Crown Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 700 West 38th Street in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. The privately owned cemetery was established in 1863 at Strawberry Hill, whose summit was renamed "The Crown", a high point overlooking Indianapolis. It is approximately 2.8 miles (4.5km) northwest of the city's center. Crown Hill was dedicated on June 1, 1864, and encompasses 555 acres (225ha), making it the third largest non-governmental cemetery in the United States. Its grounds are based on the landscape designs of Pittsburgh landscape architect and cemetery superintendent John Chislett Sr and PrussianhorticulturalistAdolph Strauch. In 1866, the U.S. government authorized a U.S. National Cemetery for Indianapolis. The 1.4-acre (0.57ha)Crown Hill National Cemetery is located in Sections 9 and 10.
Crown Hill contains 25 miles (40km) of paved road, over 150 species of trees and plants, over 225,000 graves, and services roughly 1,500 burials per year.[citation needed] Crown Hill is the final resting place for individuals from all walks of life, from political and civic leaders to ordinary citizens, infamous criminals, and unknowns. Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, and Vice PresidentsCharles W. Fairbanks, Thomas A. Hendricks, and Thomas R. Marshall are buried at Crown Hill. Infamous bank robber and "Public Enemy #1" John Dillinger is another internee. The gravesite of Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley overlooks the city from "The Crown".
Many of the cemetery's mausoleums, monuments, memorials, and structures were designed by architects, landscape designers, and sculptors such as Diedrich A. Bohlen, George Kessler, Rudolf Schwarz, Adolph Scherrer, and the architectural firms of D. A. Bolen and Son and Vonnegut and Bohn, among others. Works by contemporary sculptors include David L. Rodgers, Michael B. Wilson, and Eric Nordgulen.
The cemetery's administrative offices, mortuary, and crematorium are located at 38th Street and Clarendon Road on the cemetery's north grounds. Crown Hill's Waiting Station, built in 1885 at its east entrance on 34th Street and Boulevard Place, serves as a meeting place for tours and programs. The Crown Hill Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established in 1984, raises funds to preserve the cemetery's historic buildings and grounds. Crown Hill Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 28, 1973.
History
Crown Hill was not Indianapolis's first major cemetery. Alexander Ralston included a cemetery site in his 1821 plan of Indianapolis at the south end of Kentucky Avenue, where it intersects South and West Streets.[2] Prior to the establishment of Crown Hill Cemetery in 1863, the city's main cemetery was expanded in the 1830s to create the 25-acre (10ha)Greenlawn Cemetery on the city's southwest side.[3] During the Civil War, Greenlawn was quickly filling with burials of Union soldiers and Confederateprisoners of war and faced encroachment from west side industrial development.[4] By the end of the 1870s it was closed to further interments due to lack of space.[3]
The normal demands of a growing city, along with the capacity issues at Greenlawn, prompted a group of Indianapolis's civic-minded men to establish a new and larger cemetery within five miles of the city. On September 12, 1863, the men met with John Chislett Sr, a Pittsburgh landscape architect and cemetery superintendent, to discuss ideas for a cemetery that would be based on the park-like settings becoming popular in Europe, most notably the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[5] On September 25, 1863, the group formed the Association of Crown Hill.[2] Its selection committee bought a 166-acre (67ha) farm and tree nursery owned by Martin Williams for $51,500. The site for the new cemetery at Strawberry Hill, a high point overlooking Indianapolis, was 2.8 miles (4.5km) northwest of the city. The committee also acquired adjacent acreage of naturally rolling terrain from other sources.[2] On October 22, 1863, a 30-member Board of Corporators (trustees) formally established Crown Hill as a privately owned cemetery.[6][7]
Once the initial land was secured, the board hired Chislett's son, Frederick, as Crown Hill's first superintendent. He arrived in Indianapolis with his wife and children on December 31, 1863. Frederick supervised the construction of the cemetery's first roads and developed the property's grounds based on the landscape designs of his father and Prussian horticulturalist Adolph Strauch.[8] The design retained many of the cemetery's natural features and laid out winding roads to create a landscape in the Victorian Romantic style.[9] The cemetery's first main entrance was off old Michigan Road (later known as Northwestern Avenue and currently as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard).[10]
