marion indiana

By | January 10, 2023

marion indiana

marion indiana

marion indiana

About (brief history)

In December 1812, an expeditionary force sent by William Henry Harrison against the Miami towns engaged in combat north of the modern city of Marion. At the largest War of 1812 reenactment in the US, the “Mississinewa 1812” festival, residents of Grant County and other reenactors and aficionados from throughout the US and Canada recreate the fight every fall.

The National Register of Historic Places includes the Grant County Jail and Sheriff's Residence, Abijah C. Jay House, Marion Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District, Marion Downtown Commercial Historic District, Aaron Swayzee House, George, Jr., and Marie Daugherty Webster House, and J. Woodrow Wilson House.

Grant County, Indiana's Marion is home to the city. The 2010 US Census found 29,948 people living there. The town serves as Grant County's county seat. It bears the name of Francis Marion, a South Carolina-born brigadier general who served during the American Revolution.

When online and regional campuses in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois are taken into account, Indiana Wesleyan University, the biggest evangelical Christian university in the Midwest, is located in the city. There are roughly 2,800 students enrolled on the regular campus. Jess Alumbaugh has served as Marion's mayor since 2016.

 

Founding Members of marion indiana

The Miami Indians had dubbed the rapid, beautiful river “Mississinewa,” meaning “Falling water,” and Martin Boots and David Branson each gave 30 acres (120,000 m2) of property for the site of Marion in 1831. The pace of colonization had been so quick that the Battle of Mississinewa, which had taken place 7 miles (11 km) downstream and featured a deadly, dawn-to-dusk battle between federal troops and Indians in 1812, had only been followed by 19 years.

The establishment of Marion as the county seat and the security of its future came with the creation of Grant County in 1831. The river, which flowed at the foot of the adjacent hills, provided drainage, power, and water supply.

Marion was one of at least 36 other towns across the country to bear the name of Revolutionary War general Francis Marion, also known as the “Swamp Fox” of South Carolina.

 

Gas boom and growth

As an agricultural commerce hub supported by a scattering of the small farm- and forest-related companies, Marion evolved steadily for more than 50 years. Native Americans were frequently seen on the route from Indiana's final reservation, which was 8 miles (13 km) away and contained an Indian school, a Baptist church, and a cemetery.

East-central Indiana saw the discovery of natural gas deposits in the 1880s, and the Indiana gas boom caused Grant County to grow at an astounding rate.

Both Gas City and Matthews were created out of undeveloped farmland and established as speculative boomtowns by engulfing nearby small settlements. Before the gas deposits were exhausted and the majority of companies relocated, they drew several thousand residents. Before Matthews attracted eleven glass plants and lured the professional baseball club away from Indianapolis in the 1940s, it resembled a Western ghost town. The only remaining covered bridge in Grant County serves as a reminder of times gone by.

The gas boom did, however, leave its mark and there were still a few enterprises, notably glass producers.

 

National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Indiana

With the six HDVS housing an expanding number of individuals, Congress built a seventh residence in Grant County on July 23, 1888. (and ultimately three more). The Marion Branch is what it is called. Grant County citizens contributed a natural gas supply for heating and lighting, while Congress granted an appropriation of $200,000 for construction. Due to the availability of natural gas and the political backing of Colonel George Washington Steele, a US Congressman who served from 1880 to 1890, Marion was chosen as the location for the new branch.

The Veterans Administration (VA) Northern Indiana Health Care System, a dual-campus institution connected to the former VA Medical Center Fort Wayne, currently includes this facility. The original treatment facility, constructed in 1889, the greenhouse, and the cadet quarters are slated for removal in the early twenty-first century. Public support for funding the repair of historic buildings has been lacking. The Veterans Administration intends to demolish the structures and build new ones since they don't adhere to current regulations.

The hospital's principal structures and surrounding areas were designated as the Marion Branch Historic District following an assessment of Marion's noteworthy assets in the late 20th century. It is situated about two and a half miles southeast of Marion's downtown at the intersection of 38th Street and Lincoln Boulevard. The Mississinewa River, 38th Street, the railroad right-of-way, Chambers Park, and Lincoln Boulevard make up the northern, eastern, southern, and southern boundaries. The 212-acre (0.86 km2) plot is essentially square in shape, but the southeast and southwest corners have been eliminated by diagonal boundary lines. The region that is currently Chambers Park was once used for farming on the Home grounds.

 

1930 Lynching

On August 7, 1930, two African-American males were lynched in Marion. At the county jail where three young black guys were being held on suspicion of killing a white man and raping his fiancée, a sizable mob, largely white, estimated at 5,000 people, gathered. Thomas Shipp, Abram Smith, and James Cameron were pulled from the jail and brutally beaten before they could be tried. Smith and Shipp died by hanging. When an unnamed woman claimed that Cameron was not involved in the crimes, Cameron was saved.

The charge of rape was withdrawn by the woman. Cameron was sentenced to four years in prison in 1931 after being found guilty of being an accessory to murder. He completed his education and engaged in human rights activism. From 1942 to 1950, he was the Indiana State Director of Civil Liberties. Additionally, he served as the first president of the Madison County, Indiana chapter and organized three local NAACP organizations.

In order to preserve the history of African Americans who had experienced the trauma and bloodshed of lynching, he built America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee in 1988. James Cameron was granted a full pardon and an official apology from the state of Indiana in 1993. “Since the state of Indiana forgiven me, I forgive the state of Indiana,” Cameron subsequently remarked. The US Senate also formally apologized to Cameron and the lynching victims' families in 2005. The Marion incident was significant because it was the final known lynching of an African American in Indiana and the North of the United States.

 

What is Marion Indiana famous for?

Marion is the birthplace of actor James Dean and cartoonist Jim Davis. It was the location of the wedding of actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett in 1993.

 

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