Hoosiers are confident that they can really go places...if only they can get places. In this chapter of the Indiana Story, transportation became key to the state’s economic success. Growth depended on trade and trade was dependent on getting goods to market and bringing in needed supplies. By the 1860s, numerous travel routes criss-crossed the state, linking Indiana to the rest of the nation.
Featured in this gallery is a re-assembled lock from the Wabash and Erie Canal, the only intact wooden lock known to have survived. The canal project was intended to serve as a key transportation vehicle for merchants, but it quickly went by the wayside. The lock was unearthed in 1992 in New Haven, Indiana, and a portion of it now resides in the museum.
The Civil War (1861-1865) transformed Indiana from a far-off frontier land to the American mainstream. That’s why you’ll find yourself in the exciting (or unnerving) position of either assisting or neglecting a runaway slave in the gallery’s interactive audio experience.
This gallery also is home to many of the museum’s 19th century artifacts, many of which represent who the original Hoosiers were in the early days of statehood. Discover what they thought, why they did what they did and how they reacted to what happened in the world around them.