Indianapolis – Page 2 – Alan E. Hunter

Hollywood, Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture

The Lyric Theatre. Part I

March 8, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original Publish Date January 6, 2016. Republished January 23, 2025.

https://weeklyview.net/2016/01/14/the-lyric-theatre-part-1/

This week the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. will open a new exhibit called “Sinatra at 100” honoring Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday last December 12th. The National Museum of American History will surely put up a classy display, but I seriously doubt that our fair city will be mentioned at all… but we should be.

Located at 135 N. Illinois Street there once stood a theatre with as rich a pop-culture history as any in Indianapolis. When the Lyric Theatre opened in February of 1906, it was a room with about 200 folding chairs arranged in rows. A carbon arc light projector rested on a tripod in the rear of the theatre. The film was mounted on a reel and fed at a rate of 16-18 frames per second between the arc light and the projector lens, which magnified the image so that it could be projected onto a screen. Early projectors simply dumped the projected film into a basket on the floor. Projectors were hand-cranked, and the projectionist could speed up or slow down the action on the screen by “over-cranking” or “under-cranking.”

**The Lyric in the 1930s – Photo cinematreasures.com**

The film stock itself was made from nitrocellulose, a chemical cousin to explosives used by the military in World War I. The highly flammable film and the extremely hot light source meant that fire was a very real threat. In fact, the incidence of projector-related fires over the first ten years of movie houses produced some of the worst tragedies in our country’s history, capable of killing hundreds of people in an instant. For this reason, a larger 1400-seat Lyric theatre was built on the property six years later.

**Nitrocellulose film canister disaster.**

The new Lyric was constructed by the Central Amusement Co. for $75.000, built by the Halstead-Moore Co., and designed by architect Herman L. Bass, who designed Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James A. Allison’s mansion, now on the campus of Marian College. This upgrade included fireproof materials inside and exterior walls of concrete, steel, and artistic brick accented by white terra-cotta trim.

On April 20, 1919, the Lyric was again closed for remodeling, this design courtesy of architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., a well-known name that still resonates through town to this day. This facelift left only three original walls standing and created a new lobby on the south. The stage that originally faced west now faced south. It had its grand reopening on September 1, 1919. The Lyric underwent its last major remodel in 1926, adding state-of-the-art air conditioning and modern stage lighting systems. This remodel cost $185,000 and included construction of a new four-story building featuring a new main entrance, and lobby with executive offices above.

**Patrons spill out of the Lyric in 1955 – Photo cinematreasures.com**

The new Lyric, with its shiny marble and gold lobby lined with French mirrors and six French crystal chandeliers, was considered to be one of the finest theaters in Indiana. 300 more seats were added as was a new basement that housed rehearsal areas and dressing rooms named for cities on its doors. A new marquee was added above the front door. At 10 feet high, 50 feet long, and 16 feet deep, it held up to 440 letters and was said to be the largest of its kind in the state. The following year a new Marr-Colton pipe organ was added for $30,000.00, which, like the marquee, was the largest in the state.

**March 21, 1931, Lyric Vaudeville Ad.**

The Lyric began life showing films scored with music provided by live musicians. Then came Vaudeville, talkies, and finally big screen epics similar to today. World War I led to the Roaring Twenties, then to the Great Depression, and into the gangster era whose Hoosier outlaw roots extended to the doorway of the Lyric itself. The Lyric survived the Depression by featuring an eclectic mix of movies, Vaudeville acts, stage shows and live musicals.

The family of John Dillinger waits outside the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis, where they will be regaling the audience with tales of the famous outlaw, in July 1934. Left to right, they are John Dillinger, Sr., Mrs Audrey Hancock (sister), Emmett Hancock (brother-in-law), and Hubert Dillinger (his half-brother).

A week after the death of Hoosier Public Enemy # 1 John Dillinger on July 22, 1934, his family signed a 5-month vaudeville contract at the Lyric theatre that expired on New Year’s Eve. Crowds mobbed the theatre to hear stories from and ask questions of, John Dillinger, Sr. about his famous outlaw son. The 15-minute show was billed as “Crime doesn’t pay” even though it cost patrons an extra 15 cents to see it. Here, Dillinger Sr. and his sister Audrey fielded questions from the crowd. The show traveled to the Great Lakes, Texas Centennial and San Diego Expositions, and Chicago World’s Fair, which gangster Dillinger had famously visited while alive. Rumor persists that the Lyric was also a favorite hangout for John Dillinger. After all, everyone knows that Dillinger died outside of a Chicago movie theatre.

Edgar Bergen (only weeks before he introduced his “dummy” Charlie McCarthy) played the Lyric in 1934 in a vaudeville act that included a trio of sisters calling themselves the “Queens of Harmony” who later became known as The Andrews Sisters. Red Skelton was a 1930s performer at the Lyric known as “The Canadian Comic” even though he was a Hoosier born in Vincennes. Hoagy Carmichael was a regular. The standard 1930s Era Lyric theatre contract awarded “Fifty percent (50%) of gross receipts after the first dollar”. Ticket prices in 1936 were defined as: “25 cents to 6 p.m.- 40 cents on the lower floor at night and 30 cents in balcony weekdays, and Saturday. On Sunday, 30 cents in balcony and 40 cents on the lower floor all day.”

**Tommy Dorsey & Frank Sinatra at the Lyric Theatre February 1940.**

The Lyric’s next step towards pop culture immortality came on February 2, 1940, when the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra came to town. Dorsey began his career in a Big Band with his brother Jimmy in the late 1920s. That band also included Glenn Miller. Dorsey had a reputation for being a micromanaging perfectionist with a volatile temper. He often fired musicians based on his mood, only to rehire them a short time later. Dorsey had a well-deserved reputation for raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician, or arranger, he thought nothing of taking over their contracts and careers.

In November 1939 a relatively unknown “skinny kid with big ears” from Hoboken New Jersey signed on as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Frank Sinatra signed a contract with Dorsey for $125 a week at Palmer House in Chicago, where Ole Blue Eyes was appearing with the Harry James orchestra. Mysteriously, but not unsurprisingly, Harry James agreed to release Sinatra from his contract. An event that would come back to haunt Dorsey a couple years later.

Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and quickly became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey’s mannerisms and often claimed that he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. He made Dorsey the godfather of his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that “The only two people I’ve ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey”.

From February 2-8, 1940, when the Dorsey band opened at the Lyric, the theater’s ad in the Indianapolis Star listed Tommy’s name in inch-high letters. At the bottom, in 1/8-inch type, was a listing for “Frank Sinatra, Romantic Virtuoso.” The songs he sang during that week of shows on the eve of World War II are lost to the pages of history. But we do know that Frank Sinatra made eighty recordings in 2 years with the Dorsey band.

By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in Billboard and Down Beat magazines, becoming the world’s first “Rock Star”. His appeal to bobby-soxers created “Pop Music” and opened up a whole new market for record companies, which had been marketing primarily to adults up to that time. The phenomenon would become officially known as “Sinatramania”. Manic female fans often wrote Sinatra’s song titles on their clothing, bribed hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and chased the young star often stealing clothing he was wearing, usually his bow tie.

By 1942, Sinatra believed he needed to go solo, with an insatiable desire to compete with Bing Crosby, his childhood idol. Sinatra grew up with a picture of Crosby in his bedroom, and in 1935 young Frankie met his idol briefly backstage at a Newark club. Within a decade, Sinatra would be contending for Crosby’s throne. A series of appearances at New York’s Paramount Theatre in December 1942 established Sinatra as the hot new star. When Sinatra sang, young girls in the audience swooned, screaming so loud that it drowned out the orchestra. The girls never swooned and screamed when Bing Crosby sang. Sinatra decided early not merely to imitate Crosby, but to develop his own style. In a 1965 article, Sinatra explained: “When I started singing in the mid-1930s everybody was trying to copy the Crosby style — the casual kind of raspy sound in the throat. Bing was on top, and a bunch of us … were trying to break in. It occurred to me that maybe the world didn’t need another Crosby. I decided to experiment a little and come up with something different.”

Frank’s singing evoked frailty, innocence, and vulnerability and inflamed the passions of his young female fans. Some older listeners, however, rejected Sinatra’s gentle sighing, moaning, and cooing as not real singing. Crosby joked: “Frank Sinatra is the kind of singer who comes along once in a lifetime — but why did it have to be my lifetime!”
Sinatra was hamstrung by his contract with the Dorsey band, which gave Dorsey 43% of Frank’s lifetime earnings in the entertainment industry. On September 3, 1942, Dorsey famously bid farewell to Sinatra by telling Frankie, “I hope you fall on your ass”. Rumors began spreading in newspapers that Sinatra’s mobster godfather, Willie Moretti, coerced Dorsey to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars by holding a gun to Tommy’s head and telling him that “either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.” Apparently, Sinatra made him an “offer he could not refuse”. Yes, that famous scene in The Godfather is based on this encounter.

Dorsey died in 1956, but not before telling the press this of his one-time protege, “he’s the most fascinating man in the world, but don’t put your hand in the cage”. Regardless of the way it ended between the duo. It all began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis.

If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read “The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters” (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.

The Lyric Theatre. Part II.

Original Publish Date January 21, 2016. Republished January 23, 2025.

https://weeklyview.net/2016/01/21/the-lyric-theatre-part-2/

Frank Sinatra’s career began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis on February 2, 1940, with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Sinatra stuck with Dorsey for a couple years before he went solo. Allegedly, Dorsey only let go of Frankie at the gentle urging of Ole Blue Eyes’ Mafia Godfather, who was holding a gun to Dorsey’s head. Dorsey and Sinatra, who had once been very close, never patched up their differences. Ironically, Dorsey had a hand in the Lyric Theatre’s second step towards immortality for the next bobby-soxer generation.

