Text Only Version--Indianapolis: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary

Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
INDIANAPOLIS

Text-Only Version

Please note that this text-only version, provided for ease of printing and reading, includes more than 100 pages and may take up to 15 minutes to print. By clicking on one of these links, you may go directly to a particular text-only section:

Introduction
Capital at the Crossroads of America Essay
Ethnic Indy Essay
Feel the Need for Speed in Inday
George Edward Kessler and the Park System Essay
Go Diagonal Essay
Going in Circles Essay
Monumental Indy Essay
Neighborhoods in a City of Homes Essay
List of Sites
Maps (must be printed separately)
Learn More
Credits

Introduction
The National Park Service's Heritage Education Services and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology in partnership with the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers proudly invite you to explore Indianapolis, capital of Indiana, the Hoosier State. This Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary highlights 59 historic places listed in the National Register of Historic Places that bring the history of Indianapolis to life.

The Indianapolis travel itinerary offers several ways to discover the city’s historic places:
• Descriptions of each featured historic place on the List of Sites highlight its significance including color photographs and information on how to visit.
• Essays with background on important themes in the city’s development offer context for understanding historic places featured in the itinerary. Visitors can read about Indianapolis —Capital at the Crossroads of America , Ethnic Indy, Go Diagonal, Going in Circles, Neighborhoods in a City of Homes, Monumental Indianapolis, Feel the Need for Speed in Indy, and George Edward Kessler and the Park System.
• Maps to help plan a visit.
• A Learn More section provides links to such information as cultural events and activities, other things to see and do, and dining and lodging possibilities. This section also provides a bibliography.

View the itinerary online or print it as a guide if you plan to visit in person. The Indianapolis itinerary, the 44th in this ongoing series, is part of the Department of the Interior’s strategy to promote public awareness of history and encourage visits to historic places throughout the nation. The itineraries are created by a partnership of the National Park Service; the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers; and federal, state, and local governments and private organizations in communities, regions, and heritage areas throughout the United States. The itineraries help people everywhere learn about and plan trips to visit the amazing diversity of this country’s historic places that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The National Park Service and its partners hope you enjoy this itinerary and others in the series. If you have any comments or questions, please just click on the “comments or questions” at the bottom of each page.

Capital at the Crossroads of America
Shortly after Congress established the Hoosier State in 1816, the Indiana General Assembly saw the need to move the capital from southern Indiana to a more central location. Indianapolis was founded in 1821 to fill this need. The capital city grew well beyond expectations to become a major site for automotive breakthroughs, urban and suburban planning, sports, literature, the fine arts, and biotech innovations. The National Register of Historic Places recognizes historic places that represent nearly all the historically significant trends that have shaped this, the 13th largest city and second largest state capital in the United States.

Long before European Americans claimed the land, the marshy site at the confluence of the White River and Fall Creek was home to mound building cultures. The Delaware, Miami, and Wea tribes traded, hunted, and lived here. Following the War of 1812, the U.S. Government secured the Treaty of St. Marys in 1818, opening central Indiana to European American settlement. Legislator Jeremiah Sullivan proposed the name “Indianapolis” to the General Assembly during discussions of the new capital. Planners met at McCormick’s Cabin Site on the banks of the White River to discuss the project.

The legislature wanted the capital to have good access to transportation hoping the White River would be navigable by the new flat-bottomed steamboats, but this proved impossible. Overland transportation would be via the proposed National Road, which played a significant role in early development. The National Road became Washington Street as it passed through town linking the capital to the outside world until railroads reached the city. Michigan Road became the main north-south land route of this early era, connecting Indianapolis to Madison, Indiana, on the Ohio River and Michigan City on Lake Michigan.

The plat of Indianapolis would be like no other in the new “western” lands. The General Assembly hired Alexander Ralston, who assisted Pierre L’Enfant in designing the nation's capital, to plan the new town. Ralston’s 1821 plan, which was a mile square, reflects the heritage of L’Enfant’s Washington, DC, with its central circle, radiating streets, and zoned usage of building sites for the Statehouse, a county courthouse, a city market, and other civic buildings.

The city grew gradually, as residents and merchants built more and more vernacular wood-framed houses and stores, but early transportation efforts continued to meet with frustration. As part of the Internal Improvement Act of 1836, the General Assembly planned a great canal to link to the Wabash & Erie Canal, but only a few segments were completed before bankruptcy ended the scheme. Indianapolis had fewer than 8,000 residents in 1847 when workers for the Indianapolis & Madison Railroad finished the line to town. Steel rails delivered the promised development that rivers and canals could not. Within five years, seven different lines met in Indianapolis. The rail firms combined resources to build a Union Station, the first of its kind in the nation. The existing Union Station is the late 19th-century descendant of that pioneering building.

The economy of Indianapolis at first revolved around agriculture, especially grain mills, pork-packing plants and wool mills. With railroad access to coal and the discovery of natural gas deposits in the 1880s, industrialists located foundries, machine shops and, railroad-related shops here. Street railways began in the mid-19th century and interurbans, light, electric, self-propelled rail cars that ran within and between cities, connected Indy’s streets and surrounding farms as early as the 1890s.

With plenty of land on which to build, developers and owners favored single-family homes over the densely packed row houses of eastern cities. Lockerbie Square best illustrates pre-Civil War Indianapolis. Its closely-spaced frame cottages and brick houses reflect the age when most people walked and, if they could afford it, rode a horse or carriage. Streetcars fueled land speculation, especially after the Civil War. Areas like Woodruff Place, Irvington, and Herron—Morton Place satisfied middle and upper class home owners, while satellite commercial areas like the Virginia Avenue Historic District and Massachusetts Avenue Historic District served dwellers on the edge of town.

On the eve of the 20th century, carriage makers began to experiment with the idea of adding internal combustion engines to their wooden contraptions. Hoosiers embraced the auto age with a passion. By 1909, Indy had 17 auto and auto parts makers in town. Thousands of workers cranked out luxury cars like Marmon, Cole, Stutz, and Duesenberg from the city’s factories. The most visible reminders of the city’s auto legacy are the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the industrial suburb of Speedway. Speedway also became home to a national aerospace industry, Allison Division of General Motors, now merged with Rolls Royce.

Development of the automobile and changing attitudes toward recreation and civic spaces led Indianapolis residents to debate the creation of a parks and boulevards plan. Renowned German American landscape architect George Edward Kessler helped create the Indianapolis Parks and Boulevard System, one of the best preserved of its kind in the nation.

Auto sports mirrored the enthusiasm for other sports in Indy. Germans brought their unique attitudes to town, represented by their gymnastic clubs called Turnvereins. Das Deutsche Haus, now The Athenaeum, is a prime example. Basketball, another Indiana obsession, began in makeshift spaces, but more permanent facilities like Butler Fieldhouse were soon constructed. While the Pacers basketball franchise approaches 40, and the Colts football team has resided in Indianapolis for just over 20 years, the athletic traditions behind these teams date back a century or more.

Civic improvement was on the minds of state and local leaders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Examples from Washington, DC and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago sparked public support for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument and the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza Historic District. Indiana limestone was the building material of choice for these grand monuments.

Indianapolis has a rich, long history in the arts. Literary greats James Whitcomb Riley, Booth Tarkington, and Meredith Nicholson were nationally published along with other Indiana authors. Perhaps Indiana’s interest in literature explains Indy’s many excellent libraries, including Central Library, as well as the Indiana State Library. Indiana is unique in having a major American Impressionist art movement named for it. Indianapolis was the epicenter of the Hoosier School; the John Herron Art Institute in the Herron—Morton Historic District was the major college for fine art. Irvington was the address of choice for most Indianapolis artists of the early 20th century. African Americans distinguished Indianapolis in the performing arts. Indiana Avenue and the Walker Theatre offered venues for jazz greats like Wes Montgomery. The reputation of “the Avenue” drew performers well into the 1960s.

Attractions abound in present day Indy. Many are comparatively new, such as the world champion Indianapolis Colts, the new Indiana State Museum, or Circle Centre Mall but have roots in the past. The biotech industry in Indianapolis also has deep historical roots. Located on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the National Historic Landmark Oldfields, was the home of J.K. Lilly, Jr., leader of Eli Lilly and Company in the early to mid 1900s. J.K.’s father, Eli, began his pharmaceutical company in the 19th century. Today, Lilly and Company is a worldwide enterprise and remains one of the city’s major employers.

Eli Lilly’s interests in art and culture also have continued to have an impact on Indianapolis. Lilly established Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, a private non profit group that fosters historic preservation. In the 1960s and early 70s, redevelopment threatened many landmarks. Citizen concern led to creation of the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission. The commission administers community plans and reviews alterations in many historic neighborhoods and districts, including most of the districts in this itinerary. The 60s and 70s also saw the rise of grassroots preservation groups, such as the Woodruff Place Civic League. The Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology has worked with all these groups to obtain National Register of Historic Places designations in the city and other preservation incentives. Today, preservation advocates have a voice in city and state business in Indianapolis. The city continues to support a revitalized downtown and has dozens of historic neighborhoods. Indianapolis is working to preserve its heritage for residents and visitors alike to enjoy while attracting new sports events, conventions, and business ventures to the capital at the crossroads.

Ethnic Indy
Twenty-first century Indianapolis has a vibrant, diverse population. Anywhere in town, it’s not uncommon to find yourself listening to Spanish, English, Japanese, Hindi, German, or French. You can also still hear a distant echo of the Hoosier accent in many voices. This is the same one James Whitcomb Riley recorded in his rural-inspired poetry. Pharmaceutical interests, racing or auto companies, and better economic opportunities have brought people here from many places. Hoosiers celebrate their ethnic roots.

