Indiana USA
Destination Guide & Hotel Reservations
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 until 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. The sports-happy state is at the forefront of the nation in automobile racing and
high school basketball.
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 . In northern Indiana, the area in and around Elkhart and Goshen
contains one of 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 Nashville, 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 residents of the state 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.
Reserve a Hotel Room in Indiana USA
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