Crown Hill Cemetery was dedicated on June 1, 1864.[11] The first burial at Crown Hill was the body of Lucy Ann Seaton, aged 33, a young mother who had died of consumption.[2] Later that year, James Pattison built a stone gateway for $2,300 at the cemetery's west entrance off Michigan Road. The cemetery's east entrance at 34th Street opened in 1864.[12] Omnibus transportation reached the cemetery in 1864. Visitors could also travel by steam-powered boat up the Central Canal to reach Crown Hill. Automobiles were allowed on the grounds beginning in 1912.[13]
In 1866, the federal government purchased 1.4 acres (0.57ha) of land within the grounds of Crown Hill for a national military cemetery. The bodies of more than 700 Union soldiers who had died in Indianapolis during the Civil War were moved from Greenlawn Cemetery to new graves at the National Cemetery.[2] On May 30, 1868, Crown Hill, along with Arlington National Cemetery and 182 others in 27 states, took part in the country's first Memorial Day celebrations. An estimated crowd of 10,000 attended the Crown Hill ceremony, beginning an annual tradition at the site.[14]
Downtown as seen from "The Crown," elevation 842 feet (257m).
By the mid-1800s, Crown Hill was a burial ground as well as a popular location for recreational activities such as picnics, strolls, and carriage rides. It is well known for its views of downtown Indianapolis from "The Crown".[16] In addition to developing the cemetery grounds, Crown Hill's Corporators built new structures on the site. A Gothic chapel and vault was erected in 1875.[2] The main entrance was moved to 34th Street on the cemetery's east side, where the cemetery's Waiting Station building and a three-arched gateway were erected in 1885. A new gate and gatehouse were built at the west entrance in 1900 to replace earlier structures that were demolished.[17] Over several decades Crown Hill's grounds expanded to include substantial parcels of land north of 38th Street (known then as Maple Road). In 1911, the acquisition of 40 acres (16ha) at the northwest corner of Crown Hill made the 550-acre (220ha) grounds the third largest nongovernmental cemetery in the United States.[18]
Crown Hill's Pioneer Cemetery was established on the north grounds in 1912. The bodies of 1,160 early settlers from Greenlawn Cemetery were moved to this new section at Crown Hill. The remains of 33 people from Rhoads Cemetery, established on the city's west side in 1844, were interred in the Pioneer Cemetery in 1999. Bodies from the Wright-Whitesell-Gentry Cemetery located near Castleton on the city's northeast side were moved to the Pioneer Cemetery in 2008–09.[19]
The cemetery's grounds continued to change. In 1914, landscape architect George Kessler designed a brick and wrought-iron fence nearly three miles (4.8km) long. It was completed in the early 1920s and surrounded three quarters of the cemetery's south grounds and the southern end of the north grounds along 38th Street. A bridge/underpass that became known as the Subway passed beneath 38th Street to connect the north and south grounds.[20] Although Crown Hill faced competition from other cemeteries in the area, it continued to expand. More than 100,000 people were buried there by the late 1930s and more than 155,000 by the late 1970s.[21] The cemetery's Community Mausoleum was formally dedicated in 1951. Building five of the Garden Mausoleums, a series of outdoor mausoleums, was completed in 1962. A new administrative building by Bohlen and Burns was dedicated in 1969.[22] By the early 1980s, Crown Hill was valued at nearly $3 million. Its annual sales were estimated at $250,000, with an operating budget of $895,000. The cemetery employed 15 salaried employees, 21 full-time maintenance workers, and 25 seasonal workers.[23]
Preservation of the cemetery's monuments and structures remained an ongoing concern to Crown Hill's board. The Crown Hill Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit corporation, was established in 1984 to raise funds for restoration of the cemetery's historic buildings and its grounds. By 1997 the foundation had raised $1.8 million, with an additional $3.2 million raised later, to restore the Gothic Chapel and make other improvements to the cemetery. In the 1990s Crown Hill added a mortuary and a new crematorium.[24]