Indianapolis also had a measure of diversity at its founding in 1821. Following the Delaware and other native peoples, the first settlers were mostly Scots-Irish descendants from the Upland South, as well as people from Pennsylvania and Ohio. Alexander Ralston’s survey team included Cheney Lively Britton, an African American. The team platted the original Mile Square of downtown Indianapolis. Anglo Americans from the Upland South dominated the population into the 1860s, though it was a curious blend of Yankee New Englanders, Pennsylvania Dutch, and farmers and tradesmen from the South.

Indianapolis developed a sizable community of African Americans before the Civil War. Several existing churches have origins in the 1840s. Prejudice, legitimized by restrictive state laws, long remained a great impediment to African Americans. At first the near south side of downtown was home to many black residents. By the 1880s, most had moved to the Indiana Avenue area. Indiana Avenue was also the center of the black commercial district, mainly because segregation was an unwritten rule throughout the city. In the 1920s, this part of town became well known for its jazz scene.

The advent of the railroads brought thousands of people to Indianapolis and further broadened its once isolated outlook. Most notably, families from the German States were flocking to Middle America. By 1850, they constituted just over 12 percent of the population of Indianapolis. They remained in the 20 percent range of the population throughout the 19th century. The Germans shook the political and cultural life of the town with their song, dance, and arts. They sided with the abolitionists. Many Germans were also Catholic or Jewish, bringing a new outlook on things for the Protestant upland southerners. The Germans did not surrender their language; instead, they taught it in schools, printed it in papers, and carved it on their buildings.

Ireland was another significant source of settlers in the mid-1800s. The promise of steady jobs digging the Central Canal and building the National Road attracted Irish families to stay. They founded their own Catholic parishes. Later, Irish leaders began to shape politics in the town. Seven Indianapolis mayors have had Irish ancestry.

The late 19th century brought industrialization and a demand for labor. Social unrest in many southern or eastern European nations also brought a new wave of immigration. Italians, Slovenes, Greeks, and other groups sought jobs and better lives in neighborhoods like Haughville and Fountain Square. Indianapolis was still primarily Anglo American in the 1890s, however, the influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans, Germans, and African Americans had changed the town.

As the economic means of these groups increased, the need to stay in the neighborhoods where they had originally settled became obsolete. By the interwar years, Indy’s ethnic enclaves were already weakening. German was banned from public schools, and inscriptions in the language were erased or covered. Successful Irish, Italian, German Jewish, and German families moved away from traditional areas to the suburbs as their labors brought wealth and assimilation. While black congregations stayed put, the families often found newer homes outside of the Indiana Avenue vicinity.

Oppression increased in the 1920s. David Curtis Stephenson had revitalized the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana and moved to Indianapolis. Now rich with membership funds and bribes, he and his cohorts held sway in the Statehouse and City Hall. Under a cloak of Americanism, Stephenson and his Klan supported segregated schools and harassed Catholics and other “foreign” peoples. Stephenson was arrested and convicted of second degree murder in 1925 after an incident with a Statehouse clerk. His implication of other Klan leaders ended their reign, but not the discrimination.

Civil rights advocates pressed for change in Indianapolis in the 1950s and ‘60s. Following Martin Luther King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, Robert Kennedy was in town campaigning for the presidency. He made a significant speech at a park at 17th and Broadway, urging a peaceful response. Indianapolis avoided the riots and violence that troubled many other Midwestern cities thanks to its African American leaders and Kennedy’s calming speech.

Indiana is now experiencing its largest cultural change since the late 19th century, as thousands of people from Mexico or Central and South America seek the opportunity and stability afforded by living in the Midwest. A Mexican consulate opened in downtown Indianapolis in 2002. More than 34,000 persons of Hispanic descent lived in the city by 2002. This latest chapter in the ethnic heritage of Indianapolis is still in the making.

Feel the Need for Speed in Indy
Transportation was the reason Indianapolis was founded. Legislators thought establishing the capital at a central location with good access to all parts of the state would serve both local and national ambitions. The goal of improving transportation never subsided and has had an impact on every era of the city’s growth. Beyond just getting there from here, transportation affected the way Indianapolis developed, industrialized, and even the way the city planned parks.

In the beginning, planners hoped that a strong combination of the National Road, Michigan Road, river travel, and canal trade would bolster the economy. George Washington had suggested construction of a road from the Northwest Territory to the eastern United States. Thomas Jefferson signed the legislation for the National Road in 1806, and construction began in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1811. From 1827 to 1834, workers completed the 156-mile route across Indiana. A large number of Indiana’s 90,000 new settlers each year traveled the National Road. Alexander Ralston’s 1821 plat of Indianapolis named the road Washington Street as it passed through town. This made Washington the main commercial street, a distinction still seen in the Washington Street-Monument Circle Historic District. The National Road also spurred development of villages within Marion County, such as Cumberland.

Indiana had federal backing to hire contractors for the Michigan Road, which slashed diagonally across Indiana. Eventually, toll companies took over the Michigan Road. A tollhouse and the Aston Inn remain on Michigan Road from this early era. With all their baggage and wagons, pioneer families could hope to make 5 to 10 miles a day on these early roads.

The Indianapolis & Madison Railroad arrived in Indianapolis in 1847, linking the capital more firmly to the national economy. In some cases, the railroads sapped the vitality of the city’s early wagon and carriage roads. New Augusta, an intact railroad village, is a good example of changing fortunes due to changing transportation routes.

In 1853, Union Station was built to handle all the rail lines coming into Indianapolis. The site of this Union Station became, in 1888, a new landmark Union Station and a symbol of the city’s status as a major rail center. The area along South Meridian and Illinois Streets became home to businesses that sold rail-shipped goods. Today, this area is called Indianapolis Union Station—Wholesale Historic District, or, just simply the Wholesale District. One locomotive from the steam rail era is on display near Indianapolis, Nickel Plate No. 587, a light Mikado-class freight hauler. This 300,900 pound locomotive could haul a full load of coal and cars at about 30 to 40 mph, depending on load, grade, and line conditions.

In 1894, Indiana entered the auto age when Elwood Haynes of Kokomo rumbled down a back road in his home-engineered gasoline-powered carriage. Indianapolis carriage makers soon were fiddling with their light carriage designs, devising ways of adding internal combustion engines to them. By 1910, Indianapolis was a city of over 233,000, and already had 17 automobile plants or auto parts manufacturers making it fourth in the nation in auto production. By the ‘teens, Ford and the Detroit factories had outstripped Indianapolis, but local makers found another niche – the luxury auto. Cole, Stutz, Duesenberg, and Marmon were brands known internationally. Cole cars of the 1920s, for example, were better known for their excellent fit and finish than for their speed and affordability. A typical Cole sedan had a top speed of about 60 mph and cost about 4 thousand dollars, the average price of a decent single family house in Indianapolis at the time.

Auto magnate Carl Fisher and a group of fellow auto industrialists built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909. Fisher’s initial purpose for the 2½ mile oval was as a test facility for automobile engineering and safety. Testing would be by way of grueling competition. In 1911, Fisher and business partner James Allison established the first 500 Mile Race. Ray Harroun, driving a locally made Marmon Wasp, won the first race with a breakneck average speed of 74.59 mph. Along with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Allison and Fisher planned the industrial suburb of Speedway, just south of the track. Many residents of Speedway worked in the auto industries there, including Fisher's Prest-O-Lite auto headlight and battery plant. Allison was also interested in aircraft engines, and workers at his Allison Experimental Company produced the Liberty engine during World War I. Allison Experimental became the Allison Division of General Motors.

In the 1920s and 30s, plant engineers invented the V-1710 engine, which, with improvements, powered the Tomahawk, Lightening, and Air Cobra fighters during World War II. The P-40 Tomahawk with its Indianapolis-made piston engine could cruise at about 300 mph, approximately the speed current Indy Cars reach on the front stretch at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! The Allison firm continued to make history with new jet engines in the late 1940s and 1950s. Allison merged with Rolls Royce in 1995, but the tradition continues. Very likely, as you read this, a Rolls Royce/Allison-powered aircraft is breaking Mach 1 somewhere.

The need to accommodate the auto helped shape the built environment in Indianapolis. Carl Fisher promoted the idea of a “Dixie Highway,” now U.S. 31, to connect north and south. Indianapolis auto entrepreneurs popularized the suburban Cold Springs Road area, overlooking White River, and built impressive estates there. The Allison and Frank Wheeler estates are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The 1925 Test Building is another unique response to the auto age, with its built-in parking garage.

Making room for the auto age even extended to park planning in Indianapolis. In 1909, in his plan for the Indianapolis Park and Boulevard System, George Edward Kessler called for sweeping auto pleasure drives following the meandering creeks of Central Indiana to connect all parts of Indianapolis. Driving the park and boulevard system is an excellent and leisurely way to experience Indianapolis, but please pay attention to the posted speed limits. After all, you’re not in the Indy 500!

George Edward Kessler and the Park System
Including over 3,400 acres of parkland, planned boulevards, and six major bridges, the National Register of Historic Places listing for the Indianapolis Park & Boulevard System is one of the largest of its kind. Visitors today can experience amenities ranging from two golf courses to bicycle routes, swimming, and simply driving the parkways.

When Alexander Ralston mapped out the Mile Square plat of Indianapolis in 1821, he did not include parks. Military Park was originally a militia training grounds, and shortly after the Civil War, businessman George Merritt installed a badge-shaped walk and fountains for it. University Park was the home of the Marion County Seminary, and it served as such for years before becoming a city park in the 1870s.

Indianapolis grew rapidly in the late 19th century, and the city needed more parks for its citizens. Volunteer park efforts were inadequate. In 1880, the city’s population was more than 102,000, but by 1900, it exceeded 197,000. City consultations with landscape architect Joseph Earnshaw in 1894 led to consideration of a broader system of parks. In 1895, the City Council created a Park Commission. Shortly thereafter, the commission brought John C. Olmsted on board to create a full plan. Both the Earnshaw and Olmsted plans focused on parks lining White River and Fall Creek.

