Indiana Historical Society

The arrival of the first train in Indianapolis, on 1 October 1847, was occasion for great celebration. Although most of the townspeople had never seen a railroad or a locomotive before, yet alone comprehend speeds of twenty miles an hour, there had been much anticipation. And most of the people turned out to see the first train of the Madison and Indianapolis Rail Road steam into town. Some even took an excursion on it to Franklin, Indiana, and back.

Spalding’s Circus was in Indianapolis that day, and the whole troupe, with the band of the celebrated bugler Ned Kendall, along with a company of cavalry, participated in a parade celebrating the arrival of the railroad. Gov. James Whitcomb made a speech from the top of a railroad car, and then people headed for the hotels “up town” for dinner. That evening there were fireworks and a “general good time.”

In 1847 Indianapolis was a wilderness village of about four thousand hardworking settlers. Settled in 1820, the town became the permanent state capital in 1825. Indianapolis, however, lacked any navigable rivers and, thus, easy access to the outside world. The Madison and Indianapolis Rail Road (later the Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis) provided that access, prompting historian W. R. Holloway to write:

In the three years after the arrival of the railroad, the population more than doubled, to 8,100. And by 1852, when work began on the town’s—and the nation’s—first Union Depot, Indianapolis had 10,800 inhabitants.

The National Road, which cut through the city a few years ahead of the railroad, and the other roads were little more than marked trails through the woods with the largest trees and stumps removed. In wet weather roads were almost impassable. In addition, Holloway wrote, the National Road “became a thoroughfare for emigration to the Mississippi and beyond, but it left here little of the deposit that was borne along by its current. It was a vast deal for the West but not much for Indianapolis.”

There had been a lot of interest in railroads in Indiana for several years, and in 1831 the state chartered companies to build six railroads to center at Indianapolis but did not provide funds for construction. However, in the economic condition of the country at the time, there would have been no profitable use for them all. Therefore, nothing much happened. In 1836 the state took over several of the railroad companies and tried to open the state to commerce through a massive internal improvement project of railroads, canals, and turnpikes. Three years later the state went bankrupt under the load.

By that time, the Madison and Indianapolis Rail Road had been completed from Madison, on the Ohio River, to Vernon, twenty miles to the north. And the railroad was operated by the state’s leasee, D. C. Branham and Company, until 1843, when the legislature authorized its sale. The new owner completed the road in increments—first to Scipio, then to Clifty Creek, then to Columbus, then to Edinburg, then to Greenwood, and finally—in October 1847—to Indianapolis.

In 1846, as the railroad approached Indianapolis, the company selected its depot ground on South Street, east of Pennsylvania Street. It was a quarter mile from the south edge of town, but the ground was high, the price cheap, and the location convenient. So the first angry complaints of citizens about the location soon died out in the excitement of the actual arrival of the railroad.

The depot would not go to the town, so the town went to the depot, building businesses all around it and creating for a time a separate commercial center there. Pogue’s Run, which flowed between the town and the depot, was straightened from Virginia Avenue to Meridian Street by the property owners, and the streets were graded and filled across the low, muddy space of the creek bottom.

The isolation of the town ended with the completion of the Madison line. Because the railroad was the first to arrive, it could—and did—charge all the traffic would bear. Soon, however, its high rates and heavy profits not only aroused opposition but also spurred the development of competing lines. Within a very short time, eight railroads were completed, and Indianapolis became widely known as “the railroad city of the west.”

By December 1848, although no lines were yet competing with the Madison, several were being planned. Encouraged by the prospect of competition and demonstrating extraordinary vision, the city fathers decided that a common passenger depot was a necessity. On 20 December 1848 the council authorized the creation of the Union Railroad Company, which was to build a union depot and city tracks connecting the different railroads. On 19 December 1849 four railroad companies adopted a resolution saying:

Resolved, that it is expedient to locate and establish at Indianapolis a joint railroad track, connecting the Madison and Indianapolis, the Terre Haute and Richmond, the Peru and Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis and Bellfountaine railroads. And to locate and establish on said joint track a joint passenger depot for said companies.

Later, the Peru railroad decided not to participate, so the other three companies became the founders of the Indianapolis Union Railroad Company and the first Union Depot.
Track construction was begun 19 June 1850 and, not long afterward, land was purchased for the Union Depot, which was to be located on Louisiana Street between Meridian and Illinois Streets, a short distance west of the Madison and Indianapolis depot.

By 1852 there was construction on the Bellefountaine, Cincinnati, Jeffersonville, Terre Haute, Peru, Lafayette, and Indiana Central Railroads. The union track, connecting all of these, had been completed. And the Union Depot—“union” because it sought to serve all the railroads—was under construction. Holloway wrote: “We were beginning to feel our importance as a railroad center, and (we) exhibited our conceit in such sensible forms as new hotels, manufactures and business houses.”

Page 1 2 3 4 5
Download full essay