Hoosier History Live

(June 22, 2019 ) Earlier this year, the Indiana Dunes made national news with the announcement that the distinctive shoreline on Lake Michigan would be a new national park, the first one in the state.

But does its designation as Indiana Dunes National Park - rather than the former Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - make a substantive difference?

In this show, Hoosier History Live explores that question, as well as a mountain of other topics related to the towering mounds of white sand that resulted from changes in the level of Lake Michigan that occurred around six thousand years ago, after the last ice age. We also explore the Indiana Dunes State Park, which is included within the 15,000 acres of the national park. Only 61 sites in the country have been designated as national parks, according to an article in April in the Indianapolis Business Journal.

During our show, two guests join Nelson by phone from their Porter County offices at the Dunes:

• Bruce Rowe, public information officer for Indiana Dunes.
• And Dustin Ritchea, promotions director for Indiana Dunes Tourism.

In an interview with the Indianapolis Star when the national park designation was announced in February, Dustin described the Indiana Dunes as one of the most biodiverse areas of North America - with more plant and animal species than Hawaii. In addition to sand dunes, Indiana Dunes includes woodlands, wetlands, prairies and bogs.

During the early 1900s, Chicago-based painter Frank Dudley became captivated by the dunes. He crusaded to have them preserved even as steel plants and other industrial development was occurring nearby in northwest Indiana. Carl Sandburg, who lived in Chicago, came to the dunes to write some of his poetry; he once called the dunes "eternity's signature."

Proposals to designate the Indiana Dunes as a national park started more than 100 years ago. In 1916, the first director of the National Park Service initially suggested the idea, according to The Indianapolis Star. The Indiana Dunes State Park was opened in 1926.

Attractions today include a 3 Dune Challenge, an endurance test in which visitors to the state park are challenged to climb its three tallest dunes. "The 1.5-mile trail takes participants up and down 552 vertical feet," according to the IBJ.

Although this is our first show devoted exclusively to the Indiana Dunes, aspects of their heritage have come up during several previous Hoosier History Live programs. They have included:

• A show in 2018 about the House of Tomorrow and other showplace homes from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. They were brought by barge to the Indiana Dunes resort town of Beverly Shores after the closing of the fair.
• And a show about bygone natural landmarks in 2016 that explored the Hoosier Slide, the tallest dune. It had disappeared by 1920 after its sand was hauled away for decades for use in commercial endeavors, particularly the glass-making industry.

According to Indiana Dunes Tourism, more than 3.6 million visitors came to the Dunes last year, putting the area on a par with Mount Rushmore's visitation.

Because of its biodiversity, Indiana Dunes is promoted as "one of the best spots in the Midwest for bird watching." More than 1,000 species of plant life also can be found there.

Consideration of national park designation for the Indiana Dunes dates back more than 100 years, according to an article in the June issue of Indianapolis Monthly. In 1916, Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, suggested the designation. The country's focus on World War I, however, meant the push was tabled and the proposal was essentially forgotten.

In total, the Indiana Dunes have 15 miles of white sand beaches on Lake Michigan. The Hoosier Slide, at about 200 feet tall, was the largest dune before it was destroyed by sand mining.

(June 15, 2019 ) One year from now, in June 2020, the city of Indianapolis plans to kick off its Bicentennial celebrations. An initial event in the 200th birthday jubilee - which will extend through May 2021 - is expected to be at a site near the White River, where the cabin of pioneer John McCormick, generally considered to have been the first settler of the city, was located.

In fact, in June of 1820 McCormick (1791-1825) hosted a meeting to identify the precise site of the new state capital, following an earlier gathering of top state leaders at the cabin of William Conner (namesake of Conner Prairie Interactive History Park.)

Today, a boulder with a commemorative plaque marks the historic site of McCormick's double cabin, which also included a tavern. The site is located in what is now White River State Park.

John McCormick, who came to the then-isolated frontier location from Connersville, built the double cabin with his brothers Samuel and James, along with various hired hands. A journal (or ledger) kept by John McCormick - and newly accessible to the public after being in family hands for nearly 200 years - confirms the arrival of the McCormicks prior to that of another pioneer, George Pogue, who also often has been identified as the first settler of Indianapolis. The journal also indicates that Pogue (namesake of the creek Pogue's Run) likely was among the McCormicks' laborers.