On February 28, 1973, Crown Hill Cemetery, including the National Cemetery, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Cemetery portion, which is listed separately, was added to the National Register on April 29, 1999.[25]
The first African American female, Cynthia Strayhorn Whisler,[26] served as the managing director of Crown Hill Cemetery in 1996. Milton O. Thompson, a lawyer, former deputy Marion County prosecutor, and founder of a sports and entertainment management company became the board's first African American member. Hilary Stour Salatich, a Conseco executive and civic leader, became the first female corporator in 1997.[27]
In 2007, Gibraltar Remembrance Services began managing Crown Hill Cemetery.[28]Service Corporation International acquired Gibraltar Remembrance Services in 2018.[29]
In 1866 the U.S. government authorized a U.S. National Cemetery for Indianapolis as a burial site for Union soldiers who died in military camps and hospitals near the city during the Civil War. The National Cemetery is located on 1.4 acres (0.57ha) within the grounds of Crown Hill in Section 10 The federal government purchased the site from Crown Hill's board for $5,000. On October 19, 1866, the remains of the first Union soldier were removed from Greenlawn Cemetery and interred at the National Cemetery at Crown Hill. By November 1866, the bodies of 707 soldiers had been moved from Greenlawn to the National Cemetery. As of December 31, 1998, the National Cemetery is filled. It encompasses 795 burial sites.[25][30]
Confederate soldiers' burials
Crown Hill is also a burial site for Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Morton, a prison camp located north of Indianapolis. In 1931, when industrial development around Greenlawn Cemetery required the bodies of the Confederate prisoners to be moved, their remains were interred in a mass grave known as the Confederate Mound in Section 32 at Crown Hill. In 1993 a memorial with ten bronze plaques listing the names of the 1,616 Confederate soldiers and sailors who died at Camp Morton was dedicated at the site.[31][32][33]
Field of Valor
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq prompted expansion of Crown Hill's military sections to include the Field of Valor on 4 acres (1.6ha) of the north grounds. It was dedicated on Veterans Day, November 11, 2004. The Eternal Flame and Eagle Plaza installed in front of the memorial were dedicated on Veterans Day in 2005.[34]
Nature
Wildlife abounds in Crown Hill Cemetery, which serves as a large refuge for birds, white-tailed deer, and small animals. The cemetery's grounds are home to more than 10,000 trees of some 130 unique species. In 2022, Crown Hill earned Level II Accreditation by the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program.[35]
There are many works of art on the property, some of which are freestanding, but most of which are associated with a gravesite. Notable examples include:
James Whitcomb Riley's Tomb: Following Riley's death on July 22, 1916, Crown Hill's board offered his family the prestigious site at "The Crown", the summit of Crown Hill that overlooks Indianapolis, as his final resting place. His was buried there on October 6, 1917. Riley's gravesite is marked with a large, open-canopied monument.[36]
Forrest Memorial: This is the gravesite of Albertina Allen Forrest, wife of Butler University professor and Citizens Gas general manager Jacob Dorrsey Forrest. She died on April 27, 1904. To mark the grave, her husband commissioned Viennese sculptor Rudolf Schwarz, whose work adorns numerous monuments and memorials including the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis, to create "Statue in Repose", a kneeling woman in mourning beneath a couplet from Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam". Albertina's husband, who died in 1930, is buried in an unmarked grave beside the memorial.[37]
Three limestone statues depicting the Greek goddesses Themis, Demeter, and Persephone from the old Marion County Courthouse. The courthouse was demolished in 1962.[38]
Equatorial Sundial:David L. Rodgers was commissioned to create the functional sundial in 1985. It was fabricated of Indiana limestone in Bloomington, Indiana, and installed in front of the Community Mausoleum in 1987.[39]
The Hoosier Artists Contemporary Sculpture Walk: Established to mark Crown Hill's 140th anniversary, the walk includes works by ten artists, including Michael B. Wilson's "Social Attachments" and Eric Nordgulen's "Antenna Man".[40]
Holcomb Mausoleum Door: Part of a memorial for James Irving Holcomb, an Indianapolis industrialist and a Vice President of the Butler University board of trustees
Notable memorials