On January 28, 1956, another pop culture icon burst onto the American scene via The Dorsey Brothers TV Show. Tommy Dorsey introduced Cleveland disc jockey Bill Randle, who then introduced Elvis Presley to his first national audience by saying: “We’d like at this time to introduce to you a young fellow who…came out of nowhere to be an overnight big star…We think tonight that he’s going to make television history for you. We’d like you to meet him now – Elvis Presley”. That night the show aired from CBS Studio 50. The same studio that launched the careers of the Beatles, who would themselves eventually dethrone Elvis 8 years later. Years later, Indianapolis Native David Letterman would broadcast his Late Nite show from the same studio- yet another Hoosier pop culture connection.

Elvis on the Dorsey Brothers TV Show 1956.

A little more than a month before that national television debut, Elvis Presley played the Lyric theatre for four days: Sunday, December 4th through Wednesday, December 7th. Elvis was paid $ 1,000 for 4 shows. 20-year-old Presley was part of Hank Snow’s tour that played the Lyric, once located in the 100 block of North Illinois Street. Presley, who never received formal music training or learned to read music, studied and played by ear. He also frequented record stores with jukeboxes and listening booths, where he memorized all of Hank Snow’s songs.

Hank Snow was the headliner and his name appeared on the Lyric theatre marquee in giant letters. Snow, a regular at the Grand Ole Opry, persuaded the Opry to allow a young Elvis Presley to appear on stage in 1954. Snow used Presley as his opening act and introduced him to the infamous Colonel Tom Parker. The Opry believed Elvis’ style didn’t fit with their image so they suggested he go the the Louisiana Hayride radio show instead. By the time Elvis came to the Lyric, he was a hayride regular. Seems Elvis’s performance at the Lyric, although one of his first, may have been one of his last without controversy.

In August 1955, Colonel Tom Parker joined Hank Snow’s Attractions management team just as Presley signed his first contract with Snow’s company. Elvis, still a minor, had to have his parents sign the contract on his behalf. Before long, Snow was out and Parker had total control over the rock singer’s career. When Snow asked Parker about the status of their contract with Elvis, Parker told him, “You don’t have any contract with Elvis Presley. Elvis is signed exclusively to the Colonel.” Forty years later, Snow (who died in 1999) stated, “I have worked with several managers over the years and have had respect for them all except one. Tom Parker (he refused to call him the Colonel) was the most egotistical, obnoxious human being I’ve ever had dealings with.”

When Elvis breezed through Indianapolis just before Christmas of 1955, he was young, he was raw, he was pure and he was blonde. Yes, Elvis Presley was a natural blonde. Elvis’s signature jet-black raven hair was actually a dye job courtesy of Miss Clairol 51D and Black Velvet & Mink Brown by Paramount. The future King of Rock ‘n Roll thought that dying his hair black gave him an edgier look. Elvis once confessed to dying his hair with black shoe polish in his earliest days. So who knows? Maybe he was traveling through the Circle City with a can or two of Shinola in his ditty bag back in ’55.

**Elvis, Scotty, Bill &DJ onstage at the Lyric Theatre – Dec. 1955**.

Elvis was accompanied to the Lyric by guitarist Scotty Moore, bass player Bill Black, and drummer D.J. Fontana. The Lyric bill included headliner Hanks Snow, Mother Maybelle, and the Carters and comic Rod Brasfield, for a four-day gig. Black, Moore, and Fontana toured extensively during Presley’s early career. Bill Black played stand-up bass, and his on-stage “clown” persona fueled memorable comedy routines with Presley. Black often performed as an exaggerated hillbilly with blacked-out teeth, straw hat, and overalls. Black’s on-stage personality was a sharp contrast to the introverted, consummate professionalism of veterans Moore and Fontana. The balance fit the group’s Lyric performances perfectly.

The newspaper ads billed Elvis (in very small print face) as “a county and bop singer.” According to a later report in the August 8, 1956, Indianapolis Times, headliner Hank Snow missed the first show (Sunday, December 4th) due to a winter storm. Showing amazing resolve at a very young age, Elvis stood in for his childhood hero and carried on with the supporting acts to perform a seamless show. The original contract called for Elvis to be paid $750 for the four-day engagement, but Elvis was paid an extra $ 250 for saving Snow’s bacon during that first show.

**Carl Smith & fan at the Lyric stage door. Dec. 1954**

Two weeks later, on December 20th, RCA released Elvis’ four earlier Sun records singles: “That’s All Right”/”Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Good Rockin’ Tonight”/”I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine,” “Milkcow Blues Boogie”/”You’re a Heartbreaker,” and “Baby Let’s Play House”/”I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone.” Now the King was off and running. Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and D.J. would only make one other appearance together in the state of Indiana, in Fort Wayne when they performed at the Allen County Memorial Coliseum on Mar 30, 1957. Elvis’ Lyric Theatre band broke up a year later although Fontana, Moore, and Elvis still played and recorded together regularly throughout the 1960s.

**Elvis Bassist Bill Black & Paul McCartney with Bill’s bass.**

After 1958, Bassist Bill Black never played with the band again; he died of a brain tumor on October 21, 1965, at the age of thirty-nine. Moore and Fontana performed together on a 2002 recording of “That’s All Right (Mama)” with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney who performed on the recording using Black’s original stand-up “slap” bass. McCartney received the instrument as a birthday present from his wife Linda in the late 1970s. In the documentary film “In the World Tonight”, McCartney can be seen playing the bass and singing his version of “Heartbreak Hotel”.

**Lyrid Marque for Gorilla at Large movie 1954.**

But what about the Lyric in the years before and after Elvis burst onto the scene? Well, we know that Sinatra’s idol Bing Crosby played the Lyric way before Ole Blue Eyes or Elvis ever knew the address. We know that Chuck Berry played the Lyric on October 19, 1955, just after signing with Chess Records and recording the classic “Maybelline”. We also know that the Lyric closed briefly on May 24, 1956, for a summer remodel and reopened on August 29, 1956. With the installation of Norelco 70-35 projectors it could now show 70mm film. Continuing the Lyric’s tradition as a pioneer in theatre sound performance (it was the first theater in the city to show a Stereophonic Sound Film, Fantasia in 1942) it was the first in Indianapolis to feature the Todd-AO sound system. A new screen measured 50 feet by 25 feet. The opening film was “Oklahoma” which lasted for six months.

In the sixties, the Lyric was a part of the Indianapolis Amusement group which also included the Circle and Indiana theaters, still standing at the time. On March 31, 1965, the “Sound of Music” opened at the Lyric and ran until January 17, 1967, the longest run for a motion picture at the Lyric. But the glory days of the Lyric were fading fast. Urban flight and suburban relocation led to multiplexes and the death of golden-age theatres like the Lyric. The theatre that helped to introduce pop icons Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley closed in 1969. “Shoes of the Fisherman” and “Where Eagles Dare” were the last two movies shown there. The magnificent movie house, once touted as Indianapolis’ finest theater, located at 135 North Illinois Street is just a memory today, replaced by a parking garage.

**Elvis on stage in Indianapolis June 26, 1977.**

Elvis would return to Indianapolis 22 years later to perform his last concert ever before 17,000 adoring fans on June 26, 1977, at Market Square Arena, which was also demolished. Reviews of the show criticized the performance as a “tacky circus sideshow at which the star was sloppy and lethargic”. Like the Lyric, Elvis became a victim of changing times and more sophisticated attitudes. The King died on August 16, 1977, 51 days after his appearance at MSA and 21 years, 8 months, and 12 days after he first strolled into the Lyric theatre to cover for his idol Hank Snow. [The MSA stage that Elvis resides in now rests inside the Irving Theatre in Irvington.]

**Al Green’s Drive-In Restaurant 7101 E. Washington Street Indianapolis In.**

As for me, I’d prefer to remember Elvis for his trip through Indy’s eastside a year after he played the Lyric. Sometime in late 1956, Presley was reported to have stopped at the Jones and Maley automotive garage, a stone’s throw from Irvington at 3421 E. Washington St., to have the two front whitewall tires on his baby blue Cadillac balanced. According to mechanics working on the vehicle, Presley’s car had girls’ names scratched into the paint. An urban legend has Elvis driving that same Cadillac car on that same day just up the road to Al Green’s for a snack before heading on to a tour stop in Ohio. That, like the image of the Lyric Theatre’s marquee glowing brightly on a Saturday night, is the image I choose to keep with me of the King in Indianapolis.

If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read “The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters” (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.

Abe Lincoln, Indianapolis, National Park Service, Weekly Column

Abraham Lincoln, the Blood Moon, and History. PART I

February 20, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original Publish Date March 21, 2024.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/03/21/abraham-lincoln-the-blood-moon-and-history-part-1/

**New Mexico’s Chaco National Park eclipse petroglyph.**

Indiana is firmly ensnared by “Eclipse Fever,” and for the next few weeks, whether you want to or not, you’re caught smack dab in the middle of the path of totality. Step right up, get your viewing tickets, get your t-shirts, get your eclipse glasses, and start humming Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” 24/7. Contrary to what you might think, this is not a modern phenomenon. Eclipses (total or otherwise) have been a staple of American society since the First Crusade’s series of religious wars raged in Jerusalem during the medieval period. Ironically, the First Crusade’s objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. Sound familiar? Well, as Mark Twain once said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

According to the National Park Service, the first recorded instance of a total eclipse in America can be traced back to July 11, 1097. As evidence, the NPS sites a petroglyph (a symbol carved into rock) in New Mexico’s Chaco National Park. The petroglyph presents a filled-in circle (representing the sun) with wavy lines emanating from its edges with a small, filled-in circle (representing the planet Venus) visible at its upper left. Scientists hypothesize that this would have been the view in that location at the time of the eclipse. The next instance, recorded in 1758 by an amateur astronomer whose name has been lost to history, happened in Rhode Island, making it the first detailed lunar eclipse recorded by a white man in the Americas.