To share insights about the earliest settlers, Nelson's studio guests are:

• Mike Todd, a retired truck driver who is descended from the McCormicks. Mike, a Ben Davis High School graduate who attended Indiana Central University (now the University of Indianapolis), lives on the west side of the city that his ancestors had such a key role in founding. Mike says that he only developed a passion for the city's history in recent years, although he recalls his grandmother taking him on Memorial Day to visit the commemorative boulder.
• And Jordan Ryan, coordinator of the Indianapolis Bicentennial Project for the Indiana Historical Society. She notes that, as part of a new archival collection for the Bicentennial Project, the society has transcribed the McCormick journal, which was obtained from a descendant who lives in North Carolina. Mike and Jordan persuaded his relative to ship the journal to Indianapolis for transcription.

"It's remained in the family all of this time and was unavailable [to researchers and the public], but we have digitized it," Jordan reports.

The historic McCormick journal is now available on the Indiana Historic Society website as a series of high-resolution digital images of each page.

The city's 200th birthday celebrations will extend into 2021 because Scottish-born surveyor Alexander Ralston actually platted the city in 1821, not 1820.

Ralston had helped design the original layout of Washington D.C. and used the plan for the nation's capital as an inspiration for his design of the new Hoosier capital. Hoosier History Live explored Ralston's life and impact during a show in 2013.

According to our guest Mike Todd, Ralston was a guest at John McCormick's tavern. McCormick later built the first sawmill in Marion County.

The McCormicks also ran a ferry service across the White River. "Part of the reason the site near the McCormick cabin was chosen [for the new state capital] was that the White River was seen as navigable and a vital component to the growth of the new city," according to Indianapolis: A Circle City History by Jeffrey Tenuth.

Because the wilderness site selected for Indianapolis primarily consisted of marshland and swamps near the river, a devastating malaria epidemic swept the new city during the 1820s, as we explored in a 2014 Hoosier History Live show.

Meanwhile, early pioneer George Pogue vanished without a trace in 1821. The reason for his disappearance never has been determined conclusively.

A wooden table from the original McCormick cabin also vanished. Our guest Mike Todd is on a quest to find the historic table, which was donated to the Indiana State Museum in the 1920s by a McCormick descendant. (The state museum, which has moved twice since then, has said the cherry-wood table has been missing for decades.)

Some other history facts:

• McCormick's Creek State Park in Owen County is named in honor of the McCormick family.
• John McCormick had been a constable in Connersville. Pogue had been a blacksmith there.
• The 200th birthday celebrations are being organized by a bipartisan Indianapolis Bicentennial Commission co-chaired by former mayors Greg Ballard and Bart Peterson.

(June 8, 2019) During the 19th century, Germans became the largest European ethnic heritage group in Indiana. In 1870, immigrants and German-Americans in the state's capital - including some of its most influential residents - formed the Freethinker Society of Indianapolis.

The immigrants, who included political refugees from a failed revolution in Germany in 1848, had a history in their homeland of "freethought," which our guest, public historian Justin Clark, describes as "open evaluation of religion based on the use of reason." Justin, the communications director for the Indiana Archives and Records Administration, shares insights about the German freethinkers and their impact on their adopted hometown of Indianapolis.

They included Clemens Vonnegut (1824-1906), the patriarch of a family that, for more than 110 years, owned an Indianapolis-based chain of hardware stores that he founded in the 1850s. Beginning in 1870, he served as the first president of the Freethinker Society of Indianapolis. During our show, Justin will describe how Clemens' freethinker beliefs influenced his great-grandson, literary icon Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Other key figures in the Freethinker Society of Indianapolis included its co-founder, Herman Lieber, who immigrated from Germany in the 1850s and became the patriarch of an influential, multi-generational Indianapolis family. Lieber opened a small frame shop that became one of the most respected art dealerships of its era, employing more than 200 people.

