A live weekly radio adventure through Indiana history with host Nelson Price.
Show airs live at 11:30 a.m. each Saturday on WICR 88.7 FM in Indianapolis.

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Hoosier History Live!

Hear it now! Listen to segments of some past shows as podcasts on our "Archives" page. Or listen live when the show is under way. Welcome. Hoosier History Live! is a weekly radio adventure through Indiana history, live with call-in, hosted by Nelson Price, historian and author of Indiana Legends and Indianapolis: Then and Now. Each week, the program includes a featured guest and topic, a call in from The Roadtripper with a tip about a Hoosier heritage-related road trip, and a Hoosier History Trivia question, complete with a prize for the correct answer. It is the nation's first and only call-in talk-radio show about history, premiering as a live weekly show on Jan. 12, 2008. Call-in number is (317) 788-3314. The program airs live Saturday mornings from 11:30 a.m. to noon Eastern Time on WICR at 88.7 FM from the University of Indianapolis. The Saturday show repeats the following Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. Listen online to Hoosier History Live! either day on WICR's live webstream.

Books by Nelson Price

Hoosier History Live! thanks our partners who help the show to go on!

Print Resources
Our partner in printing.

Monomedia
Website design, email marketing and PC consulting.

Fraizer Designs
Graphic design and illustration.

Indiana Humanities Council
Make a tax-deductible donation to the show through IHC!

ICVA
Promoting Indianapolis and providing the show with its intrepid Roadtripper!

WICR
Our anchor radio station, on the campus of University of Indianapolis.

Special thanks to Heather Kaufman-McKivigan, website founder.

Sept. 4 show

Where did your county name come from?

Lake County is easy to figure out, name-wise. Ditto for Boone County - at least if you are familiar with frontiersman Daniel Boone. But what about Marion, Allen and, for heaven's sake, Kosciusko or Ripley counties?

Turns out we have an in-house expert on the origin of county names among our WICR-FM colleagues. Nelson will be joined in studio by our attorney friend Charles Braun, founder and co-host of Legally Speaking, the longest-running legal advice show on American radio. Charles, a Fort Wayne native, is a fellow Hoosier history lover, so he and Nelson enjoy swapping tidbits in between his show - which airs at 10 a.m. on Saturdays - and ours.

Now we will go public with the history chatter, with Charles sharing his research and insights about Indiana county names for all listeners to enjoy. Promising to come to the studio armed with the origins of each of our 92 county names, Charles and Nelson will welcome your calls.

A former deputy state attorney general, Charles is an instructor at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, where he helps train police officers from across Indiana. Charles launched Legally Speaking in 1983. For the last 14 years, he has rotated the mic on the show with his co-host, attorney Charles Gantz.

Fun fact: The law enforcement academy is in Plainfield of Hendricks County, which was named after a family of early Hoosier politicians. We have a slight correction from last week's e-newsletter. The county's namesake was Gov. William Hendricks, who was in office at the time the county was formed - not, as we indicated, his nephew Thomas Hendricks, a Hoosier who served as vice president in the 1880s under President Grover Cleveland.

A sampling of other county name origins:

Knox County - which includes Vincennes, our state's oldest city - was named after a military leader with no Hoosier connections. Henry Knox, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, became the country's first Secretary of War. As such, he oversaw both the Army and the Navy.

Miami County in north central Indiana takes its name from the Native American people who lived in the area before white settlers arrived.

As you would expect, Switzerland County in the state's far-southeastern corner is named after the homeland of many of its early settlers. The county seat, Vevay, has a Swiss Wine Festival to this day.

History Mystery question

A city in Indiana takes its name from the French phrase for "high land" or "high ground."

Question: What is the name of the city?

The call-in number for the correct answer is (317) 788-3314, and the prize is a gift certificate to Cadillac Ranch All American Bar and Grill in downtown Indy at Union Station, courtesy of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association.

Roadtripper

Chris Gahl of the ICVA highlights a special exhibit at nation's oldest surviving pathology laboratory, the Indiana Medical History Museum. The building provided physicians in the late 1800s and 1900s with state-of-the-art facilities to study mental and nervous disorders.

The museum now uses its more than 15,000 artifacts to educate visitors about the developments that made today's advanced medical treatments possible. It is located on the grounds of the former Central State Hospital on the near westside of Indianapolis.

There's a unique exhibit running the entire month of September.

Austrian-born painter John Zwara came to Indianapolis in 1933 and spent several years living on the streets and selling his artwork. His friend, Alexander Vonnegut (uncle of Kurt Vonnegut), committed Zwara to Central State Hospital in 1938, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent six months at the hospital before escaping.

This exhibit features many of his works that were completed at Central State and will also highlight what little is known of his fascinating life.

Sept. 11 show

Fall Creek Massacre

When white men were found guilty by a jury and executed for the slaughter of nine Native Americans in March 1824, it was a milestone in American history. Following what became known as the Fall Creek Massacre, whites for the first time were convicted and executed for the murders of Indians under American law.