Medical Science Donor Memorial, installed in 1991. In 1978 the Anatomical Education Board of the Indiana University School of Medicine purchased Section 41-A to inter the cremated remains of bodies that had been studied. As of 2011 more than one thousand medical donors have been recognized at the memorial.[41]
Indiana AIDS Memorial, dedicated on October 29, 2000, is the first permanent AIDS memorial located in a cemetery.[42]
The Heroes of Public Safety monument, dedicated on September 11, 2002, is inscribed with the names of police, firefighters, and other public safety personnel who died in the line of duty.[43]
The Hearts Remembered Memorial, dedicated on June 4, 2006, remembers the city's orphaned and abandoned children, many of whom were buried in unmarked graves.[44]
Structures
Gothic Chapel at Crown Hill Cemetery
Gothic chapel– Indianapolis architect Diedrich A. Bohlen designed the High Victorian Gothic-style chapel and vault, which were built east of the National Cemetery in 1875 at an initial cost of $38,922. They replaced an earlier vault that was used as temporary storage for bodies awaiting burial. In 1917 D.A. Bolen and Son designed an addition to the structure designed by D. A. Bohlen, the architectural firm's founder. The chapel and vaults were restored in the early 1970s at a cost of $120,000. CSO Architects began a major renovation and expansion in 2001. The project cost $3.2 million and received an excellence in Architecture Award from the American Institute of Architects, Indiana chapter, in 2007.[45][46][47]
East gate, Waiting Station, and Porter's Lodge– Adolf Scherrer, an Indianapolis architect of Swiss origins, designed the High Victorian Gothic gateway and Waiting Station for the cemetery's main entrance at 34th Street and Boulevard Place. Construction began in May 1885. The three-arched gateway was completed in November 1885, in time for the funeral of vice-president and former Indiana governorThomas A. Hendricks. The gate was built of Bedford limestone. The Waiting Station exterior is brick and limestone. A gatehouse house that became known as Porter's Lodge at the gate's south side was designed by the Indianapolis architectural firm of Vonnegut and Bohn and built in 1904. The Crown Hill board leased the Waiting Station to Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana in 1970 for one dollar per year, provided the preservation organization agreed to restore the historic structure. The restoration was completed by February 1971. HLFI moved to offices on Michigan Street in 1990 and the Waiting Station was leased until the mid-1990s, when Crown Hill began using it for office space. Crown Hill spent an additional $500,000 to restore the Waiting Station in the late 1990s. It was restored again in 2001 and serves as a meeting place for cemetery tours and programs.[48][49][50][51][52]
Subway bridge/underpass– The underpass beneath 38th Street that connects the north and south grounds is also known as the Subway. Construction began in 1925 and was completed in 1927 at cost of $170,000. It was restored in the 1980s.[53][39]
West gate and gatehouse– In 1901 the original west entrance to the cemetery was demolished and an arched Romanesque gate and a gatehouse designed by Indianapolis architect Herbert Foltz was erected at its southwest corner. The west gate was closed in 1965 and demolished the following year.[54][55]
Masonry fence– In 1914 George Kessler designed a brick and wrought-iron fence to replace the cemetery's wood and wire fencing. The masonry fence surrounded three quarters of the south grounds and the southern end of the north grounds along 38th Street. It cost nearly $138,000. The fence has a 4-foot (1.2m) thick concrete base, brick supports 8.5 feet (2.6m) in height, and sections of wrought iron measuring 25 feet (7.6m) in length that rest on brick support walls. Brick pillars at the entrances are more than 12 feet (3.7m) tall. Construction of the fence, which is approximately 3 miles (4.8km) long, was completed in 1920. A multi-year restoration costing $600,000 began in 1985.[38][56]
Mausoleums– Crown Hill contains several family and communal mausoleums: Community Mausoleum, designed by D. A. Bohlen and Company, was completed in the early 1950s. Its exterior is made of Indiana Bedford limestone; the interior is marble. Abbey Mausoleum, which was planned in 1993, is designed by Patrick L. Fly and cost $1.3 million. It is built of Indiana limestone and Carnelian granite.[22][57]
Superintendent's residence– A home for the superintendent remained on cemetery grounds until 1950. D. A. Bohlen designed a three-story Victorian house to replace a log cabin structure in the late 1860s. Fire destroyed the Victorian residence in 1913, but a new three-story brick home was already under construction as its replacement. The brick residence was removed from Crown Hill in 1950.[47][58]
