Richmond, Indiana | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
 Flag  Seal | |
| Nickname: City of Roses | |
 Location of Richmond in Wayne County, Indiana. | |
| Coordinates:39°49′54″N84°52′26″W / 39.83167°N 84.87389°W /39.83167; -84.87389 | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Indiana |
| County | Wayne |
| Townships | Boston,Center,Wayne,Webster |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Ron Oler (R) |
| Area | |
• Total | 24.15 sq mi (62.56 km2) |
| • Land | 24.00 sq mi (62.17 km2) |
| • Water | 0.15 sq mi (0.39 km2) |
| Elevation | 978 ft (298 m) |
| Population (2020) | |
• Total | 35,720 |
| • Density | 1,488.1/sq mi (574.54/km2) |
| Time zone | UTC−5 (EST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−4 (EDT) |
| ZIP codes | 47374-47375 |
| Area code | 765 |
| FIPS code | 18-64260[3] |
| GNIS feature ID | 2396366[2] |
| Website | richmondindiana |
Richmond (/ˈrɪtʃmənd/) is a city in easternWayne County, Indiana, United States. Bordering the state ofOhio, it is thecounty seat of Wayne County.[4] In the2020 census, the city had a population of 35,720. It is the principal city of theRichmond micropolitan area. Situated largely withinWayne Township, its area includes a non-contiguous portion in nearbyBoston Township, whereRichmond Municipal Airport is located.
Richmond is sometimes called the "cradle of recorded jazz" because the earliestjazz recordings and records were made at the studio ofGennett Records, a division of theStarr Piano Company.[5] Gennett Records was the first to record such artists asLouis Armstrong,Bix Beiderbecke,Jelly Roll Morton,Hoagy Carmichael,Lawrence Welk, andGene Autry.[6] The city has twice received theAll-America City Award, most recently in 2009.
In 1806 the first European Americans in the area,Quaker families from the state ofNorth Carolina, settled along the East Fork of theWhitewater River. This was part of a general westward migration in the early decades after theAmerican Revolution. John Smith was one of the earliest settlers.[7] Richmond is still home to several Quaker institutions, includingFriends United Meeting,Richmond Friends School,Earlham College and theEarlham School of Religion.
The first post office in Richmond was established in 1818 with Robert Morrison as the first postmaster.[8] The town was officially incorporated in 1840, with John Sailor elected the first mayor.[9]
Early cinema and television pioneerCharles Francis Jenkins grew up on a farm north of Richmond, where he began inventing useful gadgets. As the Richmond Telegram reported, on June 6, 1894, Jenkins gathered his family, friends and newsmen at his cousin's jewelry store in downtown Richmond and projected a filmed motion picture for the first time in front of an audience. The motion picture was of a vaudeville entertainer performing a butterfly dance, which Jenkins had filmed himself. Jenkins filed for a patent for the Phantoscope projector in November 1894 and it was issued in March 1895. A modified version of the Phantoscope was later sold toThomas Edison, who named itEdison's Vitascope and began projecting motion pictures in New York Cityvaudeville theaters, raising the curtain on American cinema.
Joseph E. Maddy is credited with founding the country's first complete high school orchestra at Richmond, and later founded the National High School Orchestra Camp, which became theInterlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.[10][11]
Hoagy Carmichael recorded "Stardust" for the first time in Richmond at theGennett recording studio. Famed trumpeter and singerLouis Armstrong was first recorded at Gennett as a member ofKing Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band.[12] Many other internationally famous musicians recorded at Gennett's Richmond facility, includingJelly Roll Morton,Bix Beiderbecke,Duke Ellington, andFats Waller.[13] Gennett also recorded Klan musicians.[14][15]
A group of artists in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to be known as theRichmond Group. They includedJohn Elwood Bundy,Charles Conner,George Herbert Baker,Maude Kaufman Eggemeyer andJohn Albert Seaford. TheRichmond Art Museum has a collection of regional and American art.[16] Many consider the most significant painting in the collection to be a self-portrait of Indiana-bornWilliam Merritt Chase.[17]
The city was connected to theNational Road, the first road built by the federal government and a major route west for pioneers of the 19th century.[18] It became part of the system ofNational Auto Trails. The highway is now known asU.S. Route 40. One of the extantMadonna of the Trail monuments was dedicated at Richmond on October 28, 1928.[19] It sits in a corner of Glen Miller Park adjacent toUS 40.
Richmond's cultural resources include two of Indiana's threeEgyptianmummies. One is held by the Wayne County Historical Museum and the other by Earlham College's Joseph Moore Museum, leading to the local nickname "Mummy capital of Indiana".[20][21]
The arts were supported by a strong economy increasingly based on manufacturing. Richmond was once known as "the lawnmower capital" because it was a center for manufacturing oflawnmowers from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. Manufacturers included Davis,Motomower,Dille-McGuire and F&N. The farm machinery builderGaar-Scott was based in Richmond. TheDavis Aircraft Co.,[22][23] builder of a lightparasol wing monoplane, operated in Richmond beginning in 1929.
