Browsing by Subject "Historic Preservation"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Fort Benjamin Harrison: From Military Base to Indiana State Park
    (2020-04) Hankins, Melanie Barbara; Scarpino, Philip V.; Shrum, Rebecca K.; Morgan, Anita
    For nearly a hundred years, Fort Benjamin Harrison served as an epicenter of training and organization for United States Army in Indianapolis, Indiana. However, budget cuts pushed the U.S. Congress to close Fort Harrison under the Defense Base Re-Alignment and Closure Act of 1991. Over the following five years, the U.S. federal government, various Indiana state agencies, city governments of Indianapolis and Lawrence, and citizen advocacy groups worked together to develop a reuse plan for the former military base. Succinct planning and compromises allowed 70 percent of the former military base to be converted into an Indiana state park. Over the lifetime of the base a variety of factors resulted in the unintended creation of the largest noncontiguous forest in Central Indiana ---an area perfectly suited as an Indiana state park. As Fort Benjamin Harrison enters its second decade as a state park, park staff must reevaluate the park’s military past and its effects on the land as it is today. This thesis examines the transitional years between the closure of the base and opening of the park, analyzes current interpretive practices at the park, and provides new suggestions for future public programming and interpretive practices.
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    “This Great Building Belongs To Everyone”: Interrogating Claims About Inclusiveness and Exploring the Role of Nostalgia in the 1970s and 1980s Historic Preservation Movement at Union Station in Indianapolis, Indiana
    (2022-05) Butterworth, Alexis Victoria; Shrum, Rebecca K.; Scarpino, Philip V.; Rowe, Stephanie
    Union Station is a unique historic building in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The station, which first opened in 1853, has connected the history of the evolution of travel and the city of Indianapolis and, in the late twentieth century, became deeply embedded in local conversations about national issues at the intersection of race, historic preservation, and urban renewal. The station was a place of Black exclusion from public spaces throughout its existence, first as a train station, and later when it was repurposed as a Festival Marketplace. In preparation for the opening of the Festival Marketplace in the 1980s—complete with shops, restaurants, and a hotel—the developers invited people to write to them to preserve personal memories of experiences at the station from the era of train travel. Indiana residents, both white and Black, as well as Indianapolis city officials, and redevelopers of the station showed nostalgia for earlier eras when the station was active. This nostalgia, I argue, played an active and productive role in the process of saving Union Station. Importantly, those who contributed a letter to the “Remember Union Station” project were overwhelmingly white. Out of eighty-six letters, the race of seventy-three of them can be confirmed. Of those eighty-six, only two have been identified as Black. The two Black letter writers used the opportunity to contribute to the “Remember Union Station” campaign as a means to remember and claim the right to belong in Union Station for themselves, their families, and Black communities. As this project shows, the Indianapolis Union Station has always been more than just a building. It is a space that captures a part of the complex history of the city of Indianapolis and can hopefully provide more links to the past, present, and future for Hoosiers and visitors alike.
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    To market, to market: a history and interpretation of the Indianapolis City Market, 1821-2014
    (2017) McCune, Callie Anne; Shrum, Rebecca K.
    Since the city’s founding in 1821, Indianapolis has hosted a public market, situated on Market Street, between Delaware and Alabama Streets. The City Market served as an economic engine for Indianapolis, connecting rural farmers with urban communities and providing business-venture opportunities for a growing immigrant population. This thesis examines the evolution of the City Market’s historic and cultural importance in the urban landscape of Indianapolis through three critical periods. This study, moves chronologically through the building’s historical development from inception to reinvention in the modern era. Peeling back the layers of City Market history reveals the dynamic needs of the city, a colorful reflection of urban economic life. The final chapter suggests feasible ways to incorporate this building’s robust and colorful past into the space through proposed interpretation.