To explore all aspects of the brutal crimes in the swampy woods of Madison County - where Native Americans (including three women and four children) were gruesomely murdered - Nelson will be joined in studio by David Thomas Murphy, author of a new book, Murder in the Hearts: The Fall Creek Massacre (Indiana Historical Society Press). A professor of history at Anderson University, David has spent four years researching the massacre, trial and subsequent developments, including the social history of pioneer Hoosiers (Indiana only had been a state for about seven years at the time of the massacre) and of the Native Americans in the region.

David says he struggled to reconcile conflicting accounts of the events (the tribal origins of some of the victims remain unclear) as well as the motivations involved.

"The slaughter in the soggy Indiana creek bottoms created a short-lived but serious national security crisis," David writes, referring to concerns across the country that warfare would erupt across newly developing states. Noting that tensions had been brewing between whites and Native Americans for weeks prior to the massacre, David says the attitudes of many white settlers toward Indians were complex and nuanced, mixing respect, fear, tolerance and suspicion.

Even though the carnage of the Fall Creek Massacre drew national attention at the time, the slaughter and judicial outcome often are not mentioned in accounts of white-Native American relations, David says - although the late Jessamyn West, an Indiana native, wrote a best-selling novel, The Massacre at Fall Creek (1975), about the shocking episode in Hoosier history.

What's new with Hoosier History Live!

Our still-new Facebook page is yet another interactive opportunity for history aficionados to learn and share tidbits about Indiana's past.

Please tell our sponsors that you appreciate their support of the program; we can't do it without our sponsors and our individual donors. Thanks also especially to the Indiana Humanities Council for serving as our 501 (c) 3.

Many people believe that we are funded by the University of Indianapolis. We are very grateful to radio station WICR 88.7 FM for being our anchor station. And WICR is owned by UIndy. However, we receive no funding from the university; we are a consortium of journalists, historians and professionals who work together to produce this program. We rely completely on sponsors, grants and donations to support the program. We hope to receive adequate funding to be able to audio-archive (our current #1 wish-list item) all of our shows.

Stay tuned, or visit our "Support the show" page. And you can always call our ever-persistent producer Molly Head at (317) 927-9101 to see learn how you can help us out.

Shows, we got shows

We have more than 100 Hoosier History Live! radio shows completed, as a matter of fact. And we need to get show audio onto the website, which we are doing by and by, but we sure could use some sponsorship assistance as we edit and publish audio for each archived show. Take a look at the list below and check out all the opportunities for sponsoring a slice of original Hoosier History Live! content on the Web.

No one else is doing anything quite like what we're doing. We are the nation's only live call-in radio program about history. We offer a permanent and growing archive of quality content, available for sponsorship opportunities.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of Hoosier History Live!, click here or call Molly Head at (317) 927-9101 for more info.

Greetings from your host and producer

Your friends in “Hoosierdom,” Host and Creative Director Nelson Price and Producer and Development Director Molly Head at the Indiana Living Legends Gala, July 18, 2008 at the Indiana History Center

Curious ... about all things Hoosier? The Indiana Humanities Council blog, Hoosierati discusses how our heritage shapes the Hoosier state.

What people are saying about Hoosier History Live!

"Hoosier History Live! is a perfect place to consider and reconsider history ... not just what happened in the past, but what it may mean in the present. Nelson Price is the perfect host: enthusiastic, curious, and knowledgeable. Tune in to Hoosier History Live! and be prepared to be surprised."

James Still, playwright in residence, Indiana Repertory Theatre

"Nelson Price, more than anyone I know, infuses joy into the pursuit of history.  And that joy rings out loud and clear on the radio show, Hoosier History Live!"

Marsh Davis
President, Indiana Landmarks

"Nelson Price and his producer, Molly Head, put their hearts into everything they do. It's refreshing to hear a show that is so down-to-earth, informative and entertaining.  I have to hold my radio up to a window to hear it, but it's worth it!"

Glynis Worley, rural Bartholomew County listener

"No, I haven't heard of another call-in talk radio show about history. Our airwaves are now full of the worst vitriol! Give me the phone number for the show. I want to call in!"

Ken Burns, speaking at a preview of his film “The War” at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, April 18, 2007

"Distilling life experience into stories is an art. Telling stories of life experience for Hoosiers past and present will shape the lives of young people and enrich the lives of all in our state. Mr. Nelson Price brings alive the life experience of notable Hoosiers in Hoosier History Live!"

David T. Wong, Ph.D., President
DT Wong Consulting, LLC
Former Lilly research scientist who developed Prozac

"Hoosier History Live! is a fantastic opportunity for people to not only learn about history, but also become a part of the conversation. Much like our mission, the telling of Indiana's stories through Nelson and his guests wonderfully connects people to the past!"

John Herbst
President and CEO, Indiana Historical Society

Join our listening group at Bookmama's

Join the Bookmama's Hoosier History Chats at Bookmama's, 9 S. Johnson Ave. in Indy's Irvington neighborhood, every Saturday at 11:30 a.m. to listen to the show and discuss. Your host is Kathleen Angelone, owner of the independent bookshop. Grab a cup of coffee from across the street at Lazy Daze. Now is the time for Eastsiders to get into a heated discussion about history!