**1805 Lewis & Clark Expedition Eclipse Scene.**

On January 14-15, 1805, Lewis and Clark observed a partial lunar eclipse while at Fort Mandan, North Dakota during their Corps of Discovery Expedition of the newly acquired western portion of the U.S, following the Louisiana Purchase. Unsurprisingly, the explorers eagerly recorded details of that eclipse in their journals including start and stop times. Meriwether Lewis wrote: “Observed an eclips (sic) of the Moon…The commencement of the eclips was obscured by clouds, which continued to interrupt me throughout the whole observation…” A year and a half later, on June 16, 1806, Lewis and Clark observed a solar eclipse while encamped in the Great Pacific Northwest in the path of the total solar eclipse which passed over Arizona, through the Midwest, southern New York State, northern Pennsylvania, and over Boston.

**Eclipse on concentric circles on stone in a Neolithic tomb in Ireland.**

However, far be it from me to assume that eclipse history is notable only from an American point of view. According to NASA “The oldest recorded eclipse in human history may have been on Nov. 30, 3340 B.C.E.” BCE you ask? Well, that means Before Common Era or Before Current Era or Before Christian Era or Before Christ. That is not to say that eclipses were not witnessed by our shared non-white knuckle-dragging ancestors, they just didn’t write it down! Humans struggling through the Stone Ages (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Eras) surely witnessed eclipses and I suspect that every such occurrence was met with sheer panic. The Vikings believed two wolves would devour the sun or the moon. For the Cherokees, it was a toad. Still, other Native American tribes in northern California believed it was a bear that had swallowed the sun (or moon). Other ancient civilizations believed the Sun was being devoured by planetary monsters: in Siberia, it was a vampire, in Vietnam it was a giant frog, in Argentina it was a jaguar, for indigenous people, and in India and China, it was a dragon. In short, for our pre-Classical Era ancestors, an eclipse meant the world was coming to an end.

Modern research proves that eclipses were recorded in ancient Egypt 4,500 years ago and in China, the Mayan Empire, and Babylonia over 4,000 years old. Chinese legend states that imperial astronomers Hsi and Ho were executed because they failed to predict the total solar eclipse in China on October 22, 2134 BC. Emperor Chung K’ang had the two Royal astronomers “decapitated for having failed to predict an eclipse of the sun which took place while the two delinquents were absent and given to debauchery instead of attending to their duties…Hsi and Ho, drunk with wine, had made no use of their talents. Without regard to the obligations which they owed the Prince, they abandoned the duties of their office…for on the first day of the last moon of Autumn, the sun and moon in their conjunction not being in agreement in Fang, the blind one beat the drum, the mandarins mounted their horses, and the people ran up in haste. At that time, Hsi and Ho, like wooden statues, neither saw nor heard anything and by their negligence in calculating and observing the movement of the stars, they violated the law of death promulgated by our earlier Princes.” The account is important because it proves that astronomers were already able to predict eclipses over four centuries ago.

Lest you think the Chinese were the eclipse bosses, our ancient Irish ancestors were also expert astronomers. Irish star-gazers were carving eclipse images on ancient stone megaliths over 5000 years ago. The Irish were the ones who recorded that November 30th, 3340, BC event, making it the world’s oldest known solar eclipse literally chiseled in stone. The megalith (a very large rough stone used in prehistoric cultures as a monument or building block) is situated at Loughcrew in County Meath. Loughcrew is home to twenty ancient tombs from the 4th millennium BC, the highest point in Meath. The Irish Neolithic priests/astronomers recorded eclipses as seen from that location on 3 stones located there. Leave it to the Celts, who created a “festival of light” to welcome an eclipse, proving that they were capable of predicting them. Ain’t no party like a Celtic party.

A popular eclipse story has worldwide appeal with a splash of American interest. The story of the eclipse that saved Christopher Columbus’ life. In 1503, on what would become his final voyage to the new world, Columbus steered his sinking ships towards Santiago (modern-day Jamaica) with his crews in despair. With most of his anchors lost and his vessels worm-eaten enough to be little more than floating sponges, he beached his ships. Columbus’ glory days were behind him and he now found himself and his crew of 90 men and boys stranded on this desolate Caribbean island. The Italian and his Spaniards were initially welcomed by the indigenous Taíno people but, as time went on, the crew clashed with the natives. Fearing both starvation and conflict, Columbus forbade his crew from leaving their base and tentatively traded Spanish trinkets and jewelry for food and water with the people living there.

**Christopher Columbus predicts the moon eclipse to the Indians.**

The danger was a constant. When investigating Jamaica’s easternmost point. one of his scouting parties was overpowered and captured by hostile locals. In January 1504, some of the crew mutinied, left the base, and spread out onto the island. They abused and mocked the island residents, stole provisions, and “committed every possible excess”, according to one of Columbus’ biographers. The crew had worn out their welcome as tolerance gave way to contempt and hatred. The trade of food and water came to a halt and, facing imminent starvation, Columbus realized that a lunar eclipse was approaching. On March 1, he gathered the chiefs and leaders of the tribal communities, admonished them for withholding provisions, and issued a warning. “The God who protects me will punish you… this very night shall the Moon change her color and lose her light, in testimony of the evils which shall be sent on you from the skies.” The ploy worked and the terrified locals relented, providing food and water once again. In exchange, Columbus promised to perform a rite that would “pardon” them.

Good thing because rescue wouldn’t arrive until June. Thanks to that eclipse, Columbus was able to return to Spain. The remainder of his life was an unhappy story: he returned to Spain in poor physical and mental health and spent his last two years of life lobbying for official recognition and money, which never came. His patrons doubted his mental condition and ignored his demands. He died on May 20, 1506. While lunar eclipses pop up on the pages of history more than solar eclipses for a few different reasons (more people can see them, they last longer, and are visible for more than half the Earth) there was one solar eclipse that did play an important role in U.S. history and it happened right here in pre-statehood Indiana.

In the early 1800s, Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (better known as “The Prophet”) were seeking to unite the Native American people and maintain traditional ways. Instead, the governor of the territory, William Henry Harrison (a future U.S. president and grandfather of Indiana’s only homegrown president, Benjamin Harrison) decided that it was a much better idea to persuade tribal leaders to hand over their land or have it taken from them. Knowing that Tecumseh and his Prophet brother held sway over the tribes, Harrison tried to discredit them by asking them for a sign: if the prophet was so powerful, why not ask him to perform a miracle of biblical proportions? Harrison wrote an open letter to the Indians gathered on the Wabash River: “If he is a prophet, ask him to cause the Sun to stand still or the Moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow or the dead to rise from their graves”. Old Tippecanoe’s stunt backfired.

The Prophet agreed and requested that all in the village be assembled for him to deliver his response. He emerged from his wigwam to announce that he had consulted with the Great Spirit and that she was unhappy about Harrison’s request. The Great Spirit agreed to give a sign proving that she and the Prophet were besties. The Prophet spoke in a loud and confident voice saying that: “Fifty days from this day there will be no cloud in the sky. Yet, when the Sun has reached its highest point, at that moment will the Great Spirit take it into her hand and hide it from us. The darkness of night will thereupon cover us and the stars will shine round about us. The birds will roost and the night creatures will awaken and stir.” At noon on June 16th, 1806, The Prophet raised his arms to the sky at just the right time, and a total solar eclipse crossed the region. It was a long eclipse with a band of totality reaching from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to Cincinnati and encompassing most of the lands inhabited by Tenskwatawa’s followers.

**Tecumseh confronting William Henry Harrison.**

The euphoria did not last long. On November 6, Harrison’s forces approached Prophetstown. Accounts are unclear about how the battle began, but Harrison’s sentinels encountered advancing warriors in the pre-dawn hours of November 7. Although slightly outnumbered and low on ammunition, Tenskwatawa’s force of 600 to 700 men attacked Harrison’s soldiers. The attack failed, and after a two-hour engagement that history recalls as the Battle of Tippecanoe, Tenskwatawa’s forces retreated from the field and abandoned Prophetstown to avoid capture. On November 8, Harrison’s army burned the village to the ground. The war would continue for several years and would end only when Tecumseh was killed on October 5, 1813. His prophet brother Tenskwatawa died in November 1836 at his cabin, a site in present-day Kansas City’s Argentine district.

But what about that “Blood Moon” thing in this article’s title? What does that mean? Where did it come from? If you think it sounds Biblical, you’re right. While the Bible doesn’t mention eclipses in particular, there are plenty of verses that can apply. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, mention a darkness that lasted three hours after the crucifixion of Jesus, but scientists easily poke holes in those stories. The term originates in the Book of Joel and it designates the blood moon as being a sign of the beginning of the end times: “The sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” The prophecy is repeated by Peter in Acts during Pentecost, as the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. Acts 2:20-38: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord.” The blood moon is also prophesied in the Book of Revelation 6:12: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.” So, ye faithful, the total Solar Eclipse falls on Monday, April 8th this year and if you believe in the prophecy of the blood moon, you’d better be in the pews the day before. Rest easy friends, the blood moon only happens during a Lunar Eclipse. Oh wait, that happens March 25th, so, I guess it still applies. Sounds like the Lunar Eclipse needs a better hype man.