Administrative offices– A building erected at 38th and Clarenden Streets in 1969 serves as Crown Hill's business offices.[49]
Mortuary and crematorium– Groundbreaking for a $1.5 million mortuary took place in May 1992. Architect J. Stuart Todd drew up the plans. The funeral home opened on March 1, 1993. Gibralter Remembrance Services, LLC, who purchased the mortuary in 2006, built a 9,500 square foot expansion. A new crematorium was added in 1990.[59]
The remains of 1,616 Confederate soldiers who died during their confinement at Camp Morton, a Union prison camp in Indianapolis. Their remains were transferred to Crown Hill in 1931.[31]
↑ Department of Periodontics and Allied Dental Programs, IU School of Dentistry (April 4, 2012). "The Practicing Academic"(PDF). IUPUI Archives. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 1, 2022. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
↑ Boomhower, Ray E. (2007). Fighting for Equality: A Life of May Wright Sewell. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press. p.133. ISBN978-0871952530.
1 2 "Indianapolis Auto greats"(PDF). Celebrating Automotive Heritage at Crown Hill Cemetery. Crown Hill Cemetery. 2011. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 13, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2012.
Thomas Andrews Hendricks was an American politician and lawyer from Indiana who served as the 16th governor of Indiana from 1873 to 1877 and the 21st vice president of the United States from March until his death in November 1885. Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851–1855) and the U.S. Senate (1863–1869). He also represented Shelby County, Indiana, in the Indiana General Assembly (1848–1850) and as a delegate to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention. In addition, Hendricks served as commissioner of the United States General Land Office (1855–1859). Hendricks, a popular member of the Democratic Party, was a fiscal conservative. He defended the Democratic position in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era and voted against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also opposed Radical Reconstruction and President Andrew Johnson's removal from office following Johnson's impeachment in the U.S. House.
Thomas Taggart was an Irish-American politician who was the political boss of the Democratic Party in Indiana for the first quarter of the twentieth century and remained an influential political figure in local, state, and national politics until his death. Taggart was elected auditor of Marion County, Indiana (1886–1894), and mayor of Indianapolis. His mayoral administration supported public improvements, most notably the formation of the city's park and boulevard system. He also served as a member of the Democratic National Committee (1900–1916) and as its chairman (1904–1908). Taggart was appointed to the U.S. Senate in March 1916, but lost the seat in the November election.
Caleb Blood Smith was a United States Representative from Indiana, the 6th United States Secretary of the Interior and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Indiana.
Hollywood Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 412 South Cherry Street in the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was established in 1847 and designed by the landscape architect John Notman. It is 135-acres in size and overlooks the James River. It is the only cemetery other than Arlington National Cemetery that contains the burials of two United States Presidents, James Monroe and John Tyler.
Laurel Hill Cemetery, also called Laurel Hill East to distinguish it from the affiliated West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
Crown Hill National Cemetery is a U.S. National Cemetery located in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. It was established in 1866 on Section 10 within Crown Hill Cemetery, a privately owned cemetery on the city's northwest side. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Cemetery encompasses 1.4 acres (0.57 ha) and serves as a burial site for Union soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.
The Indiana World War Memorial Plaza is an urban feature and war memorial located in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, originally built to honor the veterans of World War I. It was conceived in 1919 as a location for the national headquarters of the American Legion and a memorial to the state's and nation's veterans.