According to Justin, the Freethinker Society was "one of the city's first non-religious organizations and facilitated freethought ideas and practices through educational lectures and social gatherings." At the society's events, these "philosophical radicals" discussed such topics as science, women's suffrage, socialism and theology.

Freethinkers included German immigrant Philip Rappaport, who, in 1873, bought the German Daily Tribune, the city's dominant German-language newspaper of the era, which later changed its name to the Indiana Tribune. During a Freethinker Society debate, Rappaport changed his position on women's suffrage, becoming an advocate despite earlier opposition.

In a blog that Justin wrote for the Indiana Historical Bureau, he notes that, in Kurt Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical book Palm Sunday (1981), he describes his great-grandfather's freethinking as the novelist's own "ancestral religion."

Clemens Vonnegut, Herman Lieber and others in Indianapolis - as well as German Americans in other cities during the late 19th century - were influenced significantly by Karl Heinzen, a Boston-based freethinker. In 1882, Heinzen wrote Separation of Church and State, a widely distributed book. He traveled to Indiana several times and became a professional colleague of Lieber, according to Justin Clark.

All of them, in turn, were influenced by Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899), an orator known as the "great American agnostic."

In Indianapolis, the freethinkers established an industrial trade school and a secular Sunday school. But the Freethinkers Society of Indianapolis dissolved in 1890 because, among other reasons, the organization had "spread itself too thin," Justin Clark says. He emphasizes, though, that its impact endured, including in the literature of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

(May 25, 2019 ) For nine years beginning in 1980, Mark Kesling was director of science for the renowned Children's Museum of Indianapolis. From 1993 to 2006, Mark was the academic director at Orchard School, a private school on the northside of Indianapolis.

Not only did both institutions date back to the 1920s, Mark noticed, but they were initiated by the same group of visionary women.

"If New York City-area children can have a free museum just for them . . . Why shouldn't the children of Indianapolis?" asked Mary Stewart Carey, a civic leader credited with launching the Children's Museum. In 1924, she had visited the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

Mrs. Carey and several other women on the initial board of trustees of the Children's Museum also were members of the Progressive Education Association of Indianapolis. It met in 1922 to begin planning what became Orchard School, an elementary school (now K-8) founded to emphasize individualized instruction and learning through children's direct interactions with their environment.

To share details about these 1920s-era women civic leaders and their vision, Mark Kesling joins Nelson as his studio guest.

Mark is the founder and CEO of The daVinci Pursuit, a non-profit organization that uses art to engage the community in science education opportunities. He also is the co-host, with Jill Ditmire, of She Says Art, He Says Science, the program on WICR-FM (88.7) that follows Hoosier History Live at 1 pm on Saturdays.

In addition to discussing the women civic leaders of the 1920s who helped launch the Children's Museum and Orchard School, Mark and Nelson time-travel to 1916 to explore another cultural initiative of women that endures to this day. Inspired by the state's Centennial celebrations in 1916, women civic leaders initiated a contest to design the Indiana state flag. The winning entry, designed by Mooresville-based artist Paul Hadley, remains the state flag more than 100 years later.

In 1925, the initial home of the Children's Museum was the carriage house of the Propylaeum, 1410 N. Delaware St., a women's advocacy organization. In addition to women civic leaders such as Edith Whitehill Clowes and Elizabeth Browning, former director of the Indianapolis Public Library, influential figures in the early years of the Children's Museum included architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., the father of the future novelist.

Mary Stewart Carey (1859-1938) was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Indianapolis Garden Club, both of which, at her initiative, were involved in the movement to adopt an Indiana state flag. Mrs. Carey, in fact, helped select the winning design.

For 20 years beginning in 1927, her former mansion at 1150 N. Meridian Street served as the home of the Children's Museum.

Orchard School, which began with 20 students, also was initially located in the large house of a founding family. During the 1950s, Orchard moved to its current site on about 43 wooded acres at 615 W. 64th Street.

