Whigs,
Willkie,
and the
White
House:
Indiana
Political
History
Long Beach:
Gary:
On
January 1, 1968,
Richard Hatcher
became the first
African-American
mayor in Indiana
and the first in the
U.S. of a city with
a population over
100,000 people.
Katie Hall served in
the U.S. House of
Representatives
from 1982-1985 and
led the campaign to
establish the Dr.
Martin Luther King,
Jr., national holiday.
Chief Justice John
Roberts grew up
here and was
captain of the
football team at La
Lumiere School in
La Porte.
South Bend:
Mishawaka:
Schulyer Colfax
was one of two men
in history to serve as
the Speaker of the
House and Vice
President (1863-1869
and 1869-1873).
John Brademas was the first Greek-American member
of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 19591981, the last four as the Majority Whip. He is best
known for creating the National Endowment for the
Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Bremen:
Home of Governor Otis
Bowen (1973-1981), who
was the first to serve eight
consecutive years in office
since 1851. Bowen holds
the distinction of winning
the most votes ever by an
Indiana governor in 1976.
Mayor Richard Hatcher
Harry Truman in Marion
Ft. Wayne:
Governor Otis Bowen
Catherine
Dinklage was the first
woman elected to office in
Indiana, serving on the city
council. She was chosen as
a delegate to the
Democratic National
Convention in 1924.
North Manchester:
Thomas Marshall served as the Vice President under
Woodrow Wilson from 1913-1921, a position he once
described as “a disease, not an office.”
Huntington:
Hometown of Dan Quayle, Vice
President from 1989 -1993.
J. Edward Roush preceded Quayle
in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1971-1977.
The Huntington Reservoir was
renamed “J. Edward Roush Lake”
in his honor.
Logansport:
U.S. Senator John Tipton served as the
Chairman of Native Affairs under Andrew
Jackson, and in 1838 organized the forced
removal of Potawatomi Native Americans to
Kansas, known as the “Trail of Death.” The
town and county of Tipton are named for him.
Lafayette:
Theodore Roosevelt in Lebanon
Tecumseh was a Shawnee who organized the
largest Native American tribal confederacy in
1808, attempting to establish a pan-Indian
nation. American troops destroyed his home
village at Prophetstown during the Battle of
Tippecanoe while Tecumseh was away in 1811.
Covington:
U.S. Senator Daniel
Voorhees (1877-1897)
was instrumental in creating
Crawfordsville:
the Library of Congress.
Henry Smith Lane
Cecil M. Harden
was a U.S. Representative and the 13th
served in the U.S.
Governor, serving for only two days
House of
before becoming a U.S. Senator. Lane
Representatives
was the keynote speaker at the 1856
from 1949-1959.
Republican Convention and was
“Cecil M. Harden
influential in the nomination of
Lake” is named
Abraham Lincoln.
in her honor.
Wendell Willkie
Elwood:
Hometown of Wendell
Willkie, who was the
unsuccessful Republican
nominee for President in 1940—the
last from the two major parties to
never previously hold an office.
Yorktown:
Lebanon:
Stephen Neal was a founder of the
Republican Party in Boone County in
1856, later serving as a judge. It is
alleged that Neal wrote a draft of the
14th Amendment. His bust is
displayed in the outer Rotunda
in the Statehouse.
David Kilgore was
the only Speaker of
the Indiana House
of Representatives
(1855) from the
Fusion political
party.
Indianapolis:
Robert Brokenburr
Indiana Governor (1989-1997) Evan Bayh. In his reelection
as Governor in 1992, Bayh won the highest percentage of
the vote in a statewide election in modern Indiana history.
Terre Haute: In 1920, Eugene Debs,
arrested under the Espionage Act for
speaking against World War I, became the
only person to run for President while in
prison.
In 1933 Virginia Jenckes became the first
Indiana woman elected to the U.S. House
of Representatives.
Senator Birch Bayh (1963-1981) was on the
master list of Nixon opponents and is the
only non-Founding Father to author two
amendments to the Constitution. Bayh
drafted an updated version of the Equal
Rights Amendment and was the author of
Title IX.
