This week in Indiana’s history …
1865 – The funeral train carrying the body of Abraham Lincoln arrived in Indianapolis. The President lay in state in the rotunda of the old Capitol. Although there was a steady rain all day, over 50,000 people passed by the bier. At midnight, the casket was returned to Union Depot where the train traveled to Michigan City, its last scheduled stop in Indiana.
1865 – The sidewheeler steamboat Sultana exploded and sank on the Mississippi River near Memphis. The boat, built to carry 376 passengers, was vastly overloaded with paroled Civil War prisoners of war. Many of the over 1,200 who died were from Indiana. The 55 from Delaware County are honored by a monument at Beech Grove Cemetery in Muncie.
1919 – Hoosier leaders were aboard a welcome boat in New York Harbor as 1,800 Indiana soldiers of the 150th Artillery Regiment returned from service in World War I. They came home aboard the S. S. Leviathan, at the time the largest ship in the world. An Indianapolis Star reporter wrote, “There are simply no words to describe the fervor of the welcome accorded these fighting men.”
1939 – The Crosley Corporation announced plans to manufacture a low-priced automobile in Richmond, Ind. The one-seat, three-passenger car would have a wheelbase of about six feet. It would go up to 60 mph and travel 50 miles on a gallon of gas. The proposed cost of the little Crosley was around $400.
1949 – Multi sport athlete George Crowe, a Franklin native and the first winner of Indiana’s Mr. Basketball, became the first African American from Indiana to sign with a major league baseball team, the Boston Braves. This was two years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color line. Crowe spent most of the next two years in the Braves farm system before making his major league debut on April 16, 1952.
1972 – Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was in Clarksville campaigning for the Democratic presidential primary. He had been to Terre Haute earlier in the day. He called for the Vietnamese to release American prisoners of war and said the United States needed a better relationship with Russia and China. He lost the primary that year to George McGovern.