Historic Miscellania
Public Transportation in 1940 Indianapolis
“Car and Bus Routings and Stops, Downtown” All aboard the time machine...
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Connection: Court & Crown Hill
East entrance to Crown Hill designed by beloved Indianapolis architect, Adolph Scherrer Yes,...
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State Fair 1885 Poster
If you look on the bottom half of the image above, you will see the main Exposition Building...
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Preservation Denied: Bates/ When Building
Newspapers in February 1874 announced that Hervey Bates, Jr. would soon commence building a  new...
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Happy Birthday Virginia Keep Clark!
Ever been hooked by an idea, person or place? Something that just infinitely fascinates or...
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Claypool Hotel…Menu 110 Years Ago today…
Head north on Illinois to the northwest corner at Washington and back 110 years and this is...
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New Life at Central State Part III: The 1899 Building
The 1899 Building, formerly the Men’s Dining Hall for Central State Hospital. (Photo:...
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Die Weihnachtseinkäufe
Die Weihnachtszeit ist nahe. Christmas time is near. That’s not an ad from overseas. At...
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Grasshopper Jails & Other “Monkey Business”
If you peek into newspapers from any decade, it doesn’t take long to find some downright...
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Bacteria, Blood & Bad Dreams: The Unsolved Murder of Helen Knabe
How did one of Indiana’s pioneer investigators into STDs and rabies come to a gory end? The...
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The Rise and Fall of the Billy Goat Beer
If you strolled down the streets of Indianapolis in 1900, you would have needed a bale of cotton...
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Keep Your Sauerkraut Away From My Bicycles
In 1896, readers of the Christmas Eve edition of Cycling Life, a trade magazine for...
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Rufus Cantrell, Intruder in the Dust
In 1935, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges weighed in on what mathematicians later called...
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“Escaped Nuns are Myths”: The Roots of a Forgotten Riot
Did you ever hear about the riot sparked by horror tales, a Holiness preacher, and a renegade nun?...
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A Ku Klux Quaker?
Daisy Douglass Barr, Imperial Empress of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, circa 1923. Women are...
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Of Spirits and Soldiers
Fall is here. Â So it’s time to keep on the spectral side of life. On June 6, 1910, the...
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100 Years of Allison
September 14, 2015 is a special 100th anniversary day in the history of Indianapolis. It was on...
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The Scientific Scrapper Who Played Uncle Tom
If you’re into sports history, you’re probably familiar with the great cyclist...
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A German Firebug?
Most Americans know nothing about the time Nazi submarines stalked the Eastern seaboard of the...
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A Bathing Revolution at the Indiana State Fair
The Locomotive, 1853. (Photo Stephen J. Taylor from the collections of the Indiana State Library.)...
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