Truth is, the blood moon term is a convenient colloquialism designed to evoke an image simple for people of all races, ages, and religions to understand and to accentuate just how rare and noteworthy total eclipses are. The blood moon happens as the sunlight passes through the earth’s atmosphere and breaks down into several refracted colors from behind the dark of the moon. The scattering of those wavelengths drowns out the blue component of yellow sunlight sending it into the void of space leaving only the red component of light remaining. Contrary to what you may think, the moon is not invisible during a total lunar eclipse but does assume a reddish hue. Despite the ominous connotations, the blood moon is clear proof that the Earth has an atmosphere. The same thing happens at sunrise and sunset as the sunlight travels up or down through the atmosphere, the blue light mostly disappears, leaving the red, orange, and yellow light. Conversely, when the Apollo moonwalkers looked back at the Earth, they saw a dark disk surrounded by a bright, red-hued ring: an eclipse. In short, a blood moon means nothing more than the Moon being eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow.

Centuries of superstition entwined with enigmatic mysticism fuel the interest in eclipses to this day. An eclipse does not discriminate among its viewership. Wealthy or poor, short or tall, male or female, worldly or cloistered, illiterate or learned, anyone and everyone with an interest can witness an eclipse. In the case of Abraham Lincoln, an eclipse in the summer of 1831 would become an early benchmark in the life of the rail-splitter.
Next Week: PART II – Abraham Lincoln, the Blood Moon, and History.

Abraham Lincoln, the Blood Moon, and History.
PART II

Original Publish Date March 28, 2024.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/03/28/abraham-lincoln-the-blood-moon-and-history-part-2/

The total eclipse of February 1831 began at 5:21 pm in Cape Cod Massachusetts, swept across the eastern seaboard through Maryland, North and South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, and exited an hour past sunset (6:36 pm) in the Mexico territory that would soon become Texas. The annular solar eclipse (when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth while it is at its farthest point from Earth) occurred on February 12, 1831. This eclipse is historically important for a few reasons. First, it was the subject of the earliest known eclipse map in the United States, printed in the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. Second, it happened on Abraham Lincoln’s twenty-second birthday, and third, because it provided the impetus for Nat Turner’s slave uprising in Virginia. Turner, an enslaved African-American preacher adjudged to be one of the 100 Greatest African Americans by Temple University in 2002, would pay with his life. Lincoln, just over a year after leaving Indiana for Illinois on March 1, 1830, would emancipate Turner’s descendants three decades later and also pay with his life.

Nat Turner was born into slavery around October 2, 1800, and by his own account, he was born with special powers. In a jailhouse interview published just before he died in 1831, Turner told author Thomas Ruffin Gray for the book The Confessions of Nat Turner that when he was three or four years old, he could provide details of events that occurred before his birth. His mother and other family members believed that Nat was a prophet who was “intended for some great purpose.” Turner learned how to read and write at a young age. He grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting, praying, or immersed in reading the Bible. Pastor Turner, while preaching to his fellow enslaved people, testified, “To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed.”

**Nat Turner Preaching to his Followers.**

Turner had visions that he interpreted as messages from God, believing that God used the natural world as a backdrop for the placement of omens and signs that guided his life. After Turner witnessed the solar eclipse, he took it as a sign from God to begin an insurrection against slaveholders. Turner, convinced that he was destined for greatness, began preparing for a rebellion against local slaveholders. Nat confessed to author Gray that his divine vision was to avenge slavery and lead his fellow enslaved people from bondage. Turner said the most vivid of those visions came on May 12, 1828, when “I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.”

Turner purchased muskets and enlisted over seventy freed and enslaved men to his cause. On August 22, 1831, they rebelled and swept through the countryside of Southampton County, Virginia, killing whites and freeing upwards of 75 slaves. By the end of the rebellion, one of the largest slave rebellions in American history, over sixty whites were dead. After it was revealed that Turner and his small band of hatchet-wielding enslaved people had killed his master, Joseph Travis, along with his wife, nine-year-old son, and a hired hand as they slept in their beds, the white citizens became incensed. Then, after it was discovered that two of Turner’s men returned to the Travis home and killed “a little infant sleeping in a cradle” before dumping its body in the fireplace, the die was cast. As a result, over 120 Black people, some of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were killed.

Militias were formed and law enforcement was called in to put down the two-day rebellion. Hundreds of federal troops and thousands of militiamen quelled the uprising, capturing most of the participants (except for Turner himself). Nat Turner remained hidden in the woods only a few miles away from the Travis farm for two months. On October 30, 1831, Benjamin Phipps was walking across a nearby farm. He noticed “some brushwood collected in a manner to excite suspicion,” according to a Richmond newspaper, below an overturned pine tree. When Phipps raised his gun, a weak, emaciated Turner emerged from the foxhole, surrendered, and was taken to the Southampton County Jail. Six days after his arrest, he stood trial and was convicted of “conspiring to rebel and making insurrection” and sentenced to death. Turner was hanged from a tree on November 11, 1831. Ironically, his death came in a small town called Jerusalem (present-day Courtland, Virginia). According to many historians, Nat Turner’s revolt contributed to the radicalization of American politics and helped chart the course toward the Civil War.

Equally ironic is that Turner’s revolt brought to an end an embryonic abolitionist movement in Virginia. Following the insurrection, the Virginia legislature narrowly rejected a measure for gradual emancipation that would have followed the lead of the North. About forty petitions, signed by more than 2,000 Virginians, urged the General Assembly to address the troublesome issue of slavery. Some petitions called for outright emancipation, others for repatriation of the enslaved to Africa. Many advocated the removal of free Blacks from the state, seeing them as a nefarious influence. The House established a select committee and the debate finally spilled over into the full body. After vigorous debate, members declined to pass any law. Pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist opinion hardened in Virginia in the years that followed, citing Turner’s intelligence and education as a major cause of the revolt. As a result, measures were passed in Virginia and other southern states making it unlawful to teach enslaved people, or free African Americans for that matter, how to read or write.

**Young Lincoln wearing eclipse glasses. Courtesy Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum Springfield, Ill.**

As for Abraham Lincoln, no one knows what the 22-year-old did on his birthday that year. After all, another eclipse, this one a partial eclipse, had occurred over northwest North America at 8:28 pm on Lincoln’s third birthday, February 12, 1812. But for the 1831 total solar eclipse, all that we know for sure is that sometime that year, Lincoln struck out on his own, arriving in New Salem via flatboat and remaining in the village for about six years. The citizens of New Salem first took notice of the lanky fellow when his flatboat became stranded on a nearby milldam in the Sangamon River. A crowd gathered to watch the crew work to free the boat, noticing that Lincoln was obviously in charge. Lincoln directed (and assisted) the other crew members to unload the cargo from the stern which caused the flatboat to free itself from the barrier. Much to the amazement of the gawkers on shore, the flatboat still refused to budge, so Lincoln calmly waded ashore and borrowed an auger from Onstot’s cooper shop. Wading back to the flatboat, auger held high in the sky, Lincoln then drilled a hole in the bow allowing the water to drain out, which caused the flatboat to ease over the dam.

The auger’s owner, Denton Offutt, was so impressed with Lincoln’s handling of the incident, that he offered him a job as a clerk in his store in the flourishing village of New Salem. The store operated from July 1831 to 1832 but the business failed and Offutt moved on. It was at Offutt’s store where the young Lincoln accidentally overcharged a customer six cents (about $1.50 today) and traveled two miles to return the money. Legend states the incident is one of the acts that earned him the nickname “Honest Abe”. It is a great story, but in truth, the fact is that it was Offutt who forced Abe to run those many miles.

One thing is for sure, around the time of the eclipse, Lincoln nearly lost his feet to frostbite. Midwestern Winters can be brutal, especially in February, and the Winter of 1831 in New Salem is remembered as the “deep snow”. According to the book Lincoln Day by Day. A Chronology 1809-1865, in February of 1831, “While crossing Sangamon River, Lincoln breaks through the ice and gets his feet wet. In going two miles to the house of William Warnick he freezes his feet. Mrs. Warnick puts his feet in snow, to take out frostbite, and rubs them with grease.” The “grease” was likely goose grease, skunk oil, or rabbit fat according to the custom of the day. Lincoln recalled the episode with typical humility and humor recalling that he was “comfortably marooned” for weeks in the cabin belonging to Macon County Sheriff William Warnick.

Lincoln was a voracious reader known throughout his young lifetime to travel miles in search of reading material. So, it is at least plausible to imagine that the young rail-splitter may have got ahold of a copy of an American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge to peruse the map of the eclipse found within its pages. Nothing like it had ever been published and it certainly would have been a topic of conversation and focal point of interest by any inquisitive frontier mind.

After all, everyone knew it was coming. The Philadelphia Saturday Bulletin, citing Ash’s Pocket Almanac, proclaimed, “THE GREAT ECLIPSE OF 1831 will be one of the most remarkable to be witnessed in the United States for a long course of years.” Afterward, newspapers proclaimed that “the darkness was such that domestic fowls retired to roost” and “it appeared as if the moon rode unsteadily in her orbit, and the earth seemed to tremble on its axis.” On the day of the eclipse, Americans from the Atlantic seaboard to Galveston Bay cast their eyes toward the heavens in anticipation of this much-ballyhooed celestial event. One diarist saw “men, women, and children … in all directions, with a piece of smoked glass, and eyes turn’d upward.” The Boston Evening Gazette reported that “this part of the world has been all anxiety … to witness the solar eclipse… Business was suspended and thousands of persons were looking at the phenomena with intense curiosity.” “Every person in the city,” noted the Richmond Enquirer, “was star gazing, from bleary-eyed old age to the most bright-eyed infancy.”

