Posted in: General The Butcher, Miller, Love Murder and Madam

Local butcher Milton Pouder ambled a few blocks south to his butcher shop on East Washington every day from North East street, at the corner of New York. He lived in a house on the...

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania Gunned Down Grocer

As a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, during the “golden age of fraternalism” (circa 1860-1920), for one “brother” to shoot another sounds unlikely. All the more when the organization was founded to...

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania 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 mystery of Dr. Helen Knabe’s death remains one of the great cold cases in Indianapolis murder history.  So,...

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania Rufus Cantrell, Intruder in the Dust

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...

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania A Chinese Gravestone and a Murder Mystery at 207 Indiana Avenue

Crown Hill — America’s third-largest public cemetery — has a few hundred thousand stories to tell.  One of its more extraordinary burials took place in 1902, when a Confucian ceremony officially ushered Doc Lung, a...

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Posted in: Friday Favorites Friday Favorite: Which Came First, the McCormick or the Pogue?

Indianapolis in 1820 by Alois E. Sinks – showing the point where Washington Street crossed Meridian. Who was the True Founder of Indianapolis? Shrouded in Controversy… And a Mysterious Death… In almost 200 years, the city...

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Posted in: Friday Favorites Friday Favorite: Mischief, Murder and Miscellany

Not first, second or even third… In 1891 the FOURTH Marion County Jail was constructed at the intersection of Alabama and Maryland Streets at the cost of $150,000. It was designed to house 150 prisoners....

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania Roselyn Bakeries

Former Roslyn Bakery Store #20 at 5231 E. Washington in Irvington – Photo by Ryan Hamlett On a quick jaunt to Chicago this weekend to see an exhibition soccer match at Soldier Field, several billboards...

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Posted in: Historic Miscellania Cold Springs Murders

Tombstone of Jacob Young, behind the Indianapolis Church of Christ on 6001 W. 52 St. This week is the third and final of a three week visit to the intersection of Cold Spring and Lafayette...

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