Historic Indianapolis is a free online media channel connecting readers to places, people and other pieces of the city’s past. Our stories tend to focus geographically within the 465 loop, and with time stamps of at least 50 years ago. We are an independently run business offering registered users free access to our content library, which contains over 2000 articles. We endeavor to inspire you and to help you fall in love with the city you thought you knew, or one you never knew.
If you monitor this website now and then, you will know that new content hasn't been added for quite some time, as I work on a book about Indianapolis wheel history. And when I say "wheel" I mean it in the Victorian parlance, the nickname often ascribed to bicycles in...
Ardmore Block, 1936. Image courtesy: Bass Photo Co. Collection, Indiana Historical Society Preservation month may be over, but on this website, its a point of passionate advocacy at all times. Another one of Indy's long-forgotten corner buildings-- that seems like it...
Original architectural rendering of Pembroke Arcade, Washington Street by Vonnegut & Bohn What would it be like if Indianapolis created such superior architectural design, it made us a destination for tourists and seekers of manmade beauty? Actually, that used to...
"Our profession, as an entirety is not fitted for women," an anonymous male architect proclaimed in an August 1900 Indianapolis article. The same anonymous architect expounded further on the topic of architecture + women: "A young woman studied for a year or two under...
Anyone who has ever gotten anywhere in life has had help. Whether family, friends, teachers, community members-- no one is completely self-made. What a noble endeavor to provide a leg up to those whose circumstances are more challenged. Providing community, shelter...
Merrill Street didn't always dead end into Meridian Street. The unassuming lot dabbed in trees today betrays no hint of its bustling former life. Merrill Street continued east, all the way to Noble (Noble later became College). That's not all-- what was 601 South...
While many people consider Indiana Avenue the epicenter of early black culture in Indianapolis, few may realize how far from "The Avenue" it stretched. Bordering the Cultural Trail at Walnut Street and Senate Avenue is a mysterious old brick building, yet to be...
In 1935, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges weighed in on what mathematicians later called chaos theory: the results of some phenomena are simply impossible to predict, control, or even explain. Take the freak reasoning of Bartolomé de las Casas, the Dominican...
The David Macy house at 408 N. Delaware Street (The Indiana Album: Loaned by Joan Hostetler) Not many 1850s houses have survived in Indianapolis, but a unique government project begun during the Great Depression gives us a glimpse at one that stood for over eighty...
This series of photographs shows the progression of the southeast corner of W. Ohio Street and Capitol Avenue from the 1890s through the present. Located opposite the Indiana State House, the block has progressed from houses to freight warehouses to a gas station and...
As summer road construction season comes to its seasonal decline, workers downtown have been diligently ripping Delaware Street into shreds, producing waist-deep holes through which they can repair the city's subterranean infrastructure. In one such pit, it was...
The picture above is from the Indianapolis Illustrated book of 1889. The block, not even ten years later, would become densely redeveloped as the commercial center of the city expanded and the need for more apartments increased along with the population. The Algonquin...
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