Indiana Bicentennial: Hoosier Hall of Fame
It’s official: On December 11, 2016—200 years to the day after Indiana was admitted into the Union—our state marked its bicentennial. To honor the occasion, IM releases its exclusive Hoosier Hall of Fame, including 200 people, places, things, and moments that make us proud.
8 points in 8.9 seconds
Pacer Reggie Miller’s scoring feat at the end of a come-from-behind win in the 1995 NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
1976 undefeated season Indiana University remains the last NCAA Division I basketball program to finish the regular season and championship tournament without a loss.
A Christmas Story
Holiday movie set in Northern Indiana.
Mario Andretti
International auto-racing champion, built his legend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Neil Armstrong
Purdue grad, first man on the moon.
Albion Fellows Bacon
Evansville activist who helped make Indiana a national leader in housing reform.
David Baker
Jazz composer and music professor at IU’s Jacobs School of Music.
Ball jar
Food-preserving container made by Muncie’s Ball Corp.
Sarah Evans Barker 
Indiana’s first female assistant U.S. Attorney, first female federal judge, and first female chief judge.
Battle of Tippecanoe
Military showdown near present-day Lafayette in 1811, between U.S. forces led by William Henry Harrison and Native American warriors loyal to Tenskwatawa, a.k.a. The Prophet.
Battle of Vincennes
Decisive Revolutionary War frontier clash pitting American forces under George Rogers Clark against the British in 1779.
Birch Bayh
Long-serving U.S. senator responsible for the passage of Title IX legislation.
Joshua Bell
Virtuoso violinist.
Albert Beveridge
U.S. senator, helped influence President Theodore Roosevelt to sign national food-safety legislation.
Larry Bird
The “Hick from French Lick,” helped revitalize the NBA and won three titles with the Boston Celtics.
Bill Blass
Won fashion’s answer to the Oscar, the Coty Award, seven times.
Breaking Away
1979 film that popularized “cutter” life and IU’s Little 500 bicycle race.
Angela Brown
Internationally known opera soprano.
Brown County 
Historic arts mecca and popular fall tourist destination.
Earl Butz
Influential (and controversial) U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Nixon and Ford.
Car heaters
Automotive innovation developed by Robert Arvin.
Hoagy Carmichael
Songwriter of “Stardust” and other standards.
Tamika Catchings
All-time WNBA great, won a championship with the Fever and retired as the league’s active leader in points, rebounds, assists, and steals.
Chuck Taylors
Popularized rubber-sole athletic sneakers and became one of the world’s most enduring product designs.
Clabber Girl
Baking powder, one of the oldest commercial food brands in America.
George Rogers Clark 
Revolutionary War hero and early Indiana settler.
Columbus, Indiana
In 2012, ranked sixth among all U.S. cities for innovation and design by the American Institute of Architects.
Bill Cook
Medical-device magnate and historic-preservationist.
Corydon
First Indiana capital.
Covered bridges
Parke County has more of them than any other county in America.
Cruise control
Automotive innovation introduced by Ralph Teetor.
Cummins Engine Company
Worldwide engine manufacturer founded and headquartered in Columbus, Indiana.
Jim Davis
Cartoonist and creator of Garfield franchise.
James Dean 
Actor, starred in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause.
Eugene V. Debs
Organized the American Railway Union (one of the nation’s first industrial unions) and won 6 percent of the popular vote as the Socialist Party presidential candidate in 1912.
Skylar Diggins
Led Notre Dame to three straight Final Four appearances, one of the WNBA’s top point guards.
John Dillinger
Flamboyant Depression-era bank robber.
Katie Douglas
Helped Purdue to a national championship in 1999 and then the Fever to a WNBA title in 2012.
Theodore Dreiser
Author of Sister Carrie.
Paul Dresser
Hit songwriter who penned “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away.”
Drunkometer
Precursor to Breathalyzer patented by IU professor Rolla Harger.
Duesenberg
Produced in Indiana, symbolized Jazz Age luxury.
John James Dufour
Established the first successful winery in the United States in southeastern Indiana.
Lin Dunn
WNBA title–winning coach of the Indiana Fever.
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds 
Hit R&B singer-songwriter and producer.
Edward Eggleston
Author of The Hoosier School-Master.
Dr. Lawrence Einhorn
IU Med School oncologist who developed successful treatment for testicular cancer.
Electric garage-door opener
Invented by Hartford City’s C.G. Johnson in 1921.