Some history facts:

• Mrs. Carey's daughter, Mary Carey Appel, served on the first board of trustees of the Children's Museum. Mrs. Appel also was an organizer of the Progressive Education Association.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Booth Tarkington, author of The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921), was Mrs. Carey's first cousin.
• Orchard School's history is described in the book The Path Well Chosen (1984) by Caterina Cregor. The history of the Children's Museum is chronicled in Keep An Eye on That Mummy (1984) by Nancy Kriplen.

(June 1, 2019) During the 1890s on the Indianapolis campus of what was then called Central State Hospital for the Insane, brain research was undertaken in the brick building that came to be known as the Old Pathology Building.

The research - considered groundbreaking for its era - occurred in three clinical laboratories in the structure. It also had an autopsy room and an amphitheater where medical students learned about the brain as well as the treatment of syphilis and other diseases.

In 1969, more than 20 years before the closing of Central State as a psychiatric hospital, the Old Pathology Building - with most of its original furnishings, specimens, equipment and records - became the Indiana Medical History Museum.

The museum's path forward has not been smooth; it has faced challenges ranging from what Indiana Landmarks calls its "out-of-the-way location" west of the White River at 3045 W. Vermont Street to deterioration of the 1890s structure, including roof and masonry problems. In 2015, the Medical History Museum was placed on Landmarks' annual 10 Most Endangered Sites list.

Now, as the museum described as a "hidden history gem" celebrates its 50th anniversary, major improvements have been initiated. In September, an Indiana Historical Bureaumarker commemorating the Old Pathology Building will be erected on the site.

As we explore the captivating history that has unfolded in the pathology building-turned-museum - where jars of human brain tissue and historic medical equipment are displayed - Nelson is joined in studio by:

• Sarah Halter, the museum's executive director since 2014. She is a board member and past president of the Association of Indiana Museums.
• And Norma Erickson, a board member of the museum and a medical historian. She was a Hoosier History Live guest in 2018 for a show about the history of African-American health care in Indianapolis.

Next to the museum, the former campus of Central State has become the site of apartments, single-family houses and businesses - both in historic and newly constructed buildings. Along with other state mental health hospitals, Central State was closed in 1994.

The labs in the Old Pathology Building opened in 1896 and, according to our guest Sarah Halter, were regarded as "the most modern in the country." During the early 1900s, classes were held in the building's 150-seat amphitheater by two schools that trained doctors and surgeons. Those schools were later were merged with the Indiana University School of Medicine.

During the 1920s and '30s, neurosyphilis was a major focus of the medical research undertaken in the building. Before the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s, untreated syphilis in the tertiary stage was correctly understood as a frequent cause of mental illness.

The Indiana Medical History Museum opened in 1969, three years before the two-story structure, considered to be the oldest surviving pathology building in the country, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, in addition to the exhibits and tours at the museum, its historic amphitheater is used for presentations open to the public on a range of medical history topics. Speakers have included Indianapolis-based medical historians Dr. William McNiece and Bill Beck, who were Hoosier History Live guests in 2014 on a show about epidemics throughout Indiana's history.

(May 18, 2019) In our quest to explore all aspects of our heritage, even the unsavory and notorious, this edition of Hoosier History Live delves into a seldom-examined topic: Red-light districts and prostitutes in Indianapolis at the turn of the last century.

To examine these aspects of the Hoosier state capital's social history, Nelson's studio guest on this encore show (originally broadcast July 8, 2017) is Paul Mullins, a popular professor in IUPUI's Department of Anthropology.

A historical archaeologist, Paul has researched and written about pre-1920 prostitution as part of a larger project titled "Invisible Indianapolis: Race, Memory, and Community Memory in the Circle City."

Along with co-director Susan Hyatt and a team that includes both undergraduate and graduate students, Paul has published the project's findings in a blog called Invisible Indianapolis.

The project's overarching goal: to show the historical impact of seemingly invisible urban social factors such as racial redlining, highway construction and gentrification.

Paul has identified two major red-light districts in Indy during the late 1800s and early 1900s:

• An area bounded by what is today Park Avenue (then called Liberty Street) and Market, East and Washington Streets.
• A district at the site of what is now another hospitality building, the Indiana Convention Center. The district ran along Senate Avenue near Georgia Street.