Shelbyville:
Martinsville:
Paul McNutt served as
the 34th Governor of
Indiana (1933-1937) during the Great
Depression and saved the state from
bankruptcy. McNutt later became a
prominent member of Franklin
Roosevelt’s administration, appearing on
the covers of Time and Life magazines.
Thomas Hendricks
served as Vice President under
Grover Cleveland in 1885 but
died in office after only eight
months. The office remained
vacant until 1889.
Charlestown:
Vincennes:
Gentryville:
Abraham Lincoln’s family moved here in
1816 and stayed 14 years. Lincoln’s mother,
Nancy Hanks Lincoln is buried on the
grounds of the Lincoln
Boyhood National
Memorial.
Julia D. Nelson was the first
woman to serve in the Indiana
General Assembly in 1921.
George Dale, as mayor of
Muncie (1930-1935), battled
the Ku Klux Klan, replacing
the entire police and fire
departments and most of the
local government.
Home of bitter rivals
Oliver P. Morton and
George W. Julian:
Morton was the 14th
Governor of Indiana
during the Civil War.
Morton was an
opponent of abolition
but an ally to Lincoln.
Julian, an abolitionist,
served in the U.S.
House of
Representatives and
wrote the first
women’s suffrage
amendment in 1868.
Butlerville:
Governor Paul McNutt
Capital of the Indiana
Senator Birch Bayh
Territory, then Territorial
Governor William Henry
Harrison built a home,
French Lick:
Grouseland, here. Harrison
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was elected President in
announced his intention to run
1840. A month after he
for President at a National
delivered the longest
Governors’ Convention in
inaugural address,
French Lick in 1931.
Harrison died of
pneumonia.
Stendal: Senator Vance Hartke
(1959-1977) is best-known for
opposing the Vietnam War; he also
is responsible for requiring all cars
to be equipped with seatbelts.
Muncie:
Centerville:
State Capital since 1825 (See
inset map).
Shirkieville: Home of U.S. Senator (1999-2011) and
Franklin D. Roosevelt in Indianapolis
George Dale
Georgetown:
U.S. Senator Sherman
Minton (1935-1941)
was nominated by
President Truman to
serve on the Supreme
Court. A bridge
crossing the Ohio
River is named in his
honor.
Jonathan Jennings was
the first Governor of the
state of Indiana (18161822) and nine-time
member of the U.S.
House of
Representatives.
Jennings strongly
supported a ban of
slavery in the new state.
Corydon: The State
Capital until
1825
Hannah Milhous Nixon,
Richard Nixon’s mother,
was born near Butlerville
in 1885. President Nixon
received his biggest
majority win in Indiana
in the 1968 presidential
election.
Indianapolis:
James Hinton was elected as an at-large delegate to the
1872 Republican National Convention and was elected
to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1880,
becoming its first African-American member. Robert
Brokenburr was the first African-American State
Senator in 1940.
Indianapolis attorney Benjamin Harrison was elected
President in 1888. Although Harrison received 100,000
less votes, he carried the Electoral College.
At a party for President Theodore Roosevelt in
Indianapolis in 1907, Vice President Charles Fairbanks
served drinks and created a media firestorm that
damaged his political career. But Fairbanks, Alaska, is
named in his honor.
Robert Kennedy was campaigning in Indianapolis on
April 4, 1968, the day of the assassination of Martin
Luther King, Jr. Kennedy announced King’s death in a
historic speech, and he is credited with the reason
Indianapolis was one of the only major cities to avoid
rioting on that night.
Richard Lugar, the former Mayor of Indianapolis, is
Indiana’s longest-serving U.S. Senator, representing the
state from 1977-2013.
Map created by the Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection for use in classrooms or educational research and learning. Sources: Ball State University
Libraries’ Digital Media Repository; Indiana Historical Society; The Indiana Book of Records, Firsts, and Fascinating Facts by Fred D. Cavinder; Indiana: A History by William E. Wilson.