Eli Lilly & Co.
Pharmaceutical company behind Prozac, Cialis, and other blockbuster medications.
Mari Evans
Poet behind the collection I Am a Black Woman.
Philo Farnsworth
Invented many of the components used in early color televisions.
First Christian Church
Designed by architect Eliel Saarinen in Columbus, Indiana, it is one of America’s earliest modernist churches.
Fluoride additive
Standard toothpaste ingredient developed by IU researchers.
Fort Ouiatenon
Eighteenth century settlement and trading post located near present-day Lafayette, one of the earliest in the territory.
“Four Fathers” of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Automotive industrialists Carl Fisher, James Allison, Arthur Newby, and Frank Wheeler, who built the world-famous track in the early 1900s.
French Lick Resort
Popular Southern Indiana getaway site for more than a century, said to have been visited by Al Capone.
Jim Gaffigan
Comedian and star of TV’s The Jim Gaffigan Show.
Bill and Gloria Gaither
Gospel singer-songwriters.
Garfield 
Cartoon cat created by Hoosier Jim Davis.
Bill Garrett
As a player for IU in the late 1940s, he became the first black starter in the Big Ten athletic conference.
Gennett Records
Located in Richmond, it was one of America’s premier jazz studios of the 1920s.
Jeff Gordon
NASCAR Sprint Cup racing great, spent part of his boyhood in Pittsboro, dominated the annual Brickyard 400 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Michael Graves
Architect and product designer.
John Green
Young-adult author and screenwriter of The Fault in Our Stars.
Virgil “Gus” Grissom
Mercury and Apollo I astronaut immortalized in The Right Stuff.
Johnny Gruelle
Children’s book author and creator of Raggedy Ann and Andy.
Saint Theodora Guérin 
After settling in Indiana from France in 1840, she opened a frontier convent and schools—including what is now known as Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College—and in 2006 became the first saint from Indiana (and only the eighth from America).
Roy Halston Frowick
Proclaimed “the premier fashion designer of all America” in 1973 by Newsweek.
Lee Hamilton
Longtime U.S. representative.
Slide Hampton
Jazz trombonist and Indiana Avenue mainstay.
Benjamin Harrison
Indianapolis lawyer, U.S. senator, 23rd U.S. president.
William Henry Harrison
Frontier military commander, first governor of the Indiana Territory, ninth U.S. president.
Ray Harroun
First winner of the Indianapolis 500.
Richard Hatcher
Taking Gary’s highest office in 1967, he became one of the first two black U.S. mayors ever elected.
Elwood Haynes
Patented stainless steel, the thermostat, and an early gas-powered car.
Headlights
Automotive innovation introduced by industrialist Carl Fisher.
Florence Henderson
American’s TV mom on The Brady Bunch, popular pre-race fixture at the Indianapolis 500.
John Hiatt
Singer-songwriter.
“Hicks vs. Knicks”
Heated 1990s NBA rivalry between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks.
Hoosier National Forest
At 202,000 acres, the most significant tract of forest in the state.
Hoosiers 
Underdog basketball movie inspired by Milan High’s 1954 state championship.
Roy Howard
Co-director of Scripps-Howard news service.
Freddie Hubbard
Jazz trumpeter.
Tony Hulman
Terre Haute businessman who purchased and revived the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after World War II.
Dr. John Hurty
Director of Indiana State Board of Health in the late 1800s, helped establish Indiana as a national model for food-safety legislation.
Robert Indiana
Pop artist.
Indiana Dunes State Park
Voted the seventh-best state park in the nation in a USA Today/10Best poll.
Indiana Sports Corp.
Helped established Indianapolis as the nation’s “Amateur Sports Capital,” paved the way for arrival of the Indianapolis Colts and Super Bowl XLVI.
Indiana State Parks
Marking its centennial in 2016, the system is regarded as one of the nation’s finest, with 68,000 acres and eight parks exceeding half a million visitors per year.
Indianapolis 500
The largest single-day sporting event in the world.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Historic racetrack, home of the largest single-day sporting event in the world.
Jim Irsay 
Indianapolis Colts owner, guided the franchise to a Super Bowl win in 2007.
Robert Irsay
NFL owner, moved the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis.
Janet Jackson
Hit pop singer.
Michael Jackson
“The King of Pop.”
The Jackson 5
Motown family pop group that launched the career of Michael Jackson.