West Laurel Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1869, is 200 acres in size and contains the burials of many notable people. It is affiliated with Laurel Hill Cemetery in nearby Philadelphia. The cemetery property is an accredited arboretum and has an on-site funeral home and crematorium. The cemetery contains two Jewish burial sections and an environmentally friendly burial section. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
Magnolia Cemetery is a historic city cemetery located in Mobile, Alabama. Filled with many elaborate Victorian-era monuments, it spans more than 100 acres (40 ha). It served as Mobile's primary, and almost exclusive, burial place during the 19th century. It is the final resting place for many of Mobile's 19th- and early 20th-century citizens. The cemetery is roughly bounded by Frye Street to the north, Gayle Street to the east, and Ann Street to the west. Virginia Street originally formed the southern border before the cemetery was expanded and now cuts east–west through the center of the cemetery. Magnolia contains more than 80,000 burials and remains an active, though very limited, burial site today.
Indiana, a state in the Midwest, played an important role in supporting the Union during the American Civil War. Despite anti-war activity within the state, and southern Indiana's ancestral ties to the South, Indiana was a strong supporter of the Union. Indiana contributed approximately 210,000 Union soldiers, sailors, and marines. Indiana's soldiers served in 308 military engagements during the war; the majority of them in the western theater, between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. Indiana's war-related deaths reached 25,028. Its state government provided funds to purchase equipment, food, and supplies for troops in the field. Indiana, an agriculturally rich state containing the fifth-highest population in the Union, was critical to the North's success due to its geographical location, large population, and agricultural production. Indiana residents, also known as Hoosiers, supplied the Union with manpower for the war effort, a railroad network and access to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and agricultural products such as grain and livestock. The state experienced two minor raids by Confederate forces, and one major raid in 1863, which caused a brief panic in southern portions of the state and its capital city, Indianapolis.
Camp Morton was a military training ground and a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the American Civil War. It was named for Indiana governor Oliver Morton. Prior to the war, the site served as the fairgrounds for the Indiana State Fair. During the war, Camp Morton was initially used as a military training ground. The first Union troops arrived at the camp in April 1861. After the fall of Fort Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh, the site was converted into a prisoner-of-war camp. The first Confederate prisoners arrived at Camp Morton on February 22, 1862; its last prisoners were paroled on June 12, 1865. At the conclusion of the war, the property resumed its role as the fairgrounds for the Indiana State Fair. In 1891 the property was sold and developed into a residential neighborhood known as Morton Place, a part of the Herron-Morton Place Historic District.
During the American Civil War, Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana, was a major base of supplies for the Union. Governor Oliver P. Morton, a major supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, quickly made Indianapolis a gathering place to organize and train troops for the Union army. The city became a major railroad hub for troop transport to Confederate lands, and therefore had military importance. Twenty-four military camps were established in the vicinity of Indianapolis. Camp Morton, the initial mustering ground to organize and train the state's Union volunteers in 1861, was designated as a major prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederate soldiers in 1862. In addition to military camps, a state-owned arsenal was established in the city in 1861, and a federal arsenal in 1862. A Soldiers' Home and a Ladies' Home were established in Indianapolis to house and feed Union soldiers and their families as they passed through the city. Indianapolis residents also supported the Union cause by providing soldiers with food, clothing, equipment, and supplies, despite rising prices and wartime hardships, such as food and clothing shortages. Local doctors aided the sick, some area women provided nursing care, and Indianapolis City Hospital tended to wounded soldiers. Indianapolis sent an estimated 4,000 men into military service; an estimated 700 died during the war. Indianapolis's Crown Hill National Cemetery was established as one of two national military cemeteries established in Indiana in 1866.