"Prostitution probably always was an element of the early cityscape, but some of the earliest evidence for houses of prostitution comes in the 1850s," Paul writes in the blog.

He quotes an 1857 newspaper account of a shooting at a brothel managed by a "mysterious woman." After the shooting, he adds, the illicit business "became the target of mob justice when [the woman's] brothel was set afire by a mob of more than 200 people."

The census in 1870 and 1910 apparently even listed the occupations of some Indianapolis women as "prostitute." Others were listed in city directories as "seamstresses," but Paul's research indicates many of these actually were prostitutes, living in brothels (sometimes called "female boarding houses" by Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps) raided by the police.

"The desperation of some women working as prostitutes was documented in a string of suicides and suicide attempts," Paul reports.

Paul Mullins is a past president of the Society for Historical Archaeology. For several years, Paul and his students could be seen during the summer months excavating sites near the IUPUI campus. Paul was a Hoosier History Live guest in 2009 when he was leading an excavation on the site of the long-demolished home of Madam Walker, the wealthy African-American entrepreneur and philanthropist.

According to Paul's research for Invisible Indianapolis, prostitutes often worked "in and around" Union Station during the late 1800s and early 1900s. (Before majestic Union Station opened during the 1880s, its predecessor, Union Depot, was the first train station in the country where competing railroad lines came together.)

Near the bustling train station, brothels were located among saloons and stores on South Street.

Farther east, a bygone street named East Court Street (now a parking lot between East and Park) had a cluster of brothels that Paul describes as "the city's most prominent concentration" of such businesses. In 1898, a Sanborn map "identified nearly every structure on East Court as a 'female boarding house,'" Paul writes, noting that at least 10 of these 16 homes listed in the 1899 city directory were brothels.

His blog describes attempts by local churches to encourage police raids of the brothels. Some of the churches also were active in the temperance movement.

(May 11, 2019) "The crowd went crazy," historian Donald Davidson recalls in a video about milestones at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "It was a truly historic moment."

He's referring to the electrifying moment on May 19, 1991 when, at the last possible opportunity, Willy T. Ribbs became the first African-American driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. An earlier qualification attempt by Willy, who was driving for Derrick Walker Racing, had failed because of engine troubles.

His trailblazing achievement at the Speedway - he eventually finished 32nd in the Indy 500 in 1991 - followed years of struggles, including harassment and even death threats when he competed in NASCAR races beginning in the late 1970s. His challenges are recounted in Uppity, a documentary film that had its world premiere in Indianapolis last year.

Willy, 64, discusses his life and racing career as Nelson's guest by phone from Texas, where he lives today. The son of an amateur race driver and plumbing contractor, Willy grew up in San Jose, Calif. In Uppity, Willy recalls how he announced as a 9-year-old that he wanted to be an Indy 500 or Formula One driver - even though he had no African-American role models.

During the 1980s, movie star Paul Newman, who had become a co-owner of racing teams, reached out to support him. Willy came to the Speedway in 1985, but an attempt to participate in a rookie orientation program didn't work out. In 1990, Willy started in several IndyCar races but failed to qualify for the Indy 500.

Like Willy, several other former Indy 500 drivers have been Hoosier History Live guests. They include Willy's friends Lyn St. James, who in 1992 became the second woman driver in the Indy 500 (Janet Guthrie was the first, in 1977) and Derek Daly, the Irish racer who settled in central Indiana and became a broadcast analyst. In 2016, Merle Bettenhausen was our studio guest to discuss his racing career and the tragedies that befell his family.

As a boy in California, Willy T. Ribbs was intrigued by motorcycle and auto race drivers who were his father's friends. To launch his career, he moved to England during the mid-1970s and competed in various racing circuits.

Uppity takes its title from one of the derogatory words that detractors used to describe Willy after he returned to the United States and sought to advance in auto racing.

"It wasn't a red-carpet ride," he has said of the challenges involved with his racing career. "But it's one that I'd do over again."

In addition to his history-making achievement in 1991 - which was the 75th running of the Indy 500 - he competed at the Speedway two years later. In 1993, Willy finished 21st in the Indy 500.