J.J. Johnson
Be-bop jazz trombonist.
Alfred Kinsey
IU zoology prof, conducted groundbreaking studies of human sexuality.
Bob Knight
Won three national championships as IU basketball’s head coach.
Bobby “Slick” Leonard
ABA championship coach of the Indiana Pacers, longtime broadcaster.
David Letterman
Comedian and late-night TV host.
Levi Coffin House 
Underground Railroad hub, now a National Historic Landmark.
Richard Lieber
Conservationist, “father” of Indiana’s state parks systems, first director of what is now the Department of Natural Resources.
Colonel Eli Lilly
Civil War officer and founder of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co.
Eli Lilly Jr.
Grew Eli Lilly & Co. into a national pharmaceutical giant.
Abraham Lincoln 
Sixteenth U.S. president, spent boyhood in Southern Indiana.
Little 500
IU’s annual bicycle race.
Chief Little Turtle
Led Native American resistance to U.S. settlement in the Northwest Territory among Miamis and allied tribes.
Shelley Long
Emmy-winning costar of the TV series Cheers.
LOVE
Robert Indiana sculpture at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Richard Lugar
Longtime U.S. senator.
Lyles Station
One of the last remaining historic African-American settlements in Indiana; home to William H. Roundtree, the first black postmaster north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Alonzo Fields, the first black chief butler at the White House.
Karl Malden
Oscar-winning actor with roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront.
Peyton Manning
NFL quarterback, led the Colts to a Super Bowl win in 2007.
Marmon Wasp 
The first car to win the Indianapolis 500.
Abe Martin
Popular cartoon character created by Hoosier Kin Hubbard.
George McGinnis
The longtime Pacer dominated the ABA and won two titles.
Muffet McGraw
Has amassed more than 700 wins and a national championship as the head coach of Notre Dame’s women’s basketball program.
Steve McQueen
Actor and Beech Grove native, starred in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.
John Mellencamp
Rock star, hit-maker.
J. Irwin Miller
Cummins CEO who helped establish the city of Columbus, Indiana, as a center of modernist architecture.
Reggie Miller 
Longtime Pacer, recent Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, one of the NBA’s greatest-ever clutch shooters.
Caleb Mills
Nineteenth century school reformer and champion of universal free public education.
Monon Trail
Rail-to-trail greenway in Indianapolis.
Wes Montgomery
Jazz guitarist.
Ryan Murphy
Emmy-winning creator of TV hits Glee and American Horror Story.
New Harmony
Progressive 19th-century utopian settlement near Evansville, it had the state’s first free public libraries and later became a modern-architecture mecca.
Norman Norell 
Dubbed the “father of American high fashion” by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Oliver Chilled Plows
Helped make farming less labor-intensive before mechanization became widespread.
“On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away”
The state song, one of the biggest musical hits of the 19th century.
Owen Family
Patriarch Robert Owen bought New Harmony in 1825 and helped shape the community as a hotbed of progressive initiatives. Son Robert Dale Owen became a prominent advocate for public education and women’s rights, and Jane Blaffer Owen led modern-day historic-preservation efforts and made important architectural commissions in New Harmony.
“Panic bar”
Life-saving door-opener innovation invented by a Vonnegut Hardware manager, now ubiquitous in public buildings.
Parks and Recreation
Hit TV sitcom set in the fictional Indiana town of Pawnee.
Dan Patch
Thoroughbred racehorse in the early 1900s.
Jane Pauley 
Today show co-anchor.
Persimmon pudding
Downhome dessert featuring the native Indiana fruit.
Angelo Pizzo
Screenwriter of Hoosiers and Rudy.
Bobby Plump
Led Milan High to its famous underdog state basketball championship in 1954.
Pneumatic rubber tires
Automotive innovation introduced by D.C. Spraker.
Sydney Pollack
Hollywood movie director of Tootsie and Out of Africa.
Pork Tenderloin 
Indiana’s unofficial state sandwich.
Cole Porter
Composer, songwriter, lyricist.
Nelson Poynter
Pioneering newsman.
The Prophet
Spiritual leader who inspired Native American resistance to U.S. frontier settlement among Shawnees and allied tribes.
Push mower
Developed by Richmond’s Elwood McGuire for widespread home use in 1870.
Ernie Pyle
Nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and World War II correspondent.
Raggedy Ann and Andy
Children’s book characters created by Hoosier Johnny Gruelle.
