Some time ago my friend Barb asked me why Indianapolis was called “Railroad City.” I surmised that it was because the “Crossroads of America” at one time had numerous railroads coming and going through the “Circle City.” Although, the number of railroads crisscrossing Indy today has diminished significantly, the old nickname still surfaces from time to time. The question prompted me to reflect on other nicknames for the “Amateur Sports Capital of the World.”
Among the fanciful names Indianapolis has enjoyed over its 200-year history, “Hoosier Capitol” and “Hoosier City” were obvious choices in the city’s early years. An 1853 letter to the editor referenced Indianapolis as the “Embowered City” because of the “abundance of shrubbery which ornaments our place . . . sidewalks lined with trees . . . evergreens of great variety, flower bushes, and beds decorate the yards of the majority of residences.” Also, the writer noted that the new city was a “Bed of White Roses” because when “viewed from the observatory of the Blind Asylum . . . the white houses, peeping out from the green foliage of nature,” resemble such a floral bed. The appellation “Railroad City” was given to Indianapolis at this time because six railroad companies were running regular lines through the city with “iron arms reaching out over [Indiana] in every direction,” and the city was becoming home to railroad infrastructure — machine shops, foundries, manufacturing facilities, and freight depots. Soon Indianapolis would boast of the nation’s first Union Station, and in later years additional railroads and the web of electric interurban tracks would confirm the nickname “Railroad City.”
A letter writer to the Indianapolis News in 1908 suggested “Circle City” for the title of Indianapolis. The unnamed writer noted that the original city plat was laid out around the Circle and that “the ‘Circle’ has always been a prominent point and always will be.” As predicted by the writer, the Circle endures while railroads are only an occasional nuisance at cross streets.
In the twenties, African-American performers and jazz musicians coming to Indianapolis began referring to the city as “Naptown,” an informality of conversation simply stressing the “fourth — and most prominent — syllable in Indianapolis,” according to photographer and jazz historian Duncan Schiedt. The name was picked up by the city’s black newspaper, the Indianapolis Recorder, and the tag often appeared over the ensuing years in the paper’s reporting of sporting and entertainment events as a nickname for Indianapolis. The 100-mile Gold and Glory auto race at the fairgrounds, featuring African-American drivers, was referred to in the Recorder as the “Naptown Derby.” Blues singers Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackell memorialized the nickname in Naptown Blues, “When you get to Naptown, the blues won’t last very long. Because they have their pleasure, and they sure do carry on.” During World War II, Naptown became a cozy nickname for Indianapolis that was adopted by GIs stationed in the city who, away from home, sought out the comfort and hospitality of Service Men’s Centers. The “warmth, friendliness and shelter” they found at the centers led the men in uniform to affectionately refer to the city with this sobriquet. In later years, the Naptown nickname wasn’t viewed with such affection.
One of the most recognized nicknames for the Hoosier Capitol City is “The Crossroads of America.” This label had its origin in the twenties when Indianapolis was included in a bulletin of the National Geographic Society discussing “Famous Crossroads of the World.” The article refers to the intersection of Washington and Meridian Streets, and says, “With one blast of his whistle the Indianapolis policeman can send automobiles to Miami, FL, and Seattle, WA. At will, he can turn his back on Miami and Seattle and route cars to Los Angeles or New York.” Soon after the article appeared, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, in June 1926, officially adopted “The Crossroads of America” as the slogan for Indianapolis. With the cooperation of the Hoosier Motor Club, road markings with the new slogan and an arrow pointing toward Indianapolis were placed around the city and businesses included the slogan in advertisements.
At the time of the 27th running of the 500-mile race in May 1939, the Indianapolis News dubbed the Circle City the automobile “Racing Capital of the World,” and while “Crossroads of America” remained popular with the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and “Naptown” was popular with the college set, by the early fifties Indianapolis was simply “Indy” to the drivers, mechanics, and journals of the auto racing fraternity.
Picking up on the use of Indy by the racing community, the moniker quickly became a popular tag among other automobile and racing enthusiasts. An ad in 1961 offered “The Indy 500 Immortalized in Hi-Fi . . . taking you into the pits and . . . at the elbow of the excited announcer”; the Indy Idlers Hot Rod Club sponsored the 500 Motorama Custom Car Show at the State Fairgrounds; and special “Indy” awards were presented for the first time at the 1965 500 Festival Racing Awards banquet. Fred Heckman, news director for WIBC radio, further popularized the Indy label with his daily “newsy tidbits” essay, “My Town Indy.”
The city parks department naming a recreational boating portion of White River between 16th and 38th Streets “Lake Indy,” and the Indianapolis Zoo’s naming a wallaby “Indy” promoted this shorthand title for Indianapolis, but Naptown was more often used at the time. It had lost its catchy phrase and comforting cache of past years and was used disparagingly by detractors along with “India-no-place.” In 1972 Frank E. McKinney, Jr., president of American Fletcher National Bank (AFNB), announced an advertising campaign using the nickname Indy “to polish the image of the city” and dispel the city’s lack of an attractive reputation. Purists considered Indy a “snippy, slangy word,” equally offensive as “Naptown.” Some called the nickname “vulgar, uncouth,” but INDY prevailed and is now widely embraced as evident by the “I AM INDY” sculpture where an individual stands-in for the “I.”
