Posted in: DeJa Vu, General Deja Vu Tuesday: The Year the Legislature Outlawed Hate

In January 1945, Raymond C. Vick made the front page of The Indianapolis Star when he became the first person in Indiana to obtain a low-interest loan through the GI Bill of Rights. The WW...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: Just another book in the wall

Indianapolis was just beginning to emerge from the pioneer era in the winter of 1853 when a small group of men gathered to establish a new lodge dedicated to Friendship, Love and Truth. One of...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Unlikely Neighbors: Woodruff Place and the Women’s Prison

An undeveloped area just east of downtown was the hottest place in Indy during the sweltering summer of ’73. Middle-class families seeking to escape the grime and bustle of the city were eagerly buying up...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: Raiders of the Lost Ark Tavern

A few months ago, an old photograph of a young woman named Dora Stevens was auctioned on eBay.  According to the seller, the photo came from a circa-1890s album owned by a Miss Addie Knight...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: A flood of first-time female voters

107 years ago yesterday, a 70-year-old woman from Indianapolis named Mary E. Nicholson made history as one of the first females – if not the first female — elected to public office in the state of Indiana.  A...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: The College Avenue War of 1903

For Mrs. Lottie A. Kinsey, life on the corner of 15th and College Avenue was a lot like an AC/DC song. Although another eight decades would pass before the Australian rockers recorded their classic ballad,...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: 1835 letter sheds light on worst legislative fiasco in state history

In an old Saturday Night Live sketch, a rugged frontiersman named “Johnny Canal” travels to the White House in 1820 to pitch his idea of connecting every city and town in the country by an...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: A Tree Falls in Indy

Pioneer leader James Blake was a man of many firsts.  During the early years of the 19th century, he brought the first piano to Indianapolis, built the first plaster and frame house, opened the first mill,...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: Dear Indy – Please tell us your real birthday

In May 1920, The Indianapolis Star published a special edition commemorating the city’s Centennial celebration.  Then, in February 1936, The Indianapolis News came out with its own special edition in honor of the city’s 100th...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: The Know Nothing Party of Indiana

Imagine for a moment that you’re living in a world where families are struggling to make ends meet. Where hard-working citizens are losing their jobs to technology and immigrants.  Where some of these immigrants are...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: The Carole Lombard Mystery

“Every picture tells a story don’t it,” Rod Stewart famously sang in the early 1970s, the same decade that brought us other grammatical atrocities in song titles such as “Baby I’ma want you.” But sometimes...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: For Whom the Bell Tolls

During a recent campaign stop in Indiana, Donald Trump told a cheering crowd that the job of running for office was so hard that the actual job of being president would be easy by comparison....

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: Would a Hoosier by any other name smell as sweet?

In a rare display of bipartisanship during a campaign season otherwise marked by epic ugliness, Indiana’s two U.S. senators recently banded together to take on the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington’s all-powerful Government Publishing Office. Earlier this month,...

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Posted in: DeJa Vu Deja Vu Tuesday: Celebrating 200 years of history repeating itself

In 1905, philosopher George Santayana penned the oft-repeated maxim, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” To which Indy native Kurt Vonnegut promptly retorted (some 80 years later), “I’ve got news for Mr....

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