(May 4, 2019) Lake James has been an enticing vacation and weekend destination for residents of northeast Indiana since the early 1900s, when those seeking rest and relaxation would take a train to the nearby town of Angola, then make their way to the scenic lake. By the 1920s, two dance halls and cottages had been built on the resort lake in Steuben County.

In LaPorte County, Hudson Lake has a colorful history that includes, during the 1830s, a cluster of cabins and shops on its shores that served as a stagecoach stop between nascent Detroit and Chicago.

Today, Olin Lake in LaGrange County has the largest undeveloped shoreline of all of Indiana's natural lakes.

They are among the lakes in northern Indiana that we explore during a show with a special format. Nelson's guests are a series of "lake correspondents" who phone in with reports about the heritage of natural lakes in northern Indiana.

As we noted during a show last summer about our state's two largest natural lakes - Lake Wawasee and Lake Maxinkuckee - most of the lakes in northern Indiana have glacial origins. Large lakes in southern Indiana, including Lake Monroe, are man-made.

Our lake correspondents include:

• Jim Somers and Flaim Cupp, co-authors of the 2011 book A History of Lake James; both of their families are long-term property owners at the lake, which covers 1,229 acres and reaches a depth of 88 feet. They report that of about 800 cottages on Lake James today, about one-fourth are owned by year-round residents like Jim and Flaim.
• Public historian Glory-June Greiff, who grew up at Hudson Lake. "LaPorte County is so lake-filled that you're bound to run into one just wandering the roads," she notes. "The county seat of LaPorte has at least five within its city limits."
• Botanist Michael Homoya, who retired from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. He shares insights about Olin Lake, which has a shoreline of about 2 miles in length. "Interesting wetlands border the lake, including a 'fen'," Michael reports, adding that a fen is a "natural community that is saturated with groundwater seepage flowing in a diffuse matter."
• And Jim Nierman, who discusses Bass Lake, the state's third largest natural lake. Jim does commentary on history tours aboard trams that go around the lake, which is located in Starke County in far-northwest Indiana. Jim, who is 77, has been visiting the lake since he was a teenager during the 1950s. For more than 100 years, Bass Lake has been an enticing "escape," particularly for Chicago-area residents.

On the shore of Lake James, Pokagon State Park was established as an Indiana State Park in the 1920s, taking its name from illustrious leaders of the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe that once fished, hunted and lived across northern Indiana. During the 1920s, '30s and '40s, Big Band music attracted thousands of patrons to Lake James, according to Jim and Flaim. Motorboat racing has been a popular attraction for generations of lake-goers.

At Hudson Lake, the 1830s cluster of cabins was called Lakeport and, according to Glory-June, "vied unsuccessfully to become the county seat." She reports that 100 years later, Hudson Lake was a "happening place" again, with a casino (featuring performers such as jazz great Bix Beiderbecke) adjacent to the tracks of the South Shore Railroad running between South Bend and Chicago.

"Today," she says, "Hudson Lake is quiet, basking in its history."

Lake James, in contrast, is the site of scores of events, including sailboat races and an annual antique boat and car show organized by the Lake James Association. The association also presents "Centennial Cottage" awards to lake homes that, as Jim and Flaim put it, "have retained their original flavor for more than 100 years."

Bledsoe's Beach at Lake James - named after brothers who built a dance hall in 1919 - is often a hub of activity. During the 1960s, WOWO, an AM radio station based in Fort Wayne, broadcast live music during sock hops and record hops at the beach. Boat parades on holiday weekends and a seaplane "fly-in" at Pokagon State Park continue to this day.

(April 27, 2019) Who is the only person to participate, as a musician at an Indiana high school, in the Spectacle of the Bandsat the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then eventually compete as a race driver in the Indianapolis 500?

How did Purdue University begin their role as "host band" for the opening ceremonies at the racetrack - and how big is one of the band's most recognizable symbols, what's promoted as the "World's Largest Drum"?

And who has been the oldest winning driver in Indy 500 history?

