of asking the reference librarian for help. She uncovered the route to the "Indiana Room" a local history enclave replete with crumbling scrap books and one "crap book" of unknown origin or purpose, but obviously having lost its "S".

It was there (in the "Indiana Room") that the librarian told the story of letter passed down from her grandmother with a "Ridertown" postmark, a fascinating yarn some aeons in duration but nanoseconds in content.

"It was like a light at the end of the tunnel, or something," Botkin said. "Finally, a ray of hope. Christian, upon emerging from the Slough of Despond, espies in rapture the glistening spires of Celestial City, where surely there is a bar."

Seemingly fascinated by the group's story of a web site in St. Marys, Ohio, but inwardly repulsed, the librarian scurried off to the telephone to seek additional Ridertown information from a local expert.

The answer was in the bright red folder containing a photo-copied reprint of the manuscript "Ghost Towns of Jay County," Compiled by Miriam Edmunson, 1975.

According to the paper, Ridertown is located on the crossroads of St. Rt. 167, Jay County Road 100 and Blackford County Road 100S.

"All that is left now in Ridertown is a church and a residence or two," the paper said.

At its height of prosperity, Ridertown included a post office, church, school, livery stable and an apple orchard owned by John Rider who founded the town. There was, alas, no mention of a bar.

"We shall return," Botkin said in his best imitation of MacArthur since the unfortunate Diarrhea Incident, "to Ridertown soon. We still want to establish a Sister Pseudo City relationship, and maybe hold a fundraiser to raise funds for a highway sign letting people traveling on Indiana State Route 167 know that they are, momentarily, in Ridertown."

Some maps have been discovered showing the location of Ridertown, and the locality is listed as an actual town in some current reference sources. But in closing, we encourage everyone reading this article to avoid traveling to Ridertown, Indiana, if at all possible, as there is in fact virtually nothing there.