Indianapolis Collected

Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: The things we leave behind

There are two kinds of people who buy old houses, according to The New York Times: old house people, who know what to expect, and regular house people, who don’t. But I would argue that...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Free textbooks & the IPS music man

In the closing days of the Civil War, Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent Abram Shortridge found himself in a unique situation — an “adventure,” as he called it. Almost every position within the state’s largest school...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: The Worms crawl in…..

This week’s story has all the hallmarks of a classic horror tale. A slaughterhouse. A butcher. An insane asylum. And Coffins with Worms. It all started last Monday, when I got a terse email alert...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: A Message from a Dead Friend

In May 1915, Argyra Friend was asleep in her apartment at 15th and Illinois when she had a conversation with her dead brother that was so vivid and real she questioned whether it was a...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected The Crumbling Crossroads of America

“Practically every great city has to be a geographic crossroads before it can become a great city,” the National Geographic Society wrote in its November 1925 bulletin. The crossroads of the sea at the Panama Canal,...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Tribute to a “Hero in Overalls”

Classes were dismissed early on the afternoon of April 12, 1907, so that students and teachers at Shortridge High School could attend a funeral in the school’s auditorium, Caleb Mills Hall. The deceased individual was an...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: D.C. Stephenson’s revenge

On July 4, 1923, an aspiring Republican politician from the east side of Indianapolis stood before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people at Malfalfa Park in Kokomo and delivered an impassioned speech that touched on...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: How We Spent Our Summer Vacations

Summer break ended for many Indianapolis children last week as another school year got underway. Even if teachers no longer ask for detailed essays on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” it’s likely many youngsters...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: The Secret in the Old Diary

Charlotte Jane Anderson died 17 years ago. A life-long Indianapolis resident, she left behind a cousin, a house, and a diary that chronicled every day of her life from January 1, 1947 to December 31,...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: The Mystery of the Missing Mantels

Daisy McKay was only 16 years old when her parents broke ground on a fine brick mansion at the corner of 13th and Broadway. The new Statehouse was under construction at the time, and her father purchased quarter-sawn oak...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected Revisted: The Fall and Rise of the Old Northside

“In my opinion the way to beautify Indianapolis is to make its people happier,” Mrs. Albert Metzger told The Indianapolis Star in 1911, when asked for her ideas on city beautification. If you lived in...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: The dry, wry humor of Cobb X. Shinn

Thanks to my years of training as a Girl Scout, I always keep an extra umbrella in the car so I will “be prepared” in the event of a torrential downpour. So that’s exactly where my...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Bringing the masses to Mass Ave

On the surface, George J. Marott would seem to have nothing in common with Ray Kinsella, the fictional farmer in Field of Dreams who built a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. First...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Paging Dr. Coe

Dr. Isaac Coe turned up unexpectedly in Oregon last month. Not the actual Dr. Coe — he’s buried at Crown Hill cemetery — but an antique photograph of an even older portrait of the pioneer...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Camp Ida Wineman

Sylvia Dichner Weiss grew up on the near-southside of Indianapolis, in a neighborhood she called the “ghetto.” When she was about seven years old, a public health nurse sent Sylvia and her brother to a camp on...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Coal smoke brought Indy’s darkest hour

The city of Indianapolis has earned a lot of dubious distinctions during its nearly 200-year history. In August 2014, Terminix ranked Indy as #14 on its list of bedbug-infested cities. In 2004, Men’s Health magazine called out...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Yar, there’s a pirate’s chest of gold on Monument Circle

For so long as most Indianapolis residents can remember, there has always been one “hot spot” on North Meridian where the mercury was guaranteed to rise even when temperatures were falling in the rest of...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: A Road By Any Other Name

In the fall of 2011, Indianapolis Downtown Inc. sparked a Facebook frenzy when it launched a contest to rename Georgia Street. According to a spokesman for Mayor Greg Ballard, the goal of the proposed “re-branding” was...

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Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Statehouse Eye Candy, Circa 1879

A small firestorm erupted last year when President Obama called his old friend Kamala Harris the “best-looking attorney general in the country.” And it wasn’t sparked by the 49 other attorneys general who may have felt...

Posted in: Indianapolis Collected Indianapolis Collected: Where Everyone Knows your Name

When he was 12 years old, Michael Hanrahan decided to run away. For two weeks during the summer of 1907, he survived by selling newspapers on the street, making deliveries at City Market, and sleeping...

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