The answers are among the fun facts about "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" and its pageantry - including the 500 Festival Parade - that Nelson's studio guest share during our show. A tour guide at the racetrack, James Craig Reinhardt (who is known as "Craig") retired from his job as a Tampa businessman to move to the town of Speedway and indulge his lifelong dream of being affiliated with the world-famous race.

Craig is the author of two new books, both published by IU Press: The Winning Cars of the Indianapolis 500 and The Indianapolis 500: Inside the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

As he does in his books, Craig explains the origins of the long-time "Gentlemen, start your engines!" command - and the controversy that unfolded when it was initially modified in 1977 as Janet Guthrie became the first woman driver to qualify for the race.

Craig says his interest in the Indy 500 was sparked during the early 1950s when his father took him to the race, which kicked off a string of more than a dozen such visits.

"I can still remember sleeping in our red and white Pontiac Star Chief on West 16th Street across from the main gate the night before a race," he says.

As a tour guide since 2014, he has kept notes about questions that the public frequently asks about the race and its storied venue, which led him to compile the answers in his two books.

According to The Winning Cars of the Indianapolis 500, the oldest champion driver since the first Indy 500 in 1911 was Al Unser Sr., who took the checkered flag in 1987 when he was 47 years and 360 days old.

According to The Indianapolis 500: Inside the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the only person to be both a Spectacle of the Bands musician and a race driver was Johnny Parsons, who drove 12 times in the Indy 500 between 1974 and 1996. Before his racing career, Parsons was a trumpet player in the marching band at Scecina Memorial High School and participated in the pre-race musical festivities. (History fact: Parsons is the son of Johnnie Parsons, who won the Indy 500 in 1950.

Speaking of bands: The Purdue University All-American Marching Band has been the "host band" since 1919, making this the 100th anniversary for the tradition.

The well-known promotional phrase "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" dates to the mid-1950s. During our show, Craig describes its origin, as well as the annual involvement in pre-race festivities and the 500 Festival Parade of the Gordon Pipers, a Scottish/Celtic bagpipe band.

Some other fun facts from Craig's books:

• Although the starting field of the Indy 500 has almost always consisted of 33 cars for several decades, the number fluctuated in earlier eras. In the 1933 race, there were 42 cars, the largest starting field ever.
• The youngest victorious driver has been Troy Ruttman, who was just 22 years old when he won the race in 1952.
• For 37 consecutive years beginning in 1950, a spectator from Arizona was the first in line when the IMS gates opened for practice in early May.

(April 20, 2019) Among distinguished Hoosiers in public life, few have been associated with historic preservation more closely - or longer - than former Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randy Shepard.

A trustee for 11 years for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a former board chair (and current honorary chair) of Indiana Landmarks, Justice Shepard grew up in Evansville. In an article about him in the March/April issue of Indiana Preservation, Justice Shepard traces his interest in historic buildings to his teenage years during the 1960s, when he marveled at historic architecture on his daily trip to Evansville Central High School, which was - and remains - among the oldest public high schools in continuous operation west of the Alleghenies. During the 1970s, the school moved to a new building, and Old Central was demolished to create a parking lot.

Justice Shepard, who was the longest-serving chief justice in Indiana history when he retired in 2012, is Nelson's studio guest to discuss the role of historic preservation in building stronger communities across Indiana.

Currently a visiting professor at the IU McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, Justice Shepard also shares insights about Indiana's constitutional history, particularly on issues such as slavery and individual rights.

He also discusses the ways that state history likely influenced young Abraham Lincoln, who lived in southern Indiana from ages 7 to 21 - the future president's "formative years," as Justice Shepard puts it. Lincoln moved to what is now Spencer County from Kentucky with his parents and sister in 1816, the same year Indiana became a state.

A seventh-generation Hoosier, Justice Shepard has held several national leadership posts in the legal profession, including serving as chairman of the Conference of Chief Justices. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale University Law School. In the book Justices of the Supreme Court (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2010), he is praised for his "wisdom, plain English and independence."

According to the Indiana Preservation article, Justice Shepard's passion for preserving historic structures even had an impact on his family life. He met his wife, Ohio native Amy MacDonell, when she was visiting Evansville during National Historic Preservation Week.