Rearview mirrors
Automotive innovation (apocryphally) introduced by Indy 500 champion Ray Harroun.
Red Gold
Canned-tomato brand sold in 50 states and 16 countries.
Orville Redenbacher
Popcorn entrepreneur and pitchman.
James Whitcomb Riley
“The Hoosier Poet.”
Ruth Riley
A national player-of-the-year coming out of Notre Dame, she won two WNBA titles.
Oscar Robertson 
Crispus Attucks grad, one of basketball’s all-time greatest players with NBA career averages equal to or exceeding those of Michael Jordan and LeBron James.
Axl Rose
Front man for the band Guns N’ Roses.
David Lee Roth
Front man for the band Van Halen.
Rudy
Underdog sports movie inspired by the life of Notre Dame football walk-on Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger.
May Wright Sewall
Founded the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society, was instrumental in the eventual passage of the 19th Amendment.
William Scholl
Invented “Dr. Scholl’s” arch-support shoe liner in 1904.
Will Shortz
New York Times crossword editor.
“Shot heard ’round the world”
Bobby Plump’s game-winning shot in the 1954 boys’ state basketball championship.
Shrimp cocktail at St. Elmo 
Sinus-searing and oft-imitated appetizer at Indy’s century-old steakhouse.
Herbert “Herb” Simon
Partner in Simon Property Group and longtime owner of the Indiana Pacers.
Melvin “Mel” Simon
Mall magnate and founder of Simon Property Group.
Simon Property Group
Largest mall operator in the United States.
Red Skelton 
Comedic radio, TV, and film actor.
Tavis Smiley
National public-broadcasting radio and TV talk-show host.
Southern Indiana limestone
Used in the construction of the Empire State Building and The Pentagon.
Stephen Sprouse
Famous for “punk couture,” his designs were worn by Debbie Harry, Billy Idol, and Duran Duran.
T.C. Steele
Indiana impressionist landscape painter.
Tilt steering
Automotive innovation introduced by inventor Elwood Haynes.
Brad Stevens
Butler men’s basketball coach who led the team to two straight NCAA championship games.
Tony Stewart 
IndyCar racing standout, NASCAR Sprint Cup champion.
Gene Stratton-Porter
Author of A Girl of the Limberlost.
Sudoku
Numbers game devised by Connersville’s Howard Garns.
Sugar cream pie
Indiana’s official state pie.
Billy Sunday
Evangelist.
Super Bowl XLVI
Hosted by Indianapolis, which was widely hailed for its host-city performance.
Booth Tarkington
Author of The Magnificent Ambersons.
Marshall “Major” Taylor 
Cyclist, first African-American athlete to win a world championship outside of boxing and to set world records.
Tecumseh
Shawnee warrior, led fierce Native American resistance to U.S. frontier settlement in the early 1800s.
Twyla Tharp
Innovative modern-dance choreographer.
James Alexander Thom
Historical-fiction author of Follow the River.
TR-1 transistor radio
Invented in Indy 1954, ushered in era of portable electronic devices.
Vonnegut Hardware
Immigrant-owned business in Indianapolis on which a unique family dynasty was built.
Kurt Vonnegut 
Author of Slaughterhouse-Five.
Dan Wakefield
Author of Going All the Way.
Madam C.J. Walker
Beauty-products entrepreneur, first black female millionaire in the United States.
Lew Wallace
Author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Water pressure–driven dishwasher
Patented by Hobart socialite Josephine Cochrane in 1886.
General “Mad” Anthony Wayne
U.S. military commander whose victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers effectively ended organized Native American resistance in the Northwest Territory, namesake of present-day Fort Wayne.
Herman B Wells
University president who helped make IU a national academic powerhouse.
Ryan White 
International HIV/AIDS activist.
Stephanie White
Won an NCAA championship at Purdue and guided the Indiana Fever to the WNBA Finals in her first season as head coach.
Harvey Wiley
Purdue professor and chief chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, helped influence President Theodore Roosevelt to sign national food-safety legislation.
Wendell Willkie
Elwood native, won the GOP nomination for president in 1940.
Robert Wise
Hollywood movie director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music.
David Wolf 
Shuttle Columbia and International Space Station astronaut.
Wonder Bread
Introduced in Indianapolis in 1921.
John Wooden
At UCLA, won more NCAA men’s basketball championships than any other coach.
Wilbur Wright
Aviation pioneer.
