Indiana historical society: oldest state historical society west of Allegheny Mountains celebrates 175 years.

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: MILESTONE

THE INDIANA HISTORICAL Society (IHS) boasts of being the oldest state historical society west of the Allegheny Mountains. Founded as the Historical Society of Indiana in 1830 to preserve the records and memories of the Hoosier state's pioneers, the society has grown into a thriving institution that provides public and educational programming and houses one of the world's largest collections of materials related to Indiana and the predecessor Northwest Territory.

Thanks to a 1977 bequest by Indianapolis pharmaceutical entrepreneur Eli Lilly, IHS has remained one of the only societies west of the Allegheny Mountains that is privately financed and not dependent upon state government. "The society received 10 percent of Eli Lilly's estate," says Raymond L. Shoemaker III, the society's executive vice president.

"Suddenly, we had all this money," explains Shoemaker, who had joined the society in 1976 as a newly minted history Ph.D. from Indiana University "That was really the beginning of the change."

Today's Indiana Historical Society claims nearly 10,500 members in all 92 of the state's counties. Headquartered at the Indiana History Center on the historic Central Canal in downtown Indianapolis, the society continues its mission of preserving and protecting the Hoosier state's rich heritage.

Humble beginnings. For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the society was what one historian called "a small private club for publishing local history." Its meager library was housed in the old Indiana State Capitol and the Indiana State Bank at Kentucky Avenue and Illinois Street. From 1888 to 1914, the society had a small office in the new State Capitol building. Jacob Piatt Dunn, an Indianapolis journalist and political reformer, whose early 20th century history of Indianapolis was the definitive work on the city, helped reorganize the society in the 1880s.

Still, when the society's lease at the State Capitol expired in 1914, Dunn was forced to store the small library in a closet at his office in City Hall. At the time, the society had only 130 members, but the Indiana centennial in 1916 rekindled an interest in history statewide. By 1925, there were more than 1,000 members, and a substantial 1922 bequest created the society's William H. Smith Memorial Library. In 1934, the society moved into the Indiana State Library and Historical Building, its home for the next 65 years.

During the middle years of the 20th century, IHS developed well-regarded...