Humorist Will Rogers quipped that Indianapolis was "the only farm I've ever seen with a monument in the center." The capital city and its most recognizable landmark, the 284-ft Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, sit in the very center of the state surrounded by a pancake-flat checkerboard of fields. Only 4 years after attaining statehood, Indiana's General Assembly decided that the first capital, Corydon, was inconvenient. They chose instead a spot roughly at the geographical center of the state, where Fall Creek empties into the wide and lazy west fork of the White River. The move was quickly approved, and the capital city traces its beginnings to the arrival of four horse-drawn wagons piled high with the state archives and a time-worn set of leather-bound law books. While the legislators were quick to approve the placement of the capital, they wrangled for days over a proper name. Despite complaints that the name was too hard to pronounce, they finally agreed on affixing "polis," the Greek word for city, to the state's name. Natives refer to the city casually as "Indy."

Alexander Ralston, a surveyor for Washington, D.C., designer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, was hired to design and plan the city. He envisioned an orderly layout that contained the city within a square mile. Ralston overlaid a grid of roadways and parcels of land with a circle at the center and diagonal streets radiating in four directions. Since then, the Circle City has seen a steady influx of settlers, business, and industry. Ever since the early days, transportation arteries have figured prominently in the city's lifeblood. In the 1820s the National Road (now U.S. 40), and a decade later the Central Canal, carried a steady stream of people and goods. Later, the railroads laid track through the city and with the advent of the interstate highway system, Indianapolis was crisscrossed with super slabs, more than in any other city in the nation. Over the years, Ralston's orderly plan served the city well, and it has been busy filling in the triangles and squares with sleek yet unimposing high-rises and shady neighborhoods of gracious older homes. The metropolitan area now extends well beyond the original square mile, incorporating the six adjacent counties.

Since its beginning, the city's small-town character has brought mixed blessings. For years, the modest city wore the unbecoming labels "India-no-place" and "Naptown." Although Indianapolis has pursued a steady course of growth over the years, becoming the nation's 13th-largest city, until roughly 30 years ago it was truly little more than an oversized small town.

The catalyst for the city's makeover was the decision in 1970 to combine the governments of Indianapolis and Marion County. The move doubled the population to 710,000 and increased the municipality's eligibility for federal money. They then forged a public--private partnership with local business and industry leaders that called for investing $3 billion dollars in downtown Indianapolis by the mid-1990s.

The city was soon able to claim the title "Amateur Sports Capital of the World," having built world-class sports venues such as the track and field stadium and the natatorium on the combined campuses of Indiana and Purdue Universities. The headquarters of national amateur sports federations governing rowing, track and field, and gymnastics were relocated to the city.

The 1970s and the 1980s brought investments in bricks and mortar downtown with construction of a domed stadium for the newly acquired National Football League team the Colts, along with entertainment and recreation facilities. Also in the 1980s, Indianapolis was crowned "Cinderella City" by Newsweek and Travel Holiday, and began the next phase, filling in the downtown grid with museums, performance halls, and stretches of spruced-up green. Today, a zoo, several major museums and other cultural organizations, a symphony hall, and a repertory theater are all downtown, along with ample greenery. The White River State Park corridor along the White River strings together several sports and cultural attractions, including the Canal Walk, a linear park along a 10 1/2 - block remnant of the old Central Canal. By the early 1990s, the pace of development slowed and many people wondered whether the massive craters that dotted downtown would ever be filled in. Then, in fall 1995, Indianapolis unveiled Circle Centre, a mall full of shops and restaurants hidden cleverly behind the facades of staid, old, onetime office buildings and abandoned department stores. Today, the emphasis is on maintaining the city's sturdy grid framework while strategically adding new cultural and recreational facilities.