Legal challenges to the Olmsted plan ended its viability within a few years, though city parks director J. Clyde Power began to improve Riverside Park and oversaw construction of the first stone bridges over White River and Fall Creek. Little funding was available for other parks, and the city still had no overall plan. Most residents wanted parks in their own areas, not just on one side of town. Concerns about where parks were needed, legal disputes, and escalating land values threatened the whole parks movement.

George Edward Kessler stepped into this politically charged situation in 1908. Kessler was one of the preeminent landscape architects in the United States. Born in 1862 in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany, he came with his family to the United States in the mid-1860s. The Kesslers lived in Dallas, Texas, when George was a child. In 1878, George returned to Germany and studied forestry, botany, and landscape design at the Grand Ducal Gardens in Weimar, and civil engineering at the University of Jena. He came back and established his office in St. Louis quickly building an excellent reputation. His impressive plans for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and his other city park plans – for Cincinnati and Kansas City among others – were probably foremost in the minds of Indianapolis leaders when they selected him to develop a plan for the park system.

Kessler’s Indianapolis plan is among the best known of his city park system plans. His genius did not lie in simply designing a sound plan from an engineering and aesthetic point of view, but in implementing the plan in a way that quelled opposition and united the city. In 1909, after a year’s worth of study, Kessler presented his Park and Boulevard Plan to the city. It was adopted, and along with a new parks law, withstood legal challenges. A combination of the City Beautiful and the city practical, Kessler’s plan included major regional parks on every side of town, along with a comprehensive parkway system. The plan combines parks with green spaces and boulevards in a network of transportation and recreation corridors that help guide urban growth, preserve the environment, protect water from pollution, and provide flood control.

Kessler gave each of the major parks its own character. For Garfield Park, he designed formal sunken gardens with spray fountains. Ellenberger Park would maintain its old tree stands and natural paths. In the heart of the city, Kessler redesigned University Park, with formal paths and a recommendation for a central fountain. The meandering routes of his parkways would create foils to the relentless grid of subdivisions.

The very waterways which Earnshaw, Power, Olmsted, Kessler, and Lawrence Sheridan, who followed Kessler, hoped to celebrate were the only significant natural barrier to development. Power and Kessler especially disliked the 19th century metal truss bridges crossing Fall Creek and White River and began their replacement with artistic stone and concrete arch spans.

Kessler guided the Park Commission for six years until 1915. A good portion of the system had been surveyed and constructed by then. The city hired Kessler once again in the 1920s. He was in town, supervising construction of a new belt road, when he died in 1923. The new belt road was named Kessler Boulevard in his honor.

Lawrence Sheridan had the unenviable task of following up on Kessler’s grand scheme. Sheridan matriculated from Purdue University and later attended Harvard School of Landscape Architecture. Sheridan implemented the Kessler idea over several decades. He had served on the Park Commission and became the city planner for Indianapolis after Kessler’s death. In 1928, Sheridan unveiled an expanded version of the Kessler Plan, one which created new parks and parkways in the farthest reaches of the county. Sheridan’s efforts in Indianapolis continued past his brief service in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II.

The work of Kessler and Sheridan laid the foundation for much of Indy’s park planning well into the 20th century. The parkway system took on new life as part of the Indy Greenways system in the 1990s, a series of linked pedestrian and bicycle trails. City efforts to revitalize parks led to a landmark restoration of the sunken gardens at Garfield Park in the late 1990s. The City of Indianapolis Parks Department officially recognized the importance of the park movement legacy in 2003. The Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, the State Historic Preservation Office, worked with consultants to prepare an 80-page National Register of Historic Places nomination with complete mapping that summarized a century of park development. Restoration and preservation of the system is ongoing and involves a dialogue between transportation engineers, park planners, trail enthusiasts, citizens, preservationists, and conservationists.

Go Diagonal
Alexander Ralston’s 1821 plan for Indianapolis created diagonal avenues radiating from the center of Ralston's Mile Square. Two of these diagonal streets, Virginia Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue, were continued by later speculators and became outlying commercial areas with residential development in their corridors. Kentucky Avenue, running to the southwest, connected with major routes to southwestern Indiana. Indiana Avenue, running northwest, was home to the African American community. Today, each of the surviving diagonal avenues retains its own character.

The diagonal streets of Indianapolis became known for their odd, flatiron-shaped buildings, ethnic character, and vibrant satellite commercial strips. They gave, and continue to give, a unique identity to Indianapolis. Unfortunately, to later city planners more concerned with auto traffic than urban character, the diagonal streets meant headaches and traffic jams.

To the detriment of some of the city’s best examples of flatiron architecture, redevelopers found a ready ear from many when it came to eliminating sections of the diagonals. The magnificent Lincoln Hotel was an early victim in the 1970s, when a new bank plaza and hotel resulted in the loss of part of Kentucky Avenue. The 1970s Hyatt Regency building at the intersection of Washington Street and Kentucky Avenue, where the flatiron Lincoln once sat, “memorializes” the diagonal street and its triangular masses. The revolving restaurant at the top offers great views. A further section of Kentucky Avenue was lost to the RCA Dome in the early 1980s. A portion of Indiana Avenue has been gone since the 1980s when the American United Life tower was constructed.

In the early and mid 20th century, Indiana Avenue was the heart of the African American community. Visitors would have found the streets teeming with life and, at night, the air laced with jazz music drifting through nightclub doors. As society gradually changed and the black community won hard fought opportunities to prosper elsewhere, the avenue declined. The surviving portions of Indiana Avenue have made a dramatic resurgence in recent decades. Several historic buildings anchor Indiana Avenue. The Madame C. J. Walker Building with its Walker Theatre, itself a flatiron, is at 617 Indiana Avenue right on the diagonal.

Virginia Avenue, by contrast, built upon its transportation roots. This avenue was the terminus of several important roads connecting the city to southeastern Indiana. By the 1870s, Virginia Avenue and Fountain Square were satellite commercial areas to downtown Indianapolis. Virginia Avenue and the square were also entertainment districts. On a typical 1920s or 1940s Saturday night here, a visitor would find couples hurrying to catch a movie at one of many theaters, eating at a diner, or bowling. Many folks would just be strolling, enjoying the flashing theater marquees and the old fountain at the intersection of Virginia, Shelby, and Prospect. The Fletcher Place Historic District borders Virginia Avenue.

Massachusetts Avenue was also a transportation corridor where several trolley lines converged on their way in and out of downtown. Mass Ave was a bustling place during the early to mid-20th century. Groceries, laundries, and offices served the surrounding neighborhoods. Clothing stores drew shoppers from the city as a whole. Institutions gave Massachusetts Avenue a distinct character. The Germans built their largest clubhouse in town, Das Deutsche Haus, here in the 1890s. The Murat Shriners constructed an exotic Middle Eastern-inspired fraternal lodge complex on Mass Ave in the early 1900s. These institutions still survive.

Today, the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District; Chatham—Arch Historic District, which includes part of Mass Ave; and the Virginia Avenue Historic District are home to generations-old businesses, art and antique shops, diners, new independent restaurants, night clubs, coffee shops, and more. Bring your pocketbook, and walking and bowling shoes for a journey down Indy’s diagonal streets!

Going in Circles
Monument Circle is the heart of Indianapolis. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is dramatic, with its overwhelming scale and lavish sculpture, and the buildings lining the circle provide a rich backdrop with their own sense of place and beauty. In 1821, Alexander Ralston did not specify land uses in his plan for the circle, other than for the center of the circle, which was to be the governor’s residence. Until the 1860s, many lots on the circle were owned by churches. Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Episcopalians all built simple frame chapels facing the circle. Only the Episcopal church remains today; Christ Church Cathedral is a stone Gothic Revival sanctuary dating from the 1860s. Gradually, the congregations found their members living farther and farther away, with office and commercial uses crowding out their church buildings. Merchants bought up the church sites. Contractors began construction on the State Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the 1880s, and in time, its limestone obelisk rose above its surroundings. The completion of the monument in 1902 made the circle a civic space. The circle’s gradual transformation into a business, commercial, and civic core was complete.

Architects of several generations have had to contend with fitting their design concepts into a concave footprint to match the radius of the circle. Early architects chose to ignore the radius and placed conventional buildings at a tangent to the circle. By the 1870s and 80s, however, the freedom of expression that came with cast-iron fronts allowed builders to warp façades easily. One of the best remembered buildings on the circle, the English Hotel, filled a quarter-radius of the circle with its Italianate/Queen Anne façade. The English Hotel succumbed to progress after World War II. A Penney’s store replaced it with a Modernist curving blank limestone curtain wall. Eventually, Penney’s vacated the store, and a Postmodern façade now fills the northwest quadrant of Monument Circle.

Indiana limestone became the most popular building material for the new generation of buildings lining Monument Circle. The Guaranty and Test Buildings, both from the 1920s, occupy portions of the southwestern quadrant. These two show the refinement and quality of Monument Circle’s architecture, with their curved facades, tasteful Neo Classical design, and respectful height that allows the State Soldiers and Sailors Monument to stand tall. The Test Building also features sculptural panels. Other buildings on Monument Circle have public art: Circle Theater, with its terra-cotta frieze and mural over the marquee; the Columbia Club with its sculpted panels; and Circle Tower’s intricately cast neo-Egyptian brass screens set in the main entrance arch.

However impressive, the technological innovations of 1920s architecture raised concerns. Would Indiana’s revered c. 285 tall State Soldiers and Sailors Monument, completed only two decade before, be cast into shadow by steel-framed skyscrapers? In 1921-22, local architect William Earl Russ and city leaders proposed, and the city implemented, local legislation that limited heights to 10 stories and called for elevation setbacks to preserve the prominence of the monument. George Edward Kessler had made the initial suggestion to the city during his years as a consulting park planner. Circle Tower, with its Deco stair-step roofline, is the most obvious example of how the legislation shaped architecture on the circle. The Emmis Building, completed in the 1990s, also reflects the setback design concept.

