A Year in the
Life of Magic City: Mapping a Muncie Founding Father
The Ball State
University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections and the GIS Research and
Map Collection (GRMC) on the second floor of Bracken Library are celebrating
the Muncie Sesquicentennial with a special exhibit. The exhibit includes historic maps of Muncie
displayed in the front windows in the GRMC, including a bird’s eye view of the
city from 1872, a natural gas map of Muncie, a map of streetcar lines from
1907, and a map showing the quarantine area during the smallpox outbreak of
1893. A map of factories located in
Muncie in 1939 and a pictorial map of merchants in Muncie in 1985 are also
displayed.
The main part of
the map exhibit, however, focuses on one of Muncie’s early residents, Thomas
Neely. Neely arrived in Muncie in
1839. He organized a fundraising drive
to build Muncie’s first schoolhouse.
Neely served as a member of the Board of County Commissioners, as School
Director, as a blacksmith, and printer.
He established a daguerreotype (photographic process) gallery and
created the first photographs in Muncie.
His family also had a roller skate factory next to his residence.
Thomas Neely
began keeping a diary in January of 1860, and he continued to make regular
entries with few interruptions for almost 42 years. He often wrote about the weather and the
condition of his garden and orchard behind his residence on East Adams Street
(above as seen today). But his diaries
also offer a detailed description of life in Muncie. Neely offered glimpses of the city’s
happenings and historic events happening in the state and nation. For example, Neely described the presidential
election of 1888 that was decided by the Electoral College and the smallpox
epidemic that hit the city in 1893.
Neely attended
church at the First Presbyterian almost daily.
He describes sleighing in the winter streets and the heat of the
summers. Neely tracks the building of
the new Courthouse in 1887 and the gas boom in Muncie, drawing visitors from
around the Midwest but eliminating the need for a hired helper to chop
wood. Emancipation Day, women’s
suffrage, and cultural trends like the Chautauqua education movement are all depicted
in the diaries, with many special events taking place in the nearby roller
skating rink. Neely also notes the
arrival of the Ball Brothers Glass Factory in 1887.
One of the
posters in the exhibit displays some of the diary pages with excerpt text
highlighted. The accompanying map of
Muncie shows the location of some of the events and people mentioned by Neely
in the diary. The map is a base street
map of Muncie with Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps overlain to show the location of
the Courthouse, factories, Neely’s doctor’s office, and even where Thomas Neely
had boots made. Photographs and drawings
of other important locations are also included.
Advertisements from Muncie city directories are also included on the
map.
The diaries are
available from the Libraries’ Digital Media Repository (DMR). The DMR includes volumes of the Neely diaries dating from 1867 through 1901. Other
collections of the DMR used to create the exhibit are the Muncie Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps and Muncie city directories.
The Neely diary
poster and map are also available from Cardinal Scholar. The GRMC includes two large-format plotters
for printing large maps and posters for members of the Ball State University
community.
These maps will
be exhibited through the end of September.
Paid visitor parking is available on the top floor of the Emens Parking
Garage; free parking in the Emens Garage is available after 7:00 pm Monday
through Friday.
For more
information about this exhibit, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.
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