About Indiana

As a fifth-generation Hoosier, Senator Lugar is very proud of our State. From the dunes of Northwest Indiana to the banks of the Ohio River, our State boasts a wide variety of spectacular resources. However, it is Hoosiers who make Indiana unique and special.

In 1679, Sieur de La Salle, a French explorer, canoed across Northwestern Indiana from South Bend down the Kankakee River to Illinois. At this time, many different Native American tribes inhabited Indiana. Throughout the 1800’s immigrants from all parts of the world made their way to Indiana. Today, Indiana has a rich blend inhabitants.

While Indiana is a leader in manufacturing, three quarters of Indiana’s land is used for agricultural production. The main manufactured goods are metals, transportation equipment, and motor vehicles. Major agricultural products include corn, soybeans, and livestock.

The Basics:

• Statehood - December 11, 1816
• Nickname - The Hoosier State
• Motto - The Crossroads of America
• Capital - Indianapolis
• Population - 6,423,113
• State Bird - Cardinal
• State Tree - Tulip Tree
• State Flower - Peony
• State River - Wabash River
• State Stone - Limestone

Agricultural Statistics:

Indiana has 61,000 farms, totaling 14,800,000 acres of farmland (as of 2008) and is the nation's

• Fourth largest producer of soybeans
• Third largest producer of eggs
• Second largest producer of eggs with chicks hatched
• Third largest producer of chickens

Fun Facts:

Five vice presidents have come from the state of Indiana: Schuyler Colfax, Thomas A. Hendricks, Charles W. Fairbanks, Thomas Marshall, and Dan Quayle. As a result, Indiana has earned the nickname "Mother of Vice Presidents."

The first successful goldfish farm was opened in Martinsville, Indiana 1899.

In 1880, Wabash became the first city in America to have electric streetlights.

Indiana is literally "the crossroads of America" with more miles of interstate highways per square mile than any other state.

• Indiana is 1st in the nation for interstate highway access, with more intersecting highways than any other state.
• Seventy-five percent of the United States and Canadian populations live within one day's truck drive of Indiana.
• Indiana maintains more than 680 airports, including the second largest hub on the FedEx airfreight network.
• Each year, 724 million tons of freight travel through Indiana, making it the fifth busiest state for commercial freight traffic.
• Indiana ranks ninth among all states for railroad mileage and 15th in waterborne shipping.

The first professional baseball game was played in Fort Wayne on May 4, 1871.

Southern Indiana has some of the richest deposits of top-quality limestone in the world. The Empire State Building, The Pentagon, the U.S Treasury, and many other buildings were made from Indiana Limestone.

What is a Hoosier?
courtesy of the Indiana Historical Bureau

Where did Hoosier come from? What is its origin? We know that it came into general usage in the 1830s. John Finley of Richmond wrote a poem, "The Hoosier's Nest," which was used as the "Carrier's Address" of the Indianapolis Journal, Jan. 1, 1833. It was widely copied throughout the country and even abroad. Finley originally wrote Hoosier as "Hoosher." Apparently the poet felt that it was sufficiently familiar to be understandable to his readers. A few days later, on January 8, 1833, at the Jackson Day dinner at Indianapolis, John W. Davis offered "The Hoosher State of Indiana" as a toast. And in August, former Indiana governor James B. Ray announced that he intended to publish a newspaper, The Hoosier, at Greencastle, Indiana.

Among the more popular theories:

• When a visitor hailed a pioneer cabin in Indiana or knocked upon its door, the settler would respond, "Who's yere?" And from this frequent response Indiana became the "Who's yere" or Hoosier state. No one ever explained why this was more typical of Indiana than of Illinois or Ohio.
• That Indiana rivermen were so spectacularly successful in trouncing or "hushing" their adversaries in the brawling that was then common that they became known as "hushers," and eventually Hoosiers.
• There was once a contractor named Hoosier employed on the Louisville and Portland Canal who preferred to hire laborers from Indiana. They were called "Hoosier's men" and eventually all Indianans were called Hoosiers.
• A theory attributed to Gov. Joseph Wright derived Hoosier from an Indian word for corn, "hoosa." Indiana flatboatmen taking corn or maize to New Orleans came to be known as "hoosa men" or Hoosiers. Unfortunately for this theory, a search of Indian vocabularies by a careful student of linguistics failed to reveal any such word for corn.
• Quite as plausible as these was the facetious explanation offered by "The Hoosier Poet," James Whitcomb Riley. He claimed that Hoosier originated in the pugnacious habits of our early settlers. They were enthusiastic and vicious fighters who gouged, scratched and bit off noses and ears. This was so common an occurrence that a settler coming into a tavern the morning after a fight and seeing an ear on the floor would touch it with his toe and casually ask, "Whose ear?"

As Meredith Nicholson, author of The Hoosiers observed: "The origin of the term 'Hoosier' is not known with certainty." But certain it is that ... Hoosiers bear their nickname proudly. Many generations of Hoosier achievement have endowed the term with connotations that are strong and friendly...