Attempts to beautify Monument Circle took shape after the war years in the late 1940s. Architect Edward Pierre was a leading home, business, and civic designer in Indianapolis in the 1920s and 30s. Pierre, then near retirement, made suggestions about revitalizing the circle. Among others, he recommended that Monument Circle and the Monument itself be strung with holiday lights. Thanks to his idea, visitors lucky enough to be in downtown Indianapolis during the holidays will experience the magical effect of the lighting. The City of Indianapolis hoped to improve the image of the circle in the 1970s. Workers laid paving bricks on Monument Circle and Market Street and installed brick walks. Names of donors to the project were inscribed on the sidewalk bricks.

In the 1970s, the downtown was developing into a sports destination, with the Indiana Pacers playing at the then-new Market Square Arena. The Indiana State Museum was downtown in the Old Indianapolis City Hall, but the downtown lacked other major cultural draws. In the early 1980s, city officials lured the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra downtown to the old Circle Theater, turned into a fitting home for the symphony, thanks to a multimillion dollar restoration. Today, Monument Circle more than fulfils the civic ideas Alexander Ralston had for Indianapolis.

Monumental Indy
Indianapolis built on its classical roots to become a city of grand public places and buildings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement to create beautiful public places embraced cemeteries, government buildings, two major war memorials, formal parks, and public sculpture. At the beginning in 1821, Alexander Ralston envisioned Indianapolis as a grand capital. His formal plan reserved spaces for large public buildings, balanced on the east and west sides of a circular drive.

Crown Hill Cemetery was constructed in response to a movement for a new cemetery in the 1860s. Unlike the tidy rows of pioneer cemeteries, Crown Hill was large in scale and picturesque in appearance. Its massive stone gates and Romanesque Revival waiting station gave the cemetery an imposing quality. The individual stones and mausoleums provide a remarkable collection of sculptural work.

While not grand, the Marion County Courthouse of the 1820s was suitably formal – a brick, cubical “coffee grinder” building with Palladian windows, likely inspired by earlier such courthouses in New England. The State of Indiana followed with its first permanent government
building in the new capital. In the 1830s, the General Assembly retained architects Town & Davis for the design work. The nationally-known pair conceived of a Greek Revival Statehouse, capped by a Roman Revival dome. Either due to poor craftsmanship, maintenance, or design, the stucco-covered brick exterior walls and metal roof did not withstand Hoosier weather conditions.

The decades of the late 19th century saw the replacement of the Statehouse and Marion County Courthouse and the beginning of major civic space planning in the city. The Marion County Courthouse was a bombastic French Second Empire building of brick and limestone, encrusted with sculpture. In the decades of its service, prior to demolition in 1962, the courthouse was an important downtown landmark.

Planning and creation of a monument to honor Indiana’s Civil War veterans signaled a dramatic change toward monumental civic architecture. The Indiana General Assembly appointed a committee to plan the State Soldiers and Sailors Monument in 1887. The c. 285-feet-tall monument transformed the heart of the city into a grand commemorative space, when it was completed in 1901.

The trend toward grand classicism would continue in the 20th century. Nearly 50 years in planning and execution, the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza, a National Historic Landmark, is nationally recognized as one of the largest and most harmonious City Beautiful-era spaces of its kind. The city’s and nation’s movement to create grand places came at a time when limestone mills in southern Indiana were just stepping up production. Thanks to steam power and new industrial techniques, Indiana limestone would produce the sparkling image of classicism most Americans would recognize.

The City of Indianapolis helped set the trend of grand classicism on the Plaza. In 1916, famed Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley left a generous bequest for the city library system upon his death. Along with other donations and funds, the city amassed enough for a grand Central Library. Nationally known architect Paul Phillipe Cret planned this chaste limestone Doric building at the north end of the mall. Even Frank Lloyd Wright had to admit that Central Library was a fine classical statement when he came to Indianapolis decades later. The grand main circulation room is one of the best classically inspired spaces in town. The Old Indianapolis City Hall, another Indiana limestone building, was completed in 1909 and served as City Hall until the 1960s. It, too, is classicism at its American best, and the interior is splendid.

The city’s park system is monumental by any measure – 3,400 acres of the system are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Citizen concern for planned open spaces began in the late 19th century but came to fruition during the early 20th century. George Edward Kessler planned the system and also contributed several specific park designs, such as University Park. The park is part of the World War Memorial Plaza and combines the themes of open space planning, classicism, and beautification. The park doubles as an art gallery with its large bronzes by artists such as Henry Hering, Laredo Taft, and Alexander Calder.

Classical concepts of balance and restraint continue to shape civic planning in Indianapolis. In 1960, the new City-County Building that replaced the 1876 building took the form of a central tower with symmetrical wings. By the 1990s, state officials decided to consolidate offices in a new Indiana Government Center complex. The intent was to harmonize with the classicism of the Statehouse and State Library.

Some of Indy’s suburbs have followed the classical tradition in urban planning. Today, the remarkably formal and monumental spaces of Indianapolis stand in marked contrast to the typically informal and inviting homes of the city.

Neighborhoods in a City of Homes
Alexander Ralston’s 1821 plat for the City of Indianapolis encompassed a Mile Square, and for at least a decade, that was sufficient land for the few hundred hardy settlers who lived in town. Streets were unpaved and housing consisted of vernacular log or frame buildings.

When the first train pulled into Indianapolis on the Indianapolis & Madison line in 1847, things began to change more rapidly. Soon, precursor routes to the Pennsylvania, Big Four, Monon, Nickel Plate, and other railroad lines arrived. As the old Mile Square filled with more commercial buildings, housing became scarce. Land speculators surveyed and filed plats outside the Mile Square on all sides of town. Indianapolis was still a “walking” town. Lockerbie Square, with its large and small houses densely packed into narrow lots, is the best example of a neighborhood that once typified pre-Civil War Indianapolis.

The railroads themselves attracted more residents and also shaped where people lived. The south side of the city thrived with German American neighborhoods, but with multiple rail lines often blocking access to the area, most wealthy citizens chose to live north or east. As industrialists set up shop along the rail lines and the Belt Railway, constructed in 1878, middle and upper class home owners were further alienated. Rail technology opened large portions of outlying farmland to residential and satellite commercial development. It was not, for the most part, steam power that made the transformation possible at first, but instead, horsepower, or more accurately, mule power. Investors formed the Citizens Street Railway Company in 1864. By 1890, the successor firm had established electric streetcars.

A new generation of suburbs began to develop after the Civil War, thanks in part to streetcar service. Herron—Morton Place and Irvington are examples of streetcar suburbs. Also in the 1890s, interurban companies formed and ran streetcars on Indianapolis streets. Interurbans were light, electric, self-propelled streetcars that ran between cities. By the early 1900s, an extensive network of interurban lines served nearly every town of any size in the state. Their local network included Homecroft, Cumberland, and Speedway.

Citizens expected water and sewer lines, fire protection, schools, gas lines or electric service, and improved streets in areas where they might build homes. Public parks were also high on the list. George Edward Kessler’s Park and Boulevard System of 1909 included formal parks, parkways, and small parks that spurred residential growth.

The early 20th century was a golden age for Indianapolis. Between 1900 and 1920, the population nearly doubled from 169,164 to 314,194. An expanding industrial base anchored in auto parts makers, furniture making, grain processing, pork packing, and railroad repair shops attracted thousands of families from the rural Midwest and overseas. With streetcar lines improving transit, suburbanization could extend as far as demand would take it. With sources of employment spread out along the Belt Railway and no limitations on land in place, single family houses quickly became the norm in Indianapolis neighborhoods.

More and more, how far one would travel to work downtown began to classify suburban areas into poor, middle and upper middle class, and wealthy areas. The automobile was changing the landscape. Land speculators began to drop the alley from their plats as superfluous. Instead, owners wanted side driveways and room for garages. Indianapolis residents were proud of their city, because it lacked the crowded neighborhoods so common elsewhere. The city continued to sprawl outward with neighborhoods of single family houses. The Indianapolis News used the descriptive banner “A City of Homes” on its front page during the early 1900s.

Domestic architecture in Indianapolis ranges from a handful of surviving Upland South-influenced vernacular houses to a fine collection of Arts & Crafts homes. Because of overwhelming redevelopment during the 1870s and 80s, very few if any downtown neighborhoods have surviving early vernacular architecture. T- or L-plan cottages with simple Italianate or Queen Anne details typified working-class neighborhoods of the late 19th century. Away from the coal soot, those who could afford the commute began to find respite. The (Old) Northside Historic District was among the early developments that attracted home owners an unheard-of 16 blocks from downtown in the 1870s and 80s. Neighborhoods like Herron—Morton Place and Woodruff Place illustrate the middle and upper income life of the 1890s. Every Queen Anne design feature was at home here, including tall porches with lathe-turned posts, circular towers, offset bay windows, and imbricated wood shingles.

The 1900s brought new architectural ideas to Indianapolis. Frank Lloyd Wright never designed one of his Prairie style homes in the city, but several of his followers did. Other out-of-town proponents of the Arts & Crafts movement had significant commissions here, including Price & McLanahan, Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Home Builder’s Club, Howard Van Doren Shaw, and Robert Spencer, Jr. A talented corps of local architects, contractors, and builders also played a significant role in interpreting the modern Arts & Crafts style. Neighborhoods like Meridian Park are known for their Arts & Crafts housing.

Indianapolis citizens later changed tastes toward the period revival styles beginning in about 1915. By the late 1920s, builders replaced the Bungalow with the more traditional Tudor Revival cottage. The well-to-do chose North Meridian Street or Pleasant Run Parkway in Irvington as ideal sites for larger Colonial Revival or Tudor Revival homes.

Home building revived just before the war in the late 1930s. Small Tudor Revival cottages and Cape Cod houses were most popular. America’s entry into war curtailed home construction for four years, though branches of the military built several apartment complexes to house workers during the war. With the population explosion of the post-war period, developers went further afield to lay out ranch-house tracts. Builders filled several areas with prefabricated units sold by National Homes of Lafayette, Indiana. More permanent versions of the ranch house followed the starter neighborhoods.