**1869 Total Eclipse Waltz Sheet Music.**

**City crowd watching the Great Eclipse.**

The difference with this 1831 was simple. The fears of evil and gloomy predictions of the end of days were mostly absent from big cities. The eclipse was now viewed as a natural atmospheric occurrence aptly explained by science. Rational explanations of atmospheric events, however, offered little solace to many rural Americans. In his book “1831 Year of Eclipse” author Louis P. Masur notes that, “a kind of vague fear, of impending danger-a prophetic presentiment of some approaching catastrophe prevailed” in small towns and “the reasonings of astronomy, or the veritable deductions of mathematical forecast,” did little to diminish the anxiety. One correspondent reported that an “old shoe-black accosted a person in front of our office, the day previous to the eclipse, and asked him if he was not afraid. For, said he, with tears in his eyes, the world is to be destroyed tomorrow; the sun and moon are to meet … and a great earthquake was to swallow us all!—Others said the sun and the earth would come in contact, and the latter would be consumed. Others again, were seen wending their ways to their friends and relations, covered with gloom and sadness; saying that they intended to die with them!”

The day after the eclipse, the world did not end, the sun shone bright again and the eclipse hype subsided. Life returned to normal and newspapers diminished the event, reporting that “The darkness was that of a thunder gust,” and that “The light of the sun was sickly, but shadows were very perceptible.” Edward Everett, a senator from Massachusetts, reported that “a motion was made in the House of Representatives to adjourn over till Monday in consequence of the darkness which was to prevail.” The motion did not pass, and Everett later quipped, “After sitting so frequently when there is darkness inside the House, it would be idle I think to fly before a little darkness on the face of the heavens.” Three decades later, it would be Everett who delivered the speech preceding Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It would be hard to find two more disparate men in February 1831. Everett in the U.S. Senate and Lincoln on the dirt paths of New Salem, Illinois.

Now understood (and survived) eclipses (Solar, Lunar, and partial) would be better understood by the people experiencing them. Just three years later, another total solar eclipse would cross the U.S. territories from Montana to South Carolina, swooping through parts of the American heartland and the South, on Nov. 30, 1834. While in Springfield, Lincoln experienced another annular solar eclipse on February 12, 1850, his 41st birthday. That event began at 5:54 am and lasted 8 minutes and 35 seconds. If Lincoln witnessed the event, he never noted it. What we do know is on that day, another notable American was experiencing the same celestial event on his own special day. For whenever Lincoln experienced an eclipse on his birthday, so did Charles Darwin. Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb.12, 1809, the same day as Charles Darwin.

Next Week: PART III – Abraham Lincoln, the Blood Moon, and History.

Abraham Lincoln, the Blood Moon, and History.
PART III

Original Publish Date April 4, 2024.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/04/04/abraham-lincoln-the-blood-moon-and-history-part-3/

**Butler University’s Physics and Astronomy Professor Brian Murphy.**

While rare, total solar eclipses have been a part of life on this planet for centuries. Ironically, if the Solar System had formed differently, they wouldn’t happen at all. While what Hoosiers will witness on April 8th is real, the truth is, it is a bit of an optical illusion. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon and we are sitting about 400 times further from the Earth, so while the two appear to be the same size in the sky, it’s merely a coincidence. The Moon does not cover the Sun, it only blocks our sightline, causing the moon’s shadow to fall on the Earth’s surface, resulting in temporary darkness during daylight hours. It is a mesmerizing spectacle that has fascinated humans for centuries.

**Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium Butler University Campus.**

Just how rare is a total solar eclipse? To find the answer, I traveled to the JI Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium on the campus of Butler University in search of Physics & Astronomy Professor Brian Murphy. Murphy, who joined the staff in 1993, has been at Holcomb longer than anyone else on campus. He knows the building like the back of his hand. On Tuesday, March 19, Brian invited me and my trusty photographer Rhonda Hunter to the Observatory for a special behind-the-scenes tour. We were in search of the Irvington connection to this upcoming total eclipse event and Professor Murphy was more than happy to lead the way.

In 1888, Butler College built the school’s first observatory while the campus was still located here in Irvington on the east side of Indianapolis. That observatory housed a 6-inch (150 mm) telescope that was purchased from the estate of Robert McKim of Madison, Indiana that year. McKim, born in County Tyrone Ireland on May 25, 1816 (the year of Indiana statehood), was a stonemason by trade who made his money in real estate. His May 13, 1887, obituary stated that he first landed in Philadelphia before moving to Madison, where, “by industry, frugality, and rapid advance in the price of property, he accumulated a large fortune and expended much of it for the public good…He was in every sense a public benefactor.” He died of Bright’s disease at the age of 71 but not before donating $8,000 for the construction and equipping of a new observatory on the campus of DePauw University. That observatory, built in 1884, became known as McKim Observatory, and it still stands today.

The lens for the Holcomb telescope was manufactured by Alvan Clark & Sons in 1883 and was originally part of McKim’s observatory located near his home in Madison. Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts became famous for crafting lenses for some of the largest refracting telescopes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Five times, the firm built the largest refracting telescopes in the world. When Butler moved to the north side of Indianapolis in 1928, the old observatory on the Irvington campus was torn down. Professor Murphy informs me, “I think the concrete foundation still exists in someone’s backyard in Irvington, although I’ve never seen it.” Steve Barnett, Executive Director at the Irvington Historical Society, delineates by saying, “The foundation of the observatory is in the backyard of 214 S. Butler Avenue.”

**The Butler College Observatory on the Irvington campus.**

While the building was razed, the telescope was saved and removed to the new campus where it was occasionally brought out of storage and placed on the roof of Jordan Hall. The telescope was reconditioned in the 1930s and remounted on the new campus, but sat unused until 1945. In 1953, benefactor James Irving Holcomb (1876-1972) and his wife Sarah (1851-1941) gave $325,000 to construct an observatory as the centennial gift to the university. The couple donated more than $ 4 million to the University in total. Holcomb, who began his business with 25 borrowed dollars as a teenager, sold furniture polish on the streets of Indianapolis. His entrepreneurial hopes were dashed when his bottles of polish exploded in the noonday sun. Thus began a lifetime of interest in Astronomy for JI Holcomb. Along with his philanthropic efforts, Holcomb was a director of the Indiana Lincoln Foundation and the Indiana Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission.

**The space-age “Sputnik” satellite hanging above the 14-foot replica of the zodiac inside Holcomb Observatory.**

Professor Murphy points out that Holcomb’s shadow still looms large throughout the building. The first thing one notices upon entering is the lobby, the “showplace” of the building, is the 14-foot replica of the zodiac inset in bright colors on the terrazzo floor. A space-age “Sputnik” satellite chandelier dominates the space above the design and strategically placed spotlights enhance the entire appearance of the lobby. A cantilever stairway of 66 steps, also bearing zodiac and planet signs within the iron handrails, winds upward to the dome and telescope. Along the stairway and on the landings are 20 lighted cases containing images from telescopes and spacecraft. The planetarium is both a laboratory and theater, used to examine celestial objects and follow their motions. In addition to the telescope, the observatory has a clock room displaying times from all over the world, a classroom, and, of course, the planetarium. Murphy explains that the designs were perfected by students from the Herron School of Art and Design. Murphy stands in the center of the Zodiac symbol and proclaims, “This is my favorite spot on campus. You can see all the way to the stoplights at 38th Street.” The front door view glides past the greenspaces of the North Mall, Norris Plaza, and the South Mall. Murphy explains, “Mr. Holcomb specifically requested this view as the center of campus.”

I asked about the plans for the upcoming eclipse at Butler. “We’ve canceled classes for the day and expect about 3,000 people to visit. We will close Sunset Avenue in front of the Observatory and will have telescopes set up all over the greenspaces out front for people to look through.” Murphy continues, “We’re free because we are for the public. Park at Hinkle Fieldhouse or in the Clowes Hall garage and walk over. It is a short walk.” He explains, that the observatory will be open that day from noon to nine o’clock, but “We’ll close for awhile before 3:00 so we can all go out and look at the eclipse. We encourage everyone to get outdoors and see it.” Butler has doubled the number of tours for eclipse weekend, “We had 900 people last weekend, so get reservations!” The professor states specifically, “Irvington is in the path of totality. 2017 was the last big deal but it was only a partial eclipse. This is a total solar eclipse. A partial eclipse, even if it is 99%, is nothing like a total eclipse.”

**Professor Brian Murphy in front of Holcomb Observatory.**

Professor Murphy’s eyes light up as he explains, “Every state will have a partial eclipse, but we are right in the middle of the path of totality. The eclipse will begin around 3:05 pm on April 8, 2024, and it will last about 3 minutes and 45 seconds. We expect to have media from all over the world here including scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research from Boulder Colorado.” Murphy is quick to warn, “Do not stare at the sun and absolutely no binoculars! I think everyone knows that, but still. We will have eclipse glasses here for the public for $2 a pair. There will be a big cheer when it first occurs. The only time you can stare at the sun is during totality. Then, take off your glasses for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. You’ll be able to see the Diamond Ring effect in its last stages and the orange glow of the horizon. The temperature will drop 10 degrees, the birds will roost, bugs will chirp, and animals will get confused. We expect to get all of the Chicago people, and I hope a lot of families since Butler has a strict no alcohol policy, we’re very family friendly.”

