The Nifty Fifty: Indiana

Indiana is a state in the midwestern region of the United States with the abbreviation of IN. Indiana became the 19th state on December 11, 1816; this makes the state 207 years old, as of December, 2023. The name Indiana simply means land of the Indians or Indian land; it is believed that the territory of Indiana, which became the state, was given this name because the land along the Ohio River was purchased from the Indians, however, others believe that it was named for the Indian tribes that settled in western Pennsylvania.

Indiana is the 38th largest state and the 17th most populous. Indiana’s capital is Indianapolis and its demonym is Hoosier, however, you could use Indianan. Indiana is bordered by the states of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois; the state is also bordered by Lake Michigan.

The motto of the state of Indiana is The Crossroads of America.

The official nickname of Indiana is the Hoosier State. This is one of the oldest state nicknames, although the original meaning of the nickname is unknown and widely debated.

Indiana’s landscape has the Great Lakes Plains region in the north, which contains some sand dunes along Lake Michigan. Indiana’s central region is covered in the Till Plains, and the state’s southern region has fertile soil, small lakes, and low rolling hills.

Indiana is known for auto racing, basketball, the city of Santa Claus, agriculture, popcorn, and for being considered the limestone capital of the world; the Pentagon and the Empire State Building are two of the many buildings that have been built with hoosier limestone. Indiana has the world’s largest children’s museum and it is the United States’ largest producer of steel. The state has other materials such as native copper, gold, diamonds, and quartz; Indiana also has metal containing minerals like ilmenite, zircon, kyanite, sphalerite, and galena, which contain titanium, zirconium, aluminum, zinc, and lead respectively.

Ambrose Burnside was born in Liberty, Indiana, on May 23, 1824. Burnside spent his boyhood in Indiana, but he later became involved in the US Army, eventually achieving the rank of Major General. Burnside served during the tail end of the Mexican-American War, but he later served during the entire Civil War; Burnside served in the First Battle of Bull Run, Burnside’s North Carolina Expedition, the Maryland Campaign, the Battle of Fredericksburg, Morgan’s Raid, the Knoxville Campaign, the Overland Campaign, and the Siege of Petersburg. Burnside devoted some of his time manufacturing a breechloader firearm called the Burnside Carbine, which is chambered in the extremely unique .54 Burnside cartridge, at a time when muzzleloaders were more common. Burnside also served as the 30th Governor of Rhode Island, the 1st President of the NRA, and a US Senator from Rhode Island. His unusual beard that extended from his mustache, in front of his ears, and to the hair on the top of his head caused the word burnsides to be coined, which described his beard style. The syllables were later reversed, becoming sideburns.

On September 5, 1885, a man named Sylvanus Bowser invented the first gasoline pump in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The gas pump was actually invented before the first automobile was invented, and it was commonly used to dispense kerosene, which was used in lamps and stoves. Interestingly, gas pumps did not have hoses to dispense fuel directly into automobiles until Bowser later improved upon his invention. Apparently, the word Bowser used to be what people would call vertical gas pumps, however, the term is now only used in the United States to refer to the trucks that carry fuel to large aircraft.

In September of 1812, the Siege of Fort Wayne occurred in what is now the city of Fort Wayne, which is in Allen County, Indiana. The siege began when a combined force of Miami and Potawatomi warriors attacked the fort known as Fort Wayne and burned buildings in the fort’s adjacent village for several days, but the siege ultimately resulted in an American victory. This was only one of several Potawatomi attacks on US military outposts. Because the siege occurred in the year 1812, it should not be surprising that it was part of the War of 1812.

A interesting fact about Indiana is that, if you ask what time zone Indiana is in, you will likely be told that Indiana is in the Eastern Time Zone, but this is only true for most of Indiana. Some of Indiana’s counties are in the Central Time Zone: several in the northwestern corner of the state — which is fairly close to Chicago, Illinois — and several in the southwestern corner — which surround Evansville, Indiana.

A strange fact about Indiana is that the state almost legally changed the value of π (pi). Rather than excepting the fact that π is a constant with an infinitely long decimal, Dr. Edwin Goodwin decided that he would simplify its value to make calculations easier. Goodwin somehow managed to convince a state representative to introduce a bill that would legally change the value of π from 3.14159… to the whole number 3. Goodwin’s proposal had many miscalculations and untruths, yet the bill passed in 67-0 vote. The good news is that the Senate did not allow this bill to become law, otherwise numerous equations and formulae would have become entirely inaccurate, such as the formula for the area of a circle (πr²).

What fact about Indiana most interests you?