Strange, but true: A clog dancer on the vaudeville circuit became mayor of Indianapolis in 1910. Mayor Lew Shank resigned three years later and returned to vaudeville as a humorist, paired with a trained horse. In 1922, he easily won re-election as mayor of the Hoosier capital.

More strange, but true: The second governor’s residence in Indianapolis was blamed for making the state’s "first families" seriously ill beginning in 1839. Two of Indiana’s first ladies died in the posh house, which had replaced a never-occupied governor’s residence built at the center of what became Monument Circle.