Crispus Attucks High School
The Indianapolis School Board opened Crispus Attucks High School in 1927 as the first and only public high school for African Americans in the city. Designed by well-known Indianapolis architects Harrison & Turnock, the high school is not only important in education and social history, but also architecturally for its Collegiate Gothic/Tudor Revival style and terra-cotta detailing.

Before Crispus Attucks High School was constructed, Indianapolis had a number of segregated elementary schools, but African Americans were able to attend public high schools. After World War I, with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and demands of segregationists, a delegation of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce petitioned for a separate high school. Despite the opposition of the Better Indianapolis League, a civic organization of progressive black citizens, prominent black citizens, and black churches, the school board voted unanimously to build a separate high school in 1922. Archie Greathouse, a black community leader, held up construction with a series of court challenges, but the school board prevailed. The board decided to name the new school “Thomas Jefferson High School.” This resulted in numerous petitions to change the name to “Crispus Attucks High School” in honor of the former slave killed in the 1770 Boston Massacre, who is generally considered the first to die in the American Revolution.

The high school became a strong source of pride in the black community when it opened in 1927, despite initial opposition. Though taxed for space and equipment, faculty was the best available, hired from traditionally black colleges in the south. Students were taught a special course in black history as well as the usual subjects. School segregation was outlawed in Indiana in 1949, but the student body remained almost exclusively African American until the 1970s, when busing for racial integration began.

The brick exterior of Crispus Attucks is Tudor Revival in style, with glazed terra cotta moldings. The plan is a good example of school layout from the early 20th century, using ample banks of windows for light and ventilation. The triple-arched entry is also framed in terra cotta moldings on the interior; the corridor leading to the entry has a matching terra cotta archway.

Crispus Attucks High School is located on the near northwest side, at 1140 N. Martin Luther King, Jr. St. The interior includes a museum open by appointment only by calling 317-226-2430. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #34 Michigan Rd., disembark at West and Indiana stop; walk north to building.

Das Deutsche Haus (The Athenaeum)
Das Deutsche Haus, now called The Athenaeum, is the best preserved and most elaborate building associated with the German American community of Indianapolis. Germans constituted a major social and cultural force in the city, and the opulent Northern European Renaissance Revival style of the building is architecturally unique in the community.

German social life extended to European-style clubs and institutions. Das Deutsche Haus is the best example of this in Indianapolis. The founding group was a Turnverein or gymnastic club. The German American community founded the Indianapolis Trungemedinde (Gymnastic Community) in 1851 and changed the name to Socialer Turnverein (Social Gymnastic Club) later. The Turnvereins were for more than athletics; the movement advocated intellectual and physical health. In Germany, these clubs contained theaters, classrooms, gyms, dining halls, and beer halls, just as Das Deutsche Haus does. Originally the building also included a bowling alley in the basement.

The group began by building the east wing in 1893-1894, followed by a large west wing in 1897-1898. German American architects Vonnegut & Bohn designed both sections. It was the company’s first major commission. The Vonneguts, together with Bohn and a later partner, Otto Mueller, designed schools, churches, department stores and numerous private homes in Indianapolis. Bernard, the first architect of the Vonnegut family, was the grandfather of modern novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The club survived through the anti-German popular sentiments after World Wars I and II, renaming itself to a more neutral “Athenaeum.” An ongoing restoration started in the 1990s has reclaimed the glory of its 19th-century years. The architecture is unique. Vonnegut & Bohn selected a 19th century version of German Renaissance Revival for the building. German Renaissance influence is clearly seen in the banded stonework and columns, the scroll-topped gable ends, round-arched windows, and lofty hip roof with domed dormer windows. The building also includes a remarkable collection of leaded art glass windows.

The interior contains the original theater space, rehabilitated to house the American Cabaret Theater, and the original Rathskeller restaurant, the oldest restaurant in town. The back walls of the complex enclose a Beer Garden with a bandstand, still used for live music in season.

Das Deutsche Haus, The Athenaeum, is located an easy walk up Massachusetts Ave. from Monument Circle, at 401 E. Michigan St. General building hours are 11:00am to 9:00pm. Visitors can enjoy dinner in the Rathskeller or take in some live music and libations at the Beer Garden. Visit the Athenaeum Foundation for more information on tours and events. Das Deutsche Haus has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Madame C. J. Walker Building
Probably the best-known historic building associated with African Americans in Indianapolis, the Madame C. J. Walker Building is nationally significant as home to one of the earliest, and for years the most successful, black business empire in the United States. The Walker Building illustrates Madame Walker's commitment to the employment of black women and her promotion of arts in the black community. Its terra cotta architectural detailing is rare for its use of African art motifs and imagery. The building is located in the vibrant Indiana Avenue corridor, which was the home of businesses, jazz clubs, and churches of the black community.

Born Sarah Breedlove in the Louisiana Delta in 1867, Walker acquired her name from her husband Charles Walker, whom she married while living in Denver. Madame Walker had by that time invented a hair treatment for black women and began mail distribution of the product. The Walker System of products grew from the original treatment of shampoo, the Wonderful Hair Grower, and a special patented comb, to include facials, manicures, make-up application, and diet and weight control advice. Madame Walker's beauty business helped black women enhance their appearance and created job opportunities for them as hairdressers and sales agents, known as "Walker Agents."

While traveling, Madame Walker passed through Indianapolis, was impressed with the city, and relocated her business here in 1910. Walker soon became a millionaire and lived on and off at her palatial house just outside of New York City. In 1919, she died, leaving daughter A'Lelia in charge of the firm. By 1927, sales had grown to such an extent that A'Lelia planned a new headquarters. The company hired one of the best-known firms in Indianapolis, Rubush & Hunter, to design the multi-storied, tan brick "flatiron" shaped building. At one time, Indianapolis had a number of "flatirons," thanks to the radiating diagonal streets. The 1927 Walker Building is among the best examples left.

The building became the national headquarters and manufacturing site for the products, where some 3,000 women worked, and also a community cultural center housing the factory, a ballroom, a theater, hair salon, corporate offices, and more. In keeping with the Walker Building's role as center of a unique business empire, the company's leaders called for a fitting building. The brick exterior is trimmed in richly ornamented architectural terra cotta. The overall feeling is Art Deco, but on closer inspection, Yoruba-like masks, zig-zags, and other ornament were inspired by African art. The interior continues the African theme with "Deco-ized" Egyptian and Moorish plaster work in the magnificent Art Deco theater.

The theater space served not only as a movie house, but also as a showcase for live jazz. The Indiana Avenue area was rife with live jazz venues. Now the Walker is the only building left to recall this significant chapter of local cultural history.

The Madame C.J. Walker Building is located at 617 Indiana Ave. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Click here for the National Historic Landmark registration file. Guided tours are available for groups of 10 or more. Call 317-236-2099 for tour reservations. Cost will vary. For more information contact the tour office or Madame Walker Theatre Center. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #34 Michigan Rd., disembark at West and Indiana. The Madame C.J. Walker Building is the subject of an online lesson plan, Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C. J. Walker and J. C. Penney. The lesson plan has been produced by the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places program, which offers a series of online classroom-ready lesson plans on registered historic places. To learn more, visit the Teaching with Historic Places home page.

Holy Rosary—Danish Church Historic District
Holy Rosary—Danish Church Historic District illustrates how close enclaves of European immigrants settled Indianapolis in the late 1800s. These groups left their mark in churches and dense areas of modest vernacular cottages on the near south side of Indianapolis.

This pocket of small frame cottages, brick commercial buildings, and churches lies south of downtown, adjacent to the sprawling Eli Lilly corporate headquarters. At first home to a mix of ethnic groups in the mid-19th century, two took precedence by the 1890s. Italian families constituted 90 percent of the population of the area by 1910. Most were involved in the produce trade and many family names survive as produce companies today.

In 1910, the Catholic Italians obtained permission to build a new parish church, named Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church. Designed by Kopf & Wooling, the brick and stone church is clearly Italian Renaissance in inspiration. The parish was designated an Italian National Parish. The houses of the district are not Italian in design; most were built before Italian immigrants settled here. The other ethnic group represented in this district was the Danes. Following social upheaval after the loss of the 1866 Danish-German War, a number of Danes immigrated to the United States. In 1872, a group of Danes that had formed a congregation bought land in the district and built a small brick church. The front gable inscription contains the only Danish writing on a building in Central Indiana. Translated, it reads “Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church.”

A good place to begin touring the district is the former Danish Church at 701 E. McCarty. Indianapolis once had many vernacular gable-front Gothic Revival chapels like this one dating from 1872 with a Danish inscription in the gable end. Further south on Noble or Greer are typical vernacular cottages with milled trim work and simple wood porches with lathe-turned posts. Horace Mann School #13 is at the southern end of the district, at 714 Buchanan Street. Indianapolis architect Edwin May designed this two story brick Italianate schoolhouse, completed in 1873. It now houses condominiums. Holy Rosary Catholic Church is at the north end of the district, at 520 Stevens Street. Built from 1910 to 1911, architects Kopf & Wooling’s Renaissance-flavored design features twin campaniles, recessed Corinthian columns, and terra cotta tile roofing. Initially, the first architect, George Bedell, had planned a central dome and domed towers for the building. Bedell’s design only rose to the upper foundation walls before the parish switched architects.

Holy Rosary—Danish Church Historic District is located between Virginia Ave., I-65/70 and South East St. roughly bounded by Virginia Ave. to the northeast, Interstate 65/70 to the east and south and South East St. to the west. Private homes in the district are not open to the public. The Italian Street Festival takes place in the early summer. See the Italian Heritage Society of Indiana website for exact dates and times. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #22 Shelby, disembark at South and Virginia; walk south on Virginia to district.

Ransom Place Historic District
Ransom Place Historic District is the most intact 19th century neighborhood associated with African Americans in Indianapolis. The district was home to many black business leaders over its long history.

