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Thanks to an
early nineteenth-century influx of northward
migrants, much of INDIANA still
displays vestiges of the easygoing South.
Among these early settlers was the family of
Abraham Lincoln, who set up home near the
present village of Santa Claus in 1816 and
stayed for fourteen years before moving to
Illinois. Unlike the abolitionist Lincolns,
many brought slaves to this new territory;
Indiana allowed a system of “voluntary
servitude” to operate right up to 1843. At
the outbreak of the Civil War, thousands of
ex-Southerners rioted against the draft, in
part expressing a concern that Indiana was
every bit as subservient to the northeast as
Deep South slaves were to their masters.
However, since the 1870s, industrialization
has integrated Indiana into the regional
economy.
Despite some beautiful dunes and beaches,
the most lasting memories provided by
Indiana’s fifty-mile lakeshore (by
far the shortest of the Great Lake states)
are of the grimy steel mills and
poverty-stricken neighborhoods of towns like
Gary and East Chicago.
Elsewhere, the state holds only a few
landmarks of interest to travelers. In
northern Indiana, the area in and around Elkhart
and Goshen is among the nation’s
largest Amish settlements. The
central plains are characterized by small
market towns, except for the sprawling
capital, Indianapolis, which has
brightened up its downtown in recent years
to the point that it’s not a bad stopover.
Hilly southern Indiana, at its most
appealing in the fall, is a welcome contrast
to the central cornbelt, boasting several
quaint towns such as Vincennes, Madison
and Corydon. Thriving Columbus
exhibits a great array of contemporary
architecture for such a small city, and
former resort town West Baden Springs
is restoring the elegant hotel that made it
famous.
Dozens of explanations have been offered
as to why Indianans are called “Hoosiers”;
the most believable is that its use spread
from the days of the Ohio Falls Canal
construction in the 1820s, when a
contractor, Samuel Hoosier, gave employment
preference to those living on the Indiana
side of the Ohio River.
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