As we ascend the 66 steps up to the observatory, Professor Murphy points out many more of the hidden architectural elements of the building. “It was built in 1953 / 1954 on this hill on the north end of the campus. When I started here in 1993, it was still stuck in the 1950s. Frozen in time. I wanted it to retain its 1950s look but bring it up to date in function.” As we reached the top of the stairway we were encouraged to look down at the mosaic on the floor and see how the lights interact with it. The professor opens the door to the observatory to reveal the gem of the building: the Telescope. Murphy states, “Looks like something out of a 1950s Sci-Fi movie doesn’t it?” And indeed, the apparatus would make any steampunk aficionado drool. The metal dome reveals a triangular aperture that opens and closes at will, spinning towards any celestial waymark one’s heart might desire. In October of 1954, a 38-inch (970 mm) reflecting telescope was installed here by J. W. Fecker, Inc. The telescope was, and still is, the largest in the state of Indiana. Murphy notes, “The observatory’s wooden dome was replaced with its current aluminum dome in the early 1980s. The telescope itself was refurbished in 1995 by AB Engineering of Fort Wayne at a cost of approximately $120,000.”

The giant erector set is topped by two telescopes controlled by 16 or 18 motors and is powered by a $60,000 mirror. The smaller Irvington telescope rides piggyback atop the larger, more modern scope. Murphy states, “For my first five years, I had to spin the telescope around by hand with a crank. Sometime around 1997-98, we reset it to computer ops, everything is automated now.” As he circles the black metal skeleton, Murphy points to a shiny steel bolt that looks oddly out of time, “That was a problem. The original bolt sheared off and we had no idea how to fix it. One of our students went down to Sullivan’s Hardware, picked up a five-dollar bolt, and solved the problem. Sometimes we forget the simple stuff.” Updated, but still ancient-looking celestial charts line the walls of the upper chamber and Murphy assures me they are integral to the operation to this day.

Professor Murphy states with a smile, “Your readers will like to hear that the Irvington lens is in use every night. Since it has a smaller scope, it is used to pinpoint stars and planets for better detail. The lens is worth at least $10,000, but it is always available for use by our guests free of charge.” We make our way back down to the lobby and as we stand on the sunspot mosaic, Murphy reveals a chilling discovery. “I learned that in the late-1970s / early-1980s, the building was scheduled to be torn down and the telescope was to be sold to Ball State University. Luckily that never happened.” Professor Murphy further reveals, “This eclipse will be my last official event here at Butler, I am retiring. My last day is August 15th, 2024.” So with that revelation, I urge all Irvingtonians to make the short trip to the campus observatory and spend a little time with Professor Murphy. When I ask if he will remain connected to the observatory after his retirement, he smiles and replies, “Well, I’m not giving back my keys.”

ABA-American Basketball Association, Black History, Indianapolis, Sports

The Dust Bowl Indianapolis Indiana.

February 9, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Published November 14, 2024.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/11/14/the-dust-bowl/

This column first appeared on March 9, 2012.

https://www.digitalindy.org/digital/collection/twv/id/2583/rec/145

**Oscar Robertson Crispus Attucks High School.**

It cannot be denied that Basketball is connected to our state like a child to its mother. Whether you played it, watched it, or avoided it, you cannot deny that basketball is what Indiana is known for. Go ahead and make your argument for the Indy 500, but you can’t play Indy 500 in your driveway in the pouring rain or by the light of the moon.

For most Hoosiers, basketball conjures up images of Bobby Plump sinking a last-second jumper, Reggie Miller raining 3-pointers from never-never land, or Neto, Roger, Mel, Freddie, Big Mac, Dr. Dunk, and Billy tearing through opponents toward another ABA title. Still, others believe that Indiana basketball is best defined by the greatest all-around pre-Michael Jordan player to ever lace up a pair of Chuck Taylors, Oscar “The Big O” Robertson.

**Crispus Attucks High School State Champion Basketball Team.**

Any Hoosier basketball fan recalls those great Robertson-led Crispus Attucks high school teams that won back-to-back state championships in 1955 and 1956. For those readers unfamiliar with Crispus Attucks, it was the only all-black high school in Indianapolis. That 1955 team gained fame by becoming the first all-black school in the nation to win a state title as well as becoming the city of Indianapolis’ first state champion. Robertson led Crispus Attucks to another championship in 1956 and became the first Indiana high school team to complete an entire season undefeated. Okay, okay, you remember all that. But do you remember the Dust Bowl?

**1980 image of Lockefield Gardens looking south. The Dust Bowl would have been near the top and center of this image at the south end of Lockefield** Image Courtesy IUPUI University Archives.

In the 1950s, the city had THE toughest basketball proving ground in the country, known as “The Dust Bowl.” Located near Indiana Avenue in Lockefield Gardens (the first public housing project in the city built by the WPA in the 1930s), it was a makeshift basketball court carved out of a flat, grassless vacant lot. It earned it’s colorful nickname due to the huge dust clouds that would kick up every afternoon at 3 p.m. The brown cloud would envelop the area in a thick choking blanket of fine windswept dirt. The failed social experiment known as Lockefield Gardens consisted of a 748-unit housing project bounded on the north by Indiana Avenue, on the south by North Street, on the east by Blake Street, and on the west by Locke Street. During the dark days of segregation, it was home to many poor black and minority families. Today, much of the area is part of the IUPUI campus.

When no regulation basketball could be had, kids flocked to the court with tightly wound socks in place of a real basketball. Because Robertson’s family could not afford a basketball, he developed his shot by tossing tennis balls and rubber band bound rags into a peach basket behind his family’s home. This temporarily packed earth court would spawn the prototype player for a new breed of urban hoopsters. Until this era, basketball in Indiana was mostly the domain of rural, white farm boys shooting from grass surfaced courts at metal hoops nailed to the sides of barns. The Dust Bowl changed all that and a more innovative, fast paced aggressive game was born. It was here that future high school all-star, College All-American and NBA MVP Oscar Robertson learned to play the game. The Big O would change the sport, and race relations in his home city, forever.

Although undoubtedly a painful memory for Hoosiers of that era, Robertson and his Crispus Attucks teammates broke down the “air of superiority” that most white hoops fans felt towards their all-black school opposition. There was a feeling that Attucks could never compete with traditional white dominated powerhouse teams from Muncie, Evansville and Ft. Wayne. Keep in mind, the tiny Milan team led by Bobby Plump had won the state championship the year before in 1954, ending the small schools versus big schools argument. (Robertson played on the Attucks team that Milan beat in the state semi-finals that year.) Now Attucks came along to break the color barrier.

But it all started at the Dust Bowl. The rules were simple; winners stayed, losers walked. Robertson’s relationship with the Dust Bowl started early. Born on November 24, 1938, in Charlotte, Tennessee, he moved with his family to Indianapolis when he was four and took up basketball at the age of 6. He was too young and too small to do anything but watch the older, bigger kids take to the court to battle each other from the late afternoon into darkness of night. So he played during the only time allowed him, every day after school from 3 to 5:30 p.m. when the big kids started to make their way over. The court was vacant because of the dust clouds and the heat of the late afternoon sun. If he was lucky, he could retake the court in the darkness hours after most of the players had gone home. The Big O’s routine continued for several summers, watching, working and waiting for his chance to play.

The older players that dominated the Lockefield Gardens courts were well known by area residents. They developed natural cliques and often teamed up together. These cliques were very hard to penetrate. It was considered a high honor to be asked to substitute into these scrimmages, if only for a few plays. While still in junior high, Robertson learned to make the most of these rare opportunities and by the summer before his freshman year, he was fast becoming a Dust Bowl fixture during the evening’s main games.

**Robertson at Crispus Attucks High School, Aug. 13, 1958.**
George Tilford/IndyStar File Photo.

The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Robertson led his teams to two high school state championships, two final fours at the University of Cincinnati, a Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics, and one NBA Championship in the 1970-71 season. His pro career included a league MVP award, 12 All-Star appearances, and 11 appearances on the elite All-NBA Team in just 14 professional seasons. He remains the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season. But in our city, he is remembered most for the feats he accomplished at the Dust Bowl.

*Winners of the Douglass Park Dustbowl Tourney, 1966*.
**Credit:** Indianapolis Recorder Collection, Indiana Historical Society

For the quarter century following the Big O’s departure from Indianapolis, although the Lockefield Gardens complex was demolished in 1976, the Dust Bowl remained a Hoosier city hoops hotspot until IUPUI took over the property in 1983. The legend of Oscar Robertson grew and his shadow cast influence over every game played thereafter. Robertson’s time spent at the Dust Bowl was the most productive of his accomplished life. It was there that he learned to play the game that would change the Hoosier landscape forever.

For his outstanding achievements, Robertson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980 and was voted one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. The United States Basketball Writers Association renamed their college Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor in 1998, and he was one of five people chosen to represent the inaugural National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame class in 2006. After the 1983 demolitions, only the units along Blake Street and Locke Street (now University Boulevard), remained. The remaining structures were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, there are Dust Bowl residents who can recall how Oscar’s mom used to yank him off the darkened court near midnight. Neighbors remember the echoes of the solitary bounce of a basketball like a clock in the nighttime, keeping them from sleeping. Invariably, upon investigation, young Oscar would be found out on the court alone, practicing; always practicing. A rumor persists to this day that if it got too late, residents of the Dust Bowl would shoot BB guns at the backboard; a signal that it was time for Oscar to go home.

Health & Medicine, Hollywood, Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture, Television

Warren Zevon — Accidentally Like a Martyr.