The area northwest of Monument Circle was identified as a black settlement in writings as early as the 1830s. Here churches, schools, and commercial areas developed to serve the black community. Redevelopment pressures from a major university in the 1960s meant that very few sections of the original neighborhoods of African Americans would survive. This section, however, remained a vital black community well into the 20th century.

The district is named for the prominent Ransom family that resided in the district. Freeman Ransom was the patriarch of the family. Freeman was an attorney and for years was the corporate attorney and manager of the Madame C. J. Walker Company. His son, Willard, also lived in the district and was a noted attorney. Other well known black civic leaders, doctors, attorneys, and other professionals lived in the district as well.

In 1945, the neighborhood received a boost from the newly formed Indianapolis Redevelopment Commission. The commission selected an area slightly larger than the current district as its first redevelopment area. The designation provided assistance in home repairs. In other nearby parts of Indianapolis, the commission removed existing houses and assisted in construction of new homes.

Queen Anne cottages with T-plans and L-plans were popular in the neighborhood. Most date from the 1890s. Researchers of American vernacular architecture have long theorized that the “shotgun” house type is African in origin. The district has several examples of this house type on Camp Avenue that likely date to c. 1875. The Ransom family owned two houses on California Street, 828 and 824.

Ransom Place Historic District is roughly bounded by West 10th, West, Camp and St. Clair Sts. Its private homes are not open to the public. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #34 Michigan Rd., disembark at 10th and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Poppie-Hickman House has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Lockefield Gardens Apartments
Lockefield Gardens Apartments was one of the first group of peace time projects initiated, funded, and supervised by the Federal Government as part of the recovery programs of the New Deal. Completed in 1937, the apartments are innovative in design, based on European prototypes of housing and urban design of the 1920s and the principles of the International style. This complex was the nation’s first experiment in high rise public housing. It also has very significant associations with the black community.

The Great Depression hit already economically disenfranchised African Americans hard in Indianapolis. Neighborhoods adjacent to the Indiana Avenue corridor were filled with deteriorated wood frame cottages. In an attempt to aid the black community, city leaders requested a Public Works Administration (PWA) grant to construct new apartment housing to eliminate the deteriorated housing. Lockefield was one of an initial batch of 51 projects that PWA sponsored nationwide in the mid-1930s.

Authorities hired Indianapolis architects Merritt Harrison and William Earl Russ to design the complex of 24 buildings with 748 units, on 22 acres of land. The two turned to guidelines offered by the PWA’s Housing Division, as well as European housing models. The resulting design of a series of chevron-shaped, crisply detailed International Style buildings was unprecedented in Indianapolis. The buildings served black families into the 1970s. As part of a redevelopment scheme in the early 1980s, all but seven of the original buildings were demolished. Today, however, life has returned to the Avenue and infill apartments have filled the vacant land.

Lockefield Gardens Apartments is located at 900 Indiana Ave. Apartments are private and not open to the public. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #34 Michigan Rd., disembark at West and Indiana; walk northwest on Indiana to the complex. Lockefield Gardens has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Massachusetts Avenue Historic District
Massachusetts Avenue is one of the city’s most intact diagonal streets, originally laid out in the Ralston plan of 1821. The Massachusetts Avenue Commercial District developed as an important outlying commercial area that served trolley commuters during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The district includes a remarkable collection of commercial, light industrial, and institutional architecture, from vernacular Italianate blocks of the 1870s to imposing institutional and fraternal complexes designed by the city’s leading architects.

Massachusetts Avenue was platted to link to an existing diagonal road, the Pendleton Pike. The pike reached far into northeast-central Indiana, so it was natural for businesses to develop along the route to serve those entering town and leaving. Houses also faced the avenue, but Citizen’s Street Railway extended a trolley line down Massachusetts fostering a conversion to all commercial use by the 1870s and 1880s. Other lines that split off for other neighborhoods and eventually interurban cars added to the volume of potential shoppers on the avenue. Institutions came to the avenue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Das Deutsche Haus, now called The Athenaeum, opened its doors in 1894, the Murat Shrine in 1909. Chinese Americans also found a niche on Massachusetts Avenue. They operated restaurants and cleaners in several storefronts.

The avenue was in decline in the 1940s and 50s but remained viable, because auto traffic still funneled to downtown on it. In the 1960s, construction of the inner loop of I-65 and a bank tower in the 100 block effectively cut off most through traffic. Listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and a concerted effort by merchants have revived the avenue as a center for art galleries, local restaurants, rehabilitated apartments, and small specialty stores.

Starting at the south end of the district, the Wright Block at 318-336 Massachusetts is a good example of Italianate commercial architecture. Stout’s Shoe Store has been an occupant here for over 100 years. Even if you don’t need new shoes, step inside and check out the “change trolley,” a system of overhead wires that carries baskets with the customer’s purchase and change to a mezzanine area, where the transaction is finalized. Chinese Americans maintained a club room in the upper floor of the Wright Block. Across the street at 301 is the Hammond Block of 1874, a prime example of one of Indy’s “flatiron” buildings. The brick Italianate façade has cast iron storefronts and window hoods. Up the avenue at 340-358, George Marott built Marott Department Store in 1906. This is one of the city’s Chicago Style commercial buildings with its banks of windows, simple moldings and plain overhanging cornice. At five stories, it is also the tallest historic building in the corridor.

Further up, at New Jersey and Massachusetts, is a unique architectural wonder, the headquarters of the Indianapolis Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine — the Murat Shrine Building. Oscar Bohlen of D.A. Bohlen & Sons designed this building in 1909. Bands of tan and brown brick, Moorish arches, onion domes, and a 208’ minaret tower make this landmark stand out on the Indianapolis skyline. In 1922, architects Rubush & Hunter designed a north addition with Egyptian Room, inspired by the recent find of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb. Across the street is the German social club, The Athenaeum (Das Deutsche Haus).

Two commercial buildings in the 700 block of the avenue are noteworthy for their original Italianate designs. 706-710 and 707-711 are brick c. 1875 Italianates. Both retain original stone arcaded storefronts. Further up the avenue past restaurants, galleries, and drinking establishments, 858-868 is an Art Deco masterpiece. Local architects Rubush & Hunter designed this large complex for the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in 1931. The gleaming white glazed terra cotta exterior is ornamented with chevrons, sunbursts, and stylized pilasters in relief.

Massachusetts Avenue Commercial District is located on Massachusetts Ave. from Delaware to I-65 roughly bounded by one block to either side of Massachusetts Ave. Businesses are open to the public. Galleries and restaurants are open at night. Visitors can take a gallery tour and enjoy a meal at one of the many eateries. INDYGO bus line from downtown: The Blue line shuttle takes riders from one side of downtown to another. Das Deutsche Haus has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Chatham—Arch Historic District
Chatham—Arch Historic District is significant for its vernacular late 19th-century architecture and as the home of a group of African American families. Located just northeast of the original Mile Square between Lockerbie Square and the (Old) Northside Historic District and adjacent to the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District, this residential area has a number of late 19th- and early 20th-century houses, churches, and several commercial buildings.

The name of the neighborhood often raises curiosity. John Wood, Sr., first attached the name “Chatham” to this part of town. Wood came from New York State in 1834 and platted a portion of the area in 1836. He named Chatham Street (later renamed Park Avenue). In the 1860s, another landowner named Arch Street. In the 1970s, neighborhood advocates combined the two place names.

Most architecture is Queen Anne in inspiration. Gabled cottages embellished with porches in a variety of patterns fill the streets of the district. Construction tradesmen and their families initially occupied many of these cottages. Most had emigrated from Germany. Many attended St. Joseph Catholic Church on College Avenue in the district. Some families built larger, brick Italianate homes. A majority of early owners were German American shopkeepers or professionals.

The College Avenue corridor near 11th Street developed during the streetcar era. In 1894, German merchant August Buschmann built the red brick and limestone commercial block at 1022-1036 North College Avenue, now finely restored. Other nearby apartments had commercial spaces on the ground floor. The district also includes a firehouse on 11th Street constructed in the Tudor Revival style in 1932. A recent owner has ingeniously converted it to a residence.

Several significant buildings are linked to the African American heritage of Indianapolis. Allen Methodist Episcopal Church at 629 East 11th Street and an adjoining early sanctuary are among the few traces of an African American community that existed in the area. The church conducted classes and became a significant cornerstone of black settlement in what was once an outlying section of the city.

Chatham—Arch Historic District is bounded by I-65 and 10th St., College Ave., and East St., on the near northeast side of downtown. Homes are private and not open to the public. INDYGO bus line from downtown: The Blue line shuttle takes passengers from one side of downtown to another.

Virginia Avenue Historic District
Virginia Avenue Historic District is a satellite commercial area that thrived because of its location on important roads and trolley lines. The district includes some of the best examples of commercial architecture left in the city, and in particular, a fine collection of former neighborhood theater buildings.

Virginia Avenue, one of the city’s important diagonal streets, tied together other early roads to Shelbyville and Madison, creating a strategic stopping point at present day Fountain Square. While a handful of small wooden general stores predated the Civil War, it was not until the 1860s that shopkeepers began to line the avenue with buildings. In 1864, the Citizen’s Street Railway announced plans to extend a line down Virginia Avenue. Previously, the construction of Union Station and its multiple rail lines had cut off the area from access to downtown. The trolley allowed relatively safe access for residents and customers. The City of Indianapolis and railroad conglomerates agreed to build a viaduct for Virginia Avenue, completing the project in 1892.

Early on, the terminus of Virginia Avenue at Shelby and Prospect Streets was marked by a fountain which merchants contributed to build in 1889-1890. The fountain had separate drinking spots for people and their horses. This fountain was replaced in 1924 when an Indianapolis state congressman donated funds to build a new one at Fountain Square. Myra Richard Reynolds, a well-known Indianapolis sculptor, designed the Pioneer Family grouping for the fountain. After being dismantled for traffic safety purposes and stored at nearby Garfield Park, the fountain was rebuilt in 1979 and returned to the square.