Bohlen, Meyer, Gibson and Associates, or BMG, is an architectural firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was founded in Indianapolis on April 10, 1853, as D. A. Bohlen, Architect by Diedrich A. Bohlen, German immigrant. In 1884, after Diedrich's son, Oscar D. Bohlen, joined the firm it was renamed D. A. Bohlen and Son. Four successive generations of Bohlen architects have worked at the firm: Diedrich A. Bohlen, Oscar D. Bohlen, August C. Bohlen, and Robert L. Bohlen. The firm specialized in institutional projects, especially civic, religious, and educational buildings. In 1971 Melvin B. G. Meyer acquired majority interest in the firm, which adopted its name in reference to its founder and its two principal architects, Meyer and John M. Gibson. The architectural firm is among the oldest still operating in the United States. More than twenty of its projects are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Greenlawn Cemetery was a cemetery located in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 1821 to 1931.
Diedrich Augustus Bohlen a native of Cadenberge, Kingdom of Hanover, immigrated to the United States around 1851 and founded D. A. Bohlen, Architect, in 1853 at Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1971 it became Bohlen, Meyer, Gibson and Associates, and is among the oldest architectural firms in the United States still in operation. Bohlen is best known for introducing the German Neo-Gothic architecture style to Indiana. Bohlen and his firm specialized in institutional projects, especially civic, religious, and educational buildings. More than forty of the firm's projects are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including several of D. A. Bohlen's designs: Morris-Butler House (1864); Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church (1871), its rectory (1863), and bishop's residence (1878); Indianapolis's Roberts Park Methodist Church (1876) and Crown Hill Cemetery's Gothic Chapel (1877); and in collaboration with his son, Oscar D. Bohlen, the Indianapolis City Market (1886). The combined campus of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods make up the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods Historic District, the largest cohesive collection of Bohlen buildings. The District is of statewide significance on the National Register of Historic Places, for its contribution to architectural, educational and religious history.
Greenlawn Cemetery is a historic cemetery and national historic district located at Franklin, Johnson County, Indiana. It is a landscape-lawn style cemetery established in 1845, and contains roughly 15,000 burials. Located in the cemetery is a small Gothic Revival style chapel and the Romanesque Revival Main Mausoleum (1911).
Roberts Park Methodist Episcopal Church, whose present-day name is Roberts Park United Methodist Church, was dedicated on August 27, 1876, making it one of the oldest church remaining in downtown Indianapolis. Diedrich A. Bohlen, a German-born architect who immigrated to Indianapolis in the 1850s, designed this early example of Romanesque Revival architecture. The church is considered one of Bohlen's major works. Constructed of Indiana limestone at Delaware and Vermont Streets, it has a rectangular plan and includes a bell tower on the southwest corner. The church is known for its interior woodwork, especially a pair of black-walnut staircases leading to galleries (balconies) surrounding the interior of three sides of its large sanctuary. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 19, 1982. It is home to one of several Homeless Jesus statues around the world, this one located behind the church on Alabama Street.
The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was a large granite monument that sat at the south entrance of Garfield Park in Indianapolis for nearly a century, before being removed in 2020. It commemorated the Confederate prisoners of war that died at Camp Morton. At 35 feet (11 m) tall and located in the city's oldest public park, it had been the most prominent of the very few Confederate memorials in the Union state of Indiana. It was dismantled and removed by the city of Indianapolis in June 2020 after a yearslong debate, part of a national wave of removal of Confederate memorials during the Black Lives Matter movement.
Nicholas, Anna (1928). The Story of Crown Hill. Indianapolis: Crown Hill Association.
Our Hoosier Heritage. Indianapolis: Crown Hill Cemetery Association. 1970.
Our Hoosier Heritage in Crown Hill Cemetery: A Place of History and Scenic Beauty. Indianapolis: Crown Hill Cemetery Association. 1966.
Sanford, Wayne L. (1988). Crown Hill, 1863–1988: 125th Anniversary Edition. Indianapolis: Crown Hill Cemetery Association.
Sloan, Sarah (1973). The True Treasure of Crown Hill Cemetery. Indianapolis: Crown Hill Cemetery Association.
Wissing, Douglas A.; Marianne Tobias; Rebecca W. Dolan; Anne Ryder (2013). Crown Hill: History, Spirit, and Sanctuary. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN978-0871953018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