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Publish Date September 12, 2024. This column first appeared in August 2013.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/09/12/warren-zevon-accidently-like-a-martyr-2/

It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since Warren Zevon died. If the name is not familiar to you, his songs might be: “Werewolves of London,” “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” or “Lawyers, Guns and Money” should ring a bell. Zevon was considered the rock star’s rock star, known for his songwriting talents in songs that showcased his quirky, sardonic wit in the dark humor of his ballads. Rock ‘n’ roll royalty like Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young praised his talents and called him friend. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 24, 1947, he became the quintessential West Coast rocker, literally living the LA lifestyle right up until his death on September 7, 2003.

It’s easy to figure out why musicians thought Warren Zevon was so cool. From his earliest days, his personal pedigree made Warren unique and different. Zevon was the son of Beverly and William Zevon. His mother was from a Mormon family and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Russia whose original surname was “Zivotovsky.” William was a bookie who handled volume bets and dice games for notorious Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. Known as Stumpy Zevon in Cohen’s employ, he was best man at Mickey’s first marriage and worked for him for years.

**Warren William Zevon was born on January 24, 1947.**

The family moved to Fresno, California when Warren was 13 years old. His British-born mother insisted that Warren take piano lessons. So Zevon started taking his lessons at the home of Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-American composer, pianist and conductor widely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. There, Warren briefly studied modern classical music, alongside future American conductor Robert Craft. Zevon’s parents divorced when he was 16 years old and he soon quit high school and moved from Los Angeles to New York to become a folk singer.

Zevon got his first taste of success with the song “Follow Me” as the male component of a musical coed duo called Lyme & Cybelle. He left the duo, citing artistic differences, and spent time as a session musician and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for the Turtles and another early composition (“She Quit Me”) was included in the soundtrack for the film Midnight Cowboy (1969). Zevon’s first attempt at a solo album, Wanted Dead or Alive (1969), was well-received but did not sell well. Zevon’s second effort, Leaf in the Wind, went unreleased.

During the early 1970s, Zevon led the touring band for the Everly Brothers, serving as both keyboard player and band leader/musical coordinator. In the latter role Zevon became the first to recognize the talents of guitar player Lindsey Buckingham by hiring him for the band. It was during his time with the Everlys that Lindsey and girlfriend Stevie Nicks left to join Fleetwood Mac. Warren Zevon was a roommate of the famous duo in a Fairfax district apartment in Los Angeles at the time (September 1975). Zevon would remain friends with both for the rest of his life maintaining neutrality during the tumultuous breakups of both the Everly Brothers and Buckingham-Nicks.

In late 1975, Zevon collaborated with Jackson Browne, who produced and promoted Zevon’s self-titled major-label debut in 1976. Contributors to this album included Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Carl Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt. This first album, although only a modest commercial success, was later recognized by Rolling Stone magazine as a masterpiece. Although Zevon shared a grounding in earlier folk and country influences with his LA peers, this album brought Zevon to the forefront as a much darker and more ironic songwriter than other leading figures of the era’s L.A.-based singer-songwriter movement. Rolling Stone placed Zevon alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen as one of the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade of the 1970s.

In 1978, Zevon released Excitable Boy to critical acclaim and popular success. This album received heavy FM airplay mostly through the release of the single “Werewolves of London,” featuring Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood on bass and John McVie on drums. The song is considered a classic and has been covered by artists ranging from the Grateful Dead to Bob Dylan to comedian Adam Sandler. The song has become a Halloween season staple. For all you trivia buffs out there, The Chinese restaurant mentioned in the song (Lee Ho Fook) is a real location situated on Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown.

**Zevon & Billy Bob Thornton on set of Dwight Yoakam’s 2000 western “South of Heaven, West of Hell”**.

Although Zevon never again achieved popular acclaim, he continued to be recognized as an artist’s artist, releasing nine more albums over the next 25 years. It was during that quarter-century that Zevon lapsed in and out of the throes of excess, obsession, and addiction. To say that Warren Zevon suffered from excessive compulsion disorder would be a severe understatement. Warren had a continuing battle with drug addiction and alcoholism and was also a sex addict obsessed with the color gray and personal fame, or lack thereof. During this time, he and actor Billy Bob Thornton formed a close friendship galvanized by a shared obsessive-compulsive disorder and the fact they were neighbors living in the same apartment building.

One of Zevon’s compulsions was collecting identical Calvin Klein T-shirts. Like everything else in his life (his car, his couch, his carpeting and wall paint), the T-shirts were gray. One story relates how Warren insisted upon traveling to every department store carrying Calvin Klein T-shirts while touring on the road. If the store carried Warren’s prized Gray Calvin Klein t-shirt, Warren obsessively purchased every one of them and stowed them in the tour bus. When asked why, Warren replied that the new ones were being made in China and that those still on the shelf had been made in the USA and were “sure to become collector’s items and go up in value.” When he died at age 56, thousands of gray Calvin Klein t-shirts were found in his LA apartment; unopened in their original packaging.

**From left to right: Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, James McBride, Amy Tan, Kathy Kamin Goldmark , Dave Barry, Matt Groening**

A voracious reader, Zevon was friendly with several well-known writers who also collaborated on his songwriting during this period, including gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Hiaasen, Mitch Albom, Norman Mailer, and Maya Angelou. Zevon served as musical coordinator and occasional guitarist for an ad-hoc rock music group called the Rock Bottom Remainders, a collection of writers performing rock and roll standards at book fairs and other events. This group included Stephen King, Dave Barry, Matt Groening, and Amy Tan, among other popular writers.

Zevon cemented his superstar status by appearing in various TV shows and movies during his career, most often playing himself. Zevon played himself on two episodes of Suddenly Susan in 1999 along with singer/actor Rick Springfield. Warren also appeared as himself on the Larry Sanders Show on HBO, alongside actor John Ritter as talk show guests in the same episode. Ironically, Zevon and Ritter would die within four days of each other.

Although highly intelligent, well-read, and obsessive-compulsive in every way, Zevon had a lifelong phobia of doctors. Shortly before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and developed a chronic cough. After a period of suffering with pain and shortness of breath, while on a visit to his dentist, Zevon was ordered under threat of kidnapping to see a physician. A lifelong smoker, he was subsequently diagnosed with inoperable peritoneal mesothelioma (cancer of the abdominal lining commonly associated with asbestos exposure). Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him, Zevon instead began recording his final album, The Wind, which includes guest appearances by close friends Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmidt, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, and Dwight Yoakam, among others.

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” as his introduction. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman’s television shows since Late Night was first broadcast in 1982. He noted, “I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years.” It was during this broadcast that, when asked by Letterman if he knew something more about life and death now, he first offered his oft-quoted insight on dying: “Enjoy every sandwich.” He took time to thank Letterman for his years of support, calling him “the best friend my music’s ever had.” For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” at Letterman’s request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: “Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it.”

Zevon was given only a few months to live after that fall of 2002 diagnosis; however, he lived to see the birth of twin grandsons in June 2003 and the release of The Wind on August 26, 2003. The album reached number 12 on the U.S. charts, Zevon’s highest placement since Excitable Boy. When his diagnosis became public, Zevon told the media that he just hoped to live long enough to see the next James Bond movie, a goal he accomplished. The Wind was certified gold in December 2003, just weeks after Zevon’s death, and Warren received five Grammy nominations, winning two posthumous Grammys, the first of his career.

I have a brief personal connection to Warren Zevon. I interviewed him in the pre-holiday winter of 1988 after a concert at the Vogue in Broad Ripple. Zevon was touring with a patchwork band that included Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles. He performed all of his expected hits along with a couple covers. I specifically remember an unforgettable version of the Tom Jones standard “What’s New Pussycat?” as well as the Eagles former bass player Schmidt performing his signature song, “I Can’t Tell You Why.”

See if you can pick out Warren Zevon in this clip from the movie…Don’t blink!

After the show, I was led through the music hall to the back of the Vogue and told to wait. Meantime, out walked Schmidt and the rest of the band. Soon, Warren Zevon emerged. With his long blonde curls and John Lennon glasses, he looked more like a professor than a rock star. He maintained a constant smile throughout our session. Luckily, I struck a positive nerve by remarking that I had recognized him from his brief appearance during the closing credits of the 1988 Kevin Bacon film, She’s Having a Baby. Zevon leapt from his perch atop the bumper of his band’s equipment truck and began calling to his bandmates, “Hey guys, he saw me in the movie! I told you I was in it.” His band mates shrugged, but Warren thanked me for confirming what had until then, been just a rumor. As I recall, Zevon’s only word spoken in the film came in the naming the baby segment when he offered the name “Igor”.

**My autographed copy of Excitable Boy from that Vogue encounter.**

I really can’t remember much of the encounter after that. I do remember Warren signed my copy of Excitable Boy and the interior paper cassette tape insert for A Quiet Normal Life, relics I still have. But the rest is a blur. There is a more important residual incident connected to that incident. That was the same night that my future wife Rhonda agreed to go out on our first date. Yep, I took her to a Sam Kinison comedy show at the old Indianapolis Tennis Center. Romantic huh?

**My signed ticket stub from that night.**

Two decades after that first date, Rhonda bought me the book, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon written and compiled by Zevon’s ex-wife Crystal Zevon (published in 2007 by Ecco Books). The book tore down every “nice guy” image I ever had of Warren Zevon, telling his life story through interviews with those who knew him. I walked away from it thinking “Wow, they had a real hard time finding anything nice to say about this guy.” The book has been described as being “notable for its unvarnished portrayal of Zevon.” Only later did I realize the book was written this way at Warren Zevon’s own request. As the words to Zevon’s song “It ain’t that pretty at all” bounce around in my head, I must say that I am not surprised or disappointed.

Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture

“PeeWee the Piccolo” born in Indianapolis

February 6, 2025February 7, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date January 30, 2025.

https://weeklyview.net/2025/01/30/peewee-the-piccolo-born-in-indianapolis/

Okay all you Irvington audiophiles, quick, name the first song ever released on a 45 record. If you said it was the “Texarkana Baby” by Eddy Arnold, pat yourself on the back for remembering that lost gem. But you’re wrong. The first commercial 45rpm was “PeeWee the Piccolo” by Russ Case and his Orchestra on RCA Victor records (#47-0146 and b-side #47-0147) released on Feb. 1st, 1949. And it was born right here on the eastside of Indianapolis. Ironically Russ Case (1912-1964), a trumpet player and bandleader, led a few jazz and light music orchestras, including Eddy Arnold’s.

**RCA Magazine ad for their new 45 record player.**

RCA introduced the 45 rpm single to the world on December 7th, 1948 (seven years to the day after the Pearl Harbor attack), at the Sherman Avenue plant in Indianapolis. The confusion among the public comes from the fact that RCA released several commercial 45 singles on March 31st, 1949, including Arnold’s “Texarkana Baby.” The irony is that while “Pee Wee the Piccolo” is largely forgotten, “Texarkana Baby” topped Billboard’s country chart for three weeks, reaching #18 on the Best Selling Popular Retail Records chart. And it was the b-side of the single for Arnold’s standard hit “Bouquet of Roses.”

Pee Wee The Piccolo record.

“Pee-Wee The Piccolo” is a children’s record narrated by Academy Award winner Paul Wing (1892-1957). Wing was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942, survived the Bataan Death March, and was held prisoner in the World War II prisoner of war camp portrayed in the 2005 film The Great Raid. “Pee-Wee The Piccolo” was written by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, who also created Tubby The Tuba. RCA color-coded their singles, pressing children’s 45-rpm records on yellow vinyl, popular music on black vinyl, country on green vinyl, classical on red vinyl, instrumental music on blue vinyl, and R&B and gospel on orange vinyl, international music was light blue, and musicals midnight blue. Eventually, they would all be pressed in black.

The 45′s tie-in to World War II is not without purpose. The 45 rpm single can trace its earliest origins to that conflict. Like many fields, World War II put a major dent in the music industry. Most homefront record and phonograph makers retooled their factories for the manufacture of products for the war effort. A wartime blockade stopped the import of shellac, the material from which .78 records were made. With that supply cut off, manufacturers scrambled for a new material to make records. The industry had been experimenting with synthetic PVC (polyvinyl chloride) since the 1930s, but it was more expensive to produce than shellac. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) engineers realized that PVC’s material properties meant that a vinyl record could be made thinner and stronger than a shellac record and that the grooves could be cut thinner, allowing more music to fit on each side. More music meant more money, outweighing the cost of the more expensive material. So the 33 rpm format was born.

Around September of ’48, William Paley at CBS offered RCA’s David Sarnoff the rights to the 33 technology at no cost. Paley thought that sharing his secret with his chief competitor would help boost the 33 format record sales for both companies. Sarnoff adroitly thanked Paley and told him he would think about it. Paley hadn’t realized that RCA had already perfected it’s secret 45 project. Paley was shocked and CBS miffed when RCA rolled out the 45 a few months later. The 45 rpm record became RCA’s answer to Columbia’s 33 1/3 rpm long-playing disc. The two systems directly competed with each other to replace 78 rpm records, bewildering consumers, and causing a drop in record sales. In media the period from ’49 to ’51 was referred to as “the war of the speeds” years.

A myth persists that the single’s designation of “45″ came from subtracting Columbia’s new 33 rpm format speed from the old 78: equaling 45. According to “Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record” by Richard Osborne, “the speed was based upon calculations made by the best balance between playing time and signal-to-noise ratio given by a groove density of 3 minutes per radial inch, and also that the innermost groove of a disc should be half the diameter of the outermost groove. Given the 6 7/8 diameter of the record it was found that 45 rpm provided the desired playing time within the designated bandwidth.” No wonder the 78 minus 33 urban legend remains so persistent — it’s easier to remember.

**The sprawling campus of RCA at Michigan & Sherman.**

Engineers from both companies had been working on a replacement for the 78 since before the war, experimenting with speeds ranging from 30 to 50 RPM. They were balancing the playing time (5 minutes – the same as a 12″ 78) with disk diameter, to get the most compact format that would have a surface velocity and lack of “pinch effect” so that the sound would not degrade as the stylus reached the inner diameter. In fact, for all but the outer inch or so, the 45 has a higher surface velocity than a 12″ LP. Both Edison and Victor had tried to introduce long-playing records in the 1920s and failed. In 1949 Capitol and Decca started issuing the new LP format, and RCA relented and issued its first LP in January 1950. While the LP could comfortably hold a large selection of music on each side, the 45, with its large central hole, worked better on automatic changers (like jukeboxes).

However the 45 rpm was gaining in popularity, and Columbia issued its first 45s in February 1951. Soon, other record companies saw the mass consumer appeal the new format allowed. By 1954 more than 200 million 45s had been sold. According to the New York Times, the peak year for the seven-inch single was 1974, when 250 million were sold. In the end, the war of the speeds ended without a decisive winner. By the early Eighties, the 45 began dying a slow, humiliating death. The number of jukeboxes in the country declined, stadium rock fans increasingly gravitated toward albums, and the cassette format (and even the wasteful “cassette single” and “mini-CD” format) began overtaking vinyl 45s.

Like most people my age, I fell in love with 45s in the early 1970s. Mostly because they fit into my limited allowance budget as a kid. That was, until about 1975 when the companies all raised the price of a 45 from $0.99 to $1.49! Then I had to be choosy. In most cases, the best song from an album would make it onto the 45 and, if I was lucky, there could be a b-side that was an unexpected bonus, sometimes a song not even on the album. Bingo, bonus track! Many of those 45s were made right here in Indianapolis. What’s more, back in the late 1960s/early 1970s it seemed like everyone in my family worked at that RCA plant on Sherman Ave. I remember that Mom and Dad got to pick out 2 or 3 free records every quarter, so I had a leg up on the competition (my sisters).

**The R.C.A. manufacturing plant located at 3324 East Michigan Street.** Courtesy Indiana State Library Photograph Collections.

Built in the 1920s, the RCA plant on the near eastside was a massive site that, during its heyday in the 1950s, employed over 8,000 people. RCA featured over 20 buildings on its 50-acre site, and aside from making records, the plant produced electronics like televisions, stereos, and radios. A gradual decline in business began in the 1970s, eventually leading to RCA being sold to GE in 1986. The Sherman Ave. plant operated for a few more years before closing in 1995. A heavy machinery and storage company operated in a small portion of the plant and a recycling nonprofit operated in the main building along Michigan St. for years before leaving in 2012. The RCA Sherman Plant was ultimately demolished in late January/early February 2017.

**Elvis Presley on stage at Market Square Arena 8.30pm June 26, 1977.**

Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton were two of the bigger names that toured the plant, although many bands and artists made the trip to the RCA plant to see how their records were made. One of the more famous records made there was Elvis Presley’s “Moody Blue” record, a special presentation copy of which was given to Elvis during his final concert at Market Square Arena on June 26, 1977. As it happens, the stage where Elvis stood when he received that gold record now rests inside the Irving Theatre.

Dad, who was trained as a draftsman in the service, worked in the relatively new computer processing area at the Sherman Ave. facility. He would take a sweater or zipper-pull fleece with him every day regardless of the season because back then the computers ran pretty hot and the room was kept so cold. They let employees smoke back in those days in the computer room and Dad smoked a pipe. I remember he worked with IBM cards back then. Those punchcards sorted all the info for the RCA record club members, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

**Nipper “His Master’s Voice”in wrecked interior of the abandoned RCA factory**.

My father lived for many years across the street from the plant on Sherman Avenue. He relished the idea of walking to and from work and eating lunches at home. The plant was an awesome sight to see when it was still standing. After it was vacated in the early 2000s, it became the largest abandoned place in Indy (besides the coke plant). There were some reminders of its former life throughout the building (the RCA dog could still be found in the main building) and leftover remnants from the other companies that operated there.

During those derelict years, I may (or may not) have surreptitiously ventured into the empty building. It was pretty sketch back then and you were likely to run into other people, mostly vagrants, scrappers, and other neighborhood kids. The attics had catwalks from which one could access various rooms/areas throughout the building via small doors. I remember one door in the back of the men’s room. There were muddy raccoon footprints all over the bathroom tile floors: proof that the critters would come in at night to drink out of the toilets. Some rooms were lined with meshed steel Faraday cages. The level beneath the main offices had large mounds of dirt reportedly earmarked for a BMX track that never materialized. When Thomson Consumer Electronics moved north to their new sparkling aqua green and blue paneled building at I-465 and Meridian, RCA left a ton of office furniture and obsolete audio-visual equipment behind in the building.

My dad worked in that building for over three decades. He died in 1997 just months away from retirement. My grandparents and my mother worked there in the 1960s. And it was in that lobby where I saw my stepmother Bonnie for the last time in 1997 before she left for Tennessee never to return. Back then RCA had a notary public in residence just inside the door. Tens of thousands of Hoosiers worked at that plant during its 75-year lifespan. Now, the vacant space is just a large patch of overgrown weeds and wild grass. My dad’s house sits empty, the doors and windows boarded up. Life goes on, the world still turns, and soon anyone with memories of working in that plant will fade away as well. Like phone booths, inspection stations, long-distance operators, and most of the products made in that building, RCA is just a distant memory now.