After surviving decades of neglect, Fountain Square and Virginia Avenue have re-emerged as a slightly bohemian commercial area, with a mix of both old businesses and new artsy stores. Virginia Avenue has a number of brick Italianate stores. Most owners “modernized” storefronts over the decades, but the upper floors have been retained. The three-story Italianate commercial block at 1024-1026 Virginia Avenue is among the larger 19th-century commercial blocks to survive in the area. Built in 1875, it once housed various specialty stores and, on the upper floors, a cigar factory. The exterior features arched window hoods and a bracketed cornice of pressed sheet metal.

The limestone Neo-Classical building at 1059 Virginia has the solid, traditional look that used to appeal to banks. Fountain Square State Bank hired local architects Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller in 1922 to design this small gem. Two-story high limestone Doric columns frame the main entrance.

Fountain Square residents did not have to go far for entertainment, because Virginia Avenue had plenty of theaters. The avenue and square had so much theater space that thousands of people could have a night on the town here. Two examples stand out. The Granada at 1043-1047 was operated by the U. I. Theater Circuit Company when it opened in 1928. Later, a G. C. Murphy’s was located here and in adjacent storefronts. The upper façade still has the original tan brick and glazed buff terra cotta ornamentation in Spanish Mission Revival style.

At 5-stories high, the Fountain Square Theatre Building at 1101-1115 South Shelby dominates the square overlooking the historic fountain. Architect Frank Hunter designed the building in 1928. The exterior makes extensive use of glazed terra cotta for the cornice, belt courses, and Corinthian pilasters on the flanks of the building. The interior had a ballroom and 1,800 patron capacity theater. The theater space with Italian garden theme has been rehabilitated as a reception and dance hall, and other entertainment, including two duckpin bowling alleys, are located in the building.

Virginia Avenue Historic District is located along Virginia Ave., from the 800 block to Fountain Square. Businesses are open to the public, and hours vary. Try a game of duckpin bowling at the Fountain Square Theatre Building. Duckpins are much smaller than standard pins and so are the bowling balls. Friday night dancing is held in the restored theater space. Several local diners, art galleries, antique shops, and coffee shops are located in the district. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #22 Shelby, disembark at Fountain Square.

Fletcher Place Historic District
Fletcher Place Historic District developed along the Virginia Avenue diagonal and is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Its residents made contributions to the development of religion, commerce, and education in Indianapolis. The neighborhood illustrates how the south side of town was settled, and in its combination of cottage and high style architecture, mixing of land uses and density, is representative of early Indianapolis as a whole.

Influential early Indianapolis pioneer Calvin Fletcher owned much of the land in the area starting in 1825. The family farm, Wood Lawn, filled this side of town, with the family home located at the point of Virginia and Fletcher Avenues. Calvin was the first attorney in town. He also served on the school board and in the Indiana General Assembly, and established a bank that eventually became American Fletcher National Bank. In 1857, Calvin, his brother Stoughton, and a group of Ohio businessmen platted off much of Fletcher's holdings. The name “Fletcher Place” was in common use to describe the neighborhood by the 1870s.

As with the Virginia Avenue Historic District, when Citizen’s Street Railway opened trolley lines on the diagonal avenue in the 1860s, Fletcher Place began to develop. Virginia Avenue became the commercial thoroughfare, and builders lined the other streets with a mix of vernacular and high-style houses in the late 19th century.

The former Fletcher Place United Methodist Church on a prominent site at the intersection of Fletcher Avenue and Virginia Avenue is a good place to start an architectural tour of the neighborhood. The c. 1880 church is an imposing red brick building in the Gothic Revival style with stone sills and details. The design is unusual for its asymmetrical towers. Dr. Charles Tinsley, first pastor of the church, is credited with its design.

The mid- to late-19th-century cottages on Lord Street are typical of many of the side streets in the area. Some houses, like 725 Lord Street c. 1865, are gable-fronted wood-frame Italianate cottages with circular attic vents, scroll brackets, and entablature headers over the windows.

Fletcher Avenue was home to middle class families. One of the oldest houses is 601 Fletcher. This three-bay brick Italianate house dates to 1866. Andrew Wallace, a paper maker, likely hired well known Madison, Indiana, architect Francis Costigan to design the house. Up the street at the northwest corner of Fletcher and College stands the Laut Sheet Metal Shops. Henry Laut, a German immigrant, first opened a grocery in this building in the 1870s, but by 1892, Laut converted his building to tinsmithing. Laut and his crew built many sheet metal cornices and details for Indianapolis buildings here.

Virginia Avenue was always in mixed use as the neighborhood developed. The former Fletcher School at 520 Virginia Avenue opened in 1857, and with additions, continued to serve as a public school into the 1970s. In the 1980s, the building was rehabilitated for office space and more recently has been converted to condominiums. Other avenue buildings date from a much different time. The former Virginia Avenue State Bank at 630-632 Virginia Avenue (1924) has a finely detailed architectural terra cotta exterior.

Fletcher Place Historic District is located south of downtown. The district is bounded by Virginia Ave., I-65, and Lord St. Homes are private. Businesses and restaurants in the neighborhood are open to the public. Several eateries on College Ave. just north of Fletcher Ave. serve Italian cuisine. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #22 Shelby, disembark at South and Fletcher. The Joseph White House has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Christ Church Cathedral
Christ Church Cathedral is the oldest religious building in continuous use in Indianapolis, built for the oldest Episcopal congregation in the city. This church is the only one remaining of the five major Protestant churches located on the circle during the Civil War period, at a time when the circle was known as Governor’s Circle. The building is also the city’s best example of early Gothic Revival architecture.

Episcopalians came early in the city’s history. The parish of Christ Church built a simple chapel on this site in 1838, a year after the congregation formed. In 1857, the church hired Irish immigrant William Tinsley to design the present stone Early Gothic Revival church, which opened for services the next year. Tinsley had an active practice in Ireland before coming to the United States. He had several commissions under the church building program then active in Great Britain. Tinsley’s simple yet effective design includes dressed stone details such as the buttresses, plate tracery, and jamb moldings. In 1869, a spire was added to the tower. In 1900, the church selected W. and J. Lamb, with assistance from local architects Vonnegut & Bohn, to design the porte-cochere that extends to the south.

The interior of the building has a plaster vault ceiling. In 1900, the congregation undertook a major alteration of the interior, including a new rood screen above the altar and a remarkable program of stained glass windows. Though confirmation is lacking, the windows are believed to be from Tiffany Studios in New York City. Regardless, the windows are masterpieces of turn-of-the-century glass work.

Christ Church was once one of several large congregations with houses of worship located on Monument Circle. The church, now designated the Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, is the only one left, still proud but dwarfed by its neighboring buildings.

Christ Church Cathedral is located at 125 Monument Circle. The sanctuary is open to all during business hours and for Sunday services. The cathedral offers excellent free live music at various times of the year, including organ recitals and choral pieces, often aimed at the afternoon lunch crowd. Don’t miss the stained glass. Contact 317-636-4577 or visit the Christ Church Cathedral website regarding music schedule. Christ Church has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.

Circle Theater (Hilbert Circle Theatre)
Circle Theater (Hilbert Circle Theatre) is one of the city’s best examples of a classic early 20th-century movie palace. The building is a fine work in the Neo-Classical Revival style with a Neo-Adamesque interior in the style of Robert Adams, an 18th-century British architect, who used a combination of Greek, Etruscan, and Pompeian motifs in his work.

A livery stable occupied this site on Monument Circle from the 1830s until the early 1900s. In 1916, local businessmen bought the site and financed the construction of the theater. Prominent Indianapolis architects Rubush & Hunter designed the building. For the exterior, the two planned a Neo-Classical Revival façade of glazed white terra cotta, with Adamesque figures on the frieze across the top in the pediment. Irvington Group artist Clifton Wheeler used tinted cement to paint the mural over the marquee, depicting a pastoral scene.

The interior of the theater includes classical-inspired coffered ceilings of plaster. Relief panels carry the Adamesque theme into the interior. The theater space combines historic elements such as the ornate wall ornamentation, with new seating and state-of-the-art acoustic measures.

Like many theaters of this period, the Circle hosted live acts and film features. In 1928, the Circle played the first movie with sound ever shown in Indianapolis, The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson. In the 1940s, big band jazz came to the theater, including Glenn Miller. By the 1970s, the Circle Theater had fallen into disrepair. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra decided to move back downtown to the Circle Theater in 1982. After an extensive rehabilitation, the Circle reopened as the new home of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Circle Theater (Hilbert Circle Theatre) is located at 45 Monument Circle. The building is open for performances and group tours (call 317-262-1100 for tours). Hilbert Circle Theatre is home to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra and its pops orchestra offer a varied schedule of fine performances. Call 317-639-4300 or 1-800-366-8457 (Outside Central Indiana) for tickets, or go to the Indiana Symphony Orchestra website for performance schedules.

Circle Tower
Circle Tower is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Washington Street—Monument Circle Historic District. The tower is one of the city’s prime examples of Art Deco architecture and is especially noteworthy for its excellent metal work.

Architects Rubush & Hunter secured yet another significant commission next to the Circle Theater, which they had designed nearly 15 years earlier. Finished in 1930, Circle Tower was designed by the firm and built to house prime office space, with commercial storefronts on the ground floor.

Faced in smooth-dressed Indiana limestone, the building rises to stepped back top stories, ziggurat-like upper stories that recede from the outer façades in terraces, punctuated by Art Deco sculptures.

Each pier top is ornamented with capital blocks carved as stylized foliate panels. The north entrance has a massive one and one-half story arch lined with foliate banding. The ziggurat crown, sculpture façade panels, granite sculptures of the arched entryway, and the design of the interior lobby, elevators, and street-floor shops are highly illustrative of the Art Deco style.

