Earl Butz

Call him the old-school Donald Trump: Elwood native Wendell Willkie won the GOP presidential nomination in 1940 by emphasizing his business cred as a CEO. Merrie Melodies used Willkie as a punchline a few years later, when Bugs Bunny said, “IT AIN’T VENDELL VILLKIE!”

When Prohibition ended, the boozy, bawdy days of the Indianapolis Press Club began. Patrons favored a martini “so potent that on the third sip” their tongues would be “paralyzed,” according to one account.