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Hoosier History Facts
Vera Bradley Bags
Vera Bradley, which designs and makes
cotton-quilted handbags, travel bags and an expanding array of other
products. The business was founded by two neighbors in 1982 in Fort
Wayne, Pat Miler and Barbara Baekgaard, who named the business after
Barbara’s mother in 1982. Within three years, sales of Vera Bradley
products had reached $1 million.
Later this month, Pat Miller and Barbara Baekgaard will be named
Living Legends by the Indiana Historical Society.
Hoosier Hysteria Begins
In Crawfordsville at a YMCA in 1894 the
first basketball game in Indiana was played. The Crawfordsville team
beat a team from Lafayette by the score of 45 to 21. Basketball
quickly became popular across Indiana.
The very first official basketball game ever
was played two years earlier, in 1892, at a YMCA in Springfield,
Mass. The inventor, James Naismith, set up a peach basket in which
players scored points with their shots.
Indianapolis 500
There’s a fascinating “flaw” in the 1969 official photo of
front-row qualifiers for the Indianapolis 500 The “flaw” in the
photo concerns Mario Andretti, who went on to win the 500-Mile Race
that year.
It’s actually not Mario in the official
photo of front-row qualifiers for the 1969 race. Instead, his
identical twin brother, Aldo Andretti, posed as Mario for the photo.
Also, who left racing to become an Indianapolis businessman (as well
as the father of current driver John Andretti), didn’t want to pose
as his twin. But Mario insisted.
A few days before the photo session, Mario
had endured a fiery crash. He was burned on his upper lip and didn’t
want to be photographed that way. So he prevailed on his twin
brother to pose alongside the two other front-row drivers for the
official photo. The ruse was kept a secret initially, but word
eventually leaked out to racing enthusiasts.
Celebrity Marriages in Indiana
In June 1993, the city of Marion, Indiana, found itself in the
national news because of an unexpected event that occurred there.
Movie star Julia Roberts married singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett at
St. James Lutheran Church in Marion, Indiana, after a three-week
courtship. They eloped and married in Marion because Lyle Lovett was
on a concert tour; his next performance was at then-Deer Creek Music
Center near Noblesville. Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett announced
their divorce less than two years later, in March 1995.
Hoosier Civil War History
During the Civil War, a greater percentage of young men and
teenagers of military age from Indiana fought in “Mr. Lincoln’s
Army,” the Union Army, than any other state except one. Delaware was
the only state that had a greater percentage of young men in the
Union Army.
Hoosier History as Heard on
Our Show
Scottish Heritage in Indiana
Dr. Lee
Cloe a charter member – and secretary emeritus – of the
Scottish Society of Indianapolis was our guide, as we will explore why
Scots immigrated to Indiana, where they settled, the jobs they
undertook, and their contributions to Hoosier culture.
Silent Movie Stars & Theaters in Indiana
Circle
Theatre on Monument Circle was considered one of the first
silent movie palaces west of New York when it opened in 1916. One of the top stars of the silent screen, Monte
Blue, grew up in an orphanage in Knightstown, Indiana and that Rudolph
Valentino’s leading lady in the movie that shot him to stardom was a
native of Vincennes.
David L.
Smith, a Ball State Professor Emeritus, former host of WISH-TV’s
popular “When Movies Were Movies” series, and author of the
definitive book Hoosiers in Hollywood
(2006, Indiana Historical Society Press) explored Hoosier
connections to silent movie stars and theaters. You can visit Dave's website at
www.whenmoviesweremovies.com
Corydon & Historic African-American Schools
A wooden, one-room schoolhouse called the
Corydon Colored
School opened in 1891 for the education of black children
and teenagers in southern Indiana. Today, the restored Leora
Brown School one of Indiana’s oldest buildings used to educate
African-Americans, is the setting for tours as well as discussions
about segregation, slavery and historic preservation.
The key figure who organized a
community-wide restoration of the historic school is Maxine Brown the great-niece of Leora Brown. Maxine,
whose ancestors settled in far-southern Indiana during the early
1800s, named the restored school after her great-aunt, who attended
the Corydon Colored School as a girl, obtained a college education,
and then returned to teach at the segregated school for 26 years
until it closed in 1950.
Bush Stadium History
When Bush Stadium was built on W. 16th Street in 1931 it was
considered one of the country’s best minor-league baseball parks.
As the long-time home of the Indianapolis Indians as well as
various teams in the old Negro leagues Bush became much loved
and served as the historic setting for the movie Eight Men Out
(1988) which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana has placed the
empty stadium on its list of 10 Most Endangered Places in the
state. Mark
Dollase, Landmark’s vice president of preservation services, said Bush barely escaped demolition by a potential developer last
year.
Elvis's Last Concert
Among the Hoosiers who attended Elvis Presley’s final
concert on June 26, 1977 – 31 years ago this month – were
two reviewers Zach Dunkin
who pioneered local rock n’ roll coverage with his
Rock
Pile column in the old Indianapolis News (he gave The
King’s concert at Market Square Arena a devastating review), and
Rita Rose who then was a concert reviewer for The
Indianapolis Star. After Elvis’ performance in a gold and white
jumpsuit at MSA he stopped touring and died two months later.
For months Zach (who now is a travel
writer for The Star) received hate mail for his blistering
review, although he helped organize the group that lobbied for the
display commemorating the final Elvis concert at the site of MSA,
which was imploded in 2001.
Rita who retired from The Star
last year, now has written a cover story for The Indiana Historical
Society's Publication Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History that
includes interviews with an assortment of the 18,000 people in the
audience that fateful night. Their reactions to The King may vary,
but, as Rita puts it in her retrospective, “one thing is abundantly
clear; Elvis will never leave the building. Even if the building . .
. is no longer standing.”
Read Rita Rose's cover story published by
The Indiana Historical Society's magazine Traces of Indiana and
Midwestern History in the Spring 2008 issue
Here
More Links
for your inner Elvis Enthusiast
Appears to be home video of the concert in
Indianapolis, with real audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Ml2ms4fw4&NR=1
Close up of Elvis Historical Marker at MSA site
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=538
Video of MSA implosion (way does this stuff fascinate us?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvsp5UOcuw0
Town History of Speedway
On
May 3rd, Nelson’s guest Speedway native Chuck Bennett, a teacher at
Speedway High School steered us through Speedway’s heritage. He
lives in a historic house that once was the home of the city’s
original platter. In a strange twist of fate, Mr. Bennett’s front
door even came from the Allison Mansion, the home of International
Motor Speedway co-founder James Allison.
Speedway’s was as a “horseless” town after
the first 500-Mile Race was launched in 1911. The first competitive
race at the track occurred two years earlier in 1909. That race
involved hot air balloons, not cars, with Speedway co-founder Carl
Fisher among the contestants.
Last year, Mr. Bennet taught history at
Speedway Junior High School and supervised his students as they set
up a Website about the town’s historical neighborhood. To see aerial
photos of the town taken decades ago as well as photos of historic
homes as they look today
click here
Mr. Bennett suggests the following Websites
for exploring the heritage of the town and racetrack:
Town Site:
www.townofspeedway.org
Schools Site:
www.speedwayschools.org
Indianapolis Motor Speedway:
www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com
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