Circle Tower was completed only eight years after archeologist Howard Carter’s sensational discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. The intricate bronze screen over the north entry arch reflects the widespread interest in Egyptology at the time. Sculptor Joseph Willenborg filled the bronze grille with hieroglyphic-like images, stylized into the Deco mode.

Circle Tower is located at 5 East Market St. Businesses in the building are open to the public. Hours vary. The first-floor lobby is open for photography and viewing. The Deco bronze work over the north entrance is a worthy photo opportunity.

Columbia Club
The Columbia Club is important in the political and social life of Indianapolis and the state as the leading gathering spot for supporters of the Republican Party from the 1890s to the present. The clubhouse is another significant work from the Rubush & Hunter firm, leading architects in the city in the early 20th century. Its exterior design combines French and English Tudor Gothic influences, as well as fine art in the form of carved relief panels.

The origins of the club extend to 1888, when fellow Republicans formed a group to support the candidacy of Benjamin Harrison for president of the United States. The club officially incorporated in 1889 after Harrison’s successful bid and developed into one of the leading men’s social clubs until women were admitted in 1979.

In 1924, the Columbia Club hired Rubush & Hunter to execute plans for a new clubhouse. The group razed the 1898 building they had built and began construction of this 10-story limestone building on the northeast quadrant of Monument Circle. Throughout its history, this clubhouse has hosted every Republican president while in office or afterward, as well as scores of nationally famous political thinkers and office holders.

Rubush & Hunter designed the club to contain guest hotel lodging, dining rooms, meeting rooms, reading areas, and club offices within its concrete frame. The exterior style combines Late Gothic and Early Renaissance elements. The multi-story oriel window with banks of leaded glass casement windows is the dominant feature. Architectural sculptor Alexander Sangernebo carved the limestone relief panel over the windows, at the base of the oriel, and in the tympanum over the main entrance. Diagonally across Monument Circle at 20 North Meridian stands the Guaranty Building, a 9-story speculative office building, again by the architectural team of Rubush & Hunter, with Sangernebo providing the classical stone carvings for the façades.

The Columbia Club is located at 121 Monument Circle. The club is private.

Cottage Home Historic District
Cottage Home Historic District is an intact grouping of typical worker housing from the late 19th century with a significant collection of restored wood frame vernacular housing, typical of this period in Indianapolis. This small enclave of workers' cottages is named for one of the land subdivisions of the neighborhood. Landowners began platting lots here in the 1860s, shortly after the Bellefontaine Railroad built repair shops nearby. In addition to the repair shops, residents worked in many different trades. Policemen, firemen, house painters, and mechanics lived here with their families. Later, the Indianapolis Street Railway built a trolley barn in the neighborhood, providing jobs for operators, conductors, and mechanics.

Most houses in the district are cross plan or L-shaped wood frame cottages. One resident of the district, however, changed the streetscape in the Cottage Home neighborhood. Frederick Ruskaup built the brick commercial building at 713-715 Dorman in about 1875. He earned a good living from his grocery there, which provided many amenities for residents of the area. In the late 1880s, Ruskaup hired fellow German Americans Vonnegut & Bohn, who were prominent architects, to design a series of two-story shotgun doubles at 702-716 Dorman. Recent owners have restored several of the doubles, which feature hip roofs and full-width porches with lathe-turned posts. In about 1890, Ruskaup again hired Vonnegut & Bohn to design his own Queen Anne/German Renaissance Revival home at 711 Dorman.

Cottage Home Historic District is located just east of downtown, in the 700 block of Dorman St. and 1100 block of East and Clair Sts. Residences are private homes. Visit the neighborhood during the Cottage Home Block Party, usually held on a Saturday in October. You can contact them by email or website. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #10 10th St., disembark at Oriental; walk south to 9th and east to Dorman.

Forest Hills Historic District
Forest Hills Historic District is known for its picturesque, winding street plan, and for its groupings of fine Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow housing. The quiet enclave of 1920s homes is distinguished by the brick piers flanking its major entrances and historic street lamps on the curbs. The wide, gently curving streets are very uncharacteristic of nearly all of Indy’s early 20th century developments.

In 1922, landholder Benjamin Stevenson filed a plat with the small town of Broad Ripple, at a time when the Indianapolis city limits were still five blocks to the south of 56th Street. While town leaders in Broad Ripple considered the development, the City of Indianapolis annexed a vast tract including Broad Ripple. Stevenson’s addition became part of Indianapolis.

The designer of the unique layout of gently curving streets in Forest Hills is unknown, but local landscape architect Lawrence Sheridan was probably the consultant. Unlike other 19th-century neighborhoods that had picturesque street plans, streets in Forest Hills were designed to be wide enough to carry 2-way auto traffic. The district had no alleys; each lot would have its own driveway. Forest Hills was also unique for its governance. Lot owners agreed not only to setbacks and development restrictions, but to theformation of a neighborhood association.

Architecture in Forest Hills dates from 1922 to 1940. Picturesque Tudor Revival cottages are the most common type. Cape Cod houses, Bungalows, and other house forms were popular as well. Brick contractors showed their skills on these homes, selecting textures or unusual bonding patterns to enrich wall surfaces. Designer-contractors built most of the houses in the neighborhood. The district retains its original “Washington DC” acorn light standards, which were once common throughout Indianapolis.

Forest Hills Historic District is located on the north side and includes College, Carrollton, Guilford, Winthrop, Wildwood Aves. and Forest Lane, 5600 to 5900 blocks. The neighborhood is bounded by the Monon Trail tracks, Kessler Blvd., College and Northview Aves. The district includes private homes, but visitors can drive, stroll, or bicycle ride on the quiet tree-lined streets. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #17 College Ave, disembark at Kessler at the northwest corner of the district.

Homecroft Historic District
The increasing accessibility of the automobile and public transportation, as well as idealization of life in the countryside away from the problems of the city, spurred intense suburbanization in the United States in the period after World War I. Homecroft Historic District reflects the importance of interurban and trolley lines in the early suburban development of Indianapolis. The district has survived later suburbanization, retaining its character as a small satellite town.

Homecroft is located about four and one-half miles south of downtown beside Madison Avenue (the south leg of the Michigan Road of settlement times). In January of 1900, the Indianapolis, Columbus & Southern Interurban Company opened an interurban line on Madison Avenue from downtown Indianapolis to several southern Indiana towns. The Frank E. Gates Real Estate Company bought the site in 1923 and named it Homecroft. Frank Gates and his son Oliver were partners, whose firm had developed subdivisions in Ohio and Michigan as well as Indiana.

Homecroft is a typical 1920s suburb for middle-class families following the American dream to own their own homes. The Gates offered design services to prospective lot buyers based on model houses they had built. Others chose their own designs. Most homes are modest period styles popular at the time, one and one-and-a-half story brick or stone veneered houses with Tudor Revival or Colonial Revival elements. Sidewalks were installed in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, and Gates began planting maple trees on the lots after the sidewalks were added.

During the 1950s, the intervening space between the south side of Indianapolis and Homecroft filled with housing and commercial strips on Madison Avenue. Homecroft, however, still retains its remote suburban feeling and cohesiveness. This small middle-class suburb of well-kept single family homes shaded by mature maple trees is a significant illustration of suburban community planning and development.

Homecroft Historic District is located on the south side, in the 1400-1600 blocks of Loretta and Maynard Aves. between Madison and Orinoco Aves., including 6602 to 6730 Madison Ave. The district is made up of private homes. INDYGO bus line from downtown: #31 Greenwood, disembark at Banta Rd.

Herron—Morton Place Historic District
Herron—Morton Place Historic District is known for its outstanding collection of late 19th- and early 20th-century residential architecture, especially its Queen Anne houses. Many north-south streets in Herron—Morton feature esplanades down the center, adding to the spacious feeling of the lots and large homes. The area is also culturally significant as the home of a major art school and art movement. The neighborhood is named for two former institutions. Camp Morton, a Civil War prison camp, occupied a portion of the district. John Herron Art Institute built a small campus at 16th and Pennsylvania which was in use for decades. The neighborhood has been the home to prominent Indianapolis citizens including many of the city’s physicians, attorneys, business owners, and political figures.

In 1859, the Indiana State Board of Agriculture bought a large tract of land here to establish a new Indiana State Fair Grounds. With the onset of the Civil War, however, the Union Army temporarily used the site as an induction center, and later, a prisoner of war camp interring 15,000 rebel troops. While owners of land south of 19th Street capitalized on the city’s growth in the 1870s and '80s, the campsite returned to Fair Grounds use. Not until the fair moved shortly after 1890 did local investors divide the land for residential use. John Herron Art Institute was funded by a bequest from local art admirer John Herron, whose home stood on the site. Indiana artists T. C. Steele and William Forsyth, considered the two best-known painters in the state in Indiana’s “Hoosier School” era, began to offer informal classes on this site in the 1880s. Both later taught at the Art Institute.

In 1906, the school hired architects Vonnegut & Bohn to plan a museum and library building. This fine Italian Renaissance Revival building includes high-relief portrait roundels of the Renaissance and Baroque greats, Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Durer, Diego Velazquez, and Michelangelo. Rudolph Schwarz, sculptor of much of the ornament on the State Soldiers and Sailors Monument, carved the portraits. The museum building is largely windowless, since the architects used massive skylights to uniformly light the tall exhibit rooms. By 1929, the school needed additional studio space and retained nationally known architect Paul Phillipe Cret to plan an administrative and studio building, called the Main Building or Studio Building. Cret’s design combined Classicism with Art Deco influences. Large banks of “greenhouse” windows allowed steady north light to infuse the drawing and painting studios. In the early 1960s, Herron hired young modernist Evans Woollen to plan a new wing, Fesler Hall. Though not historic, Woollen’s exposed concrete frame and arched brick windows in Fesler Hall strike a harmonious note with the other buildings. The Herron School of Art moved from this small campus at 1701 North Pennsylvania to a new campus on