After starting out in nearbyUnion City, Wayne Agricultural Works moved to Richmond. Wayne manufactured horse-drawn vehicles, including the "kid hack", a precursor of the motorizedschool bus. From the early 1930s through the 1940s, Richmond had several automobile designers and manufacturers. Among the automobiles locally manufactured were theRichmond, built by the Wayne Works; the "Rodefeld"; theDavis; thePilot; theWestcott; and theCrosley. In the 1950s Wayne Works changed its name toWayne Corporation, by then a well-known bus and school-bus manufacturer. In 1967 it relocated to a site adjacent toInterstate 70. The company was a leader in school-bus safety innovations, but closed in 1992 during a period of school-bus manufacturing industry consolidations.[24]
Richmond was known as the "Rose City" because of the many varieties once grown there by Hill's Roses. The company had several sprawling complexes ofgreenhouses, with a total of about 34 acres (14 ha) under glass. The annual Richmond Rose Festival honored the rose industry and was a popular summer attraction.[25]
On April 6, 1968, an explosion triggered by a natural gas leak destroyed or damaged several downtown blocks and killed 41 people; more than 150 were injured.[26] The event is documented in the bookDeath in a Sunny Street: The Civil Defense Story of the Richmond, Indiana Disaster, April 6, 1968, compiled by Esther Kellner.
According to the 2010 census, Richmond has a total area of 24.067 square miles (62.33 km2), of which 23.91 square miles (61.93 km2) (or 99.35%) is land and 0.157 square miles (0.41 km2) (or 0.65%) is water.[27]
Richmond is located about 12 miles S ofHoosier Hill, the highest point in Indiana.
Richmond is noted for its rich stock of historic architecture. In 2003, a book entitledRichmond Indiana: Its Physical Development and Aesthetic Heritage to 1920 byCornell University architectural historians, Michael and Mary Raddant Tomlan, was published by theIndiana Historical Society. Particularly notable buildings are the 1902Pennsylvania Railroad Station designed byDaniel H. Burnham of Chicago and the 1893Wayne County Court House designed byJames W. McLaughlin ofCincinnati. Local architects of note includeJohn A. Hasecoster,William S. Kaufman andStephen O. Yates.
The significance of the architecture has been recognized. Five large districts, such as the Depot District, and several individual buildings are listed in theNational Register of Historic Places, theHistoric American Buildings Survey and theHistoric American Engineering Record.
| Climate data for Richmond, Indiana (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1968–present) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °F (°C) | 67 (19) | 78 (26) | 85 (29) | 87 (31) | 94 (34) | 104 (40) | 102 (39) | 100 (38) | 100 (38) | 91 (33) | 80 (27) | 72 (22) | 104 (40) |
| Mean maximum °F (°C) | 58.3 (14.6) | 63.0 (17.2) | 72.5 (22.5) | 81.1 (27.3) | 88.0 (31.1) | 92.2 (33.4) | 92.6 (33.7) | 91.7 (33.2) | 90.0 (32.2) | 82.7 (28.2) | 70.2 (21.2) | 61.5 (16.4) | 94.5 (34.7) |
| Mean daily maximum °F (°C) | 36.2 (2.3) | 40.3 (4.6) | 50.8 (10.4) | 63.8 (17.7) | 73.7 (23.2) | 82.0 (27.8) | 84.8 (29.3) | 83.6 (28.7) | 77.6 (25.3) | 65.5 (18.6) | 51.7 (10.9) | 40.4 (4.7) | 62.5 (16.9) |
| Daily mean °F (°C) | 27.9 (−2.3) | 31.2 (−0.4) | 40.8 (4.9) | 52.2 (11.2) | 62.6 (17.0) | 71.1 (21.7) | 74.2 (23.4) | 72.7 (22.6) | 65.9 (18.8) | 54.2 (12.3) | 42.2 (5.7) | 32.6 (0.3) | 52.3 (11.3) |
| Mean daily minimum °F (°C) | 19.6 (−6.9) | 22.2 (−5.4) | 30.8 (−0.7) | 40.7 (4.8) | 51.5 (10.8) | 60.2 (15.7) | 63.5 (17.5) | 61.8 (16.6) | 54.2 (12.3) | 42.9 (6.1) | 32.7 (0.4) | 24.7 (−4.1) | 42.1 (5.6) |
| Mean minimum °F (°C) | −3.8 (−19.9) | 1.9 (−16.7) | 11.9 (−11.2) | 24.7 (−4.1) | 35.4 (1.9) | 47.0 (8.3) | 52.5 (11.4) | 51.0 (10.6) | 40.1 (4.5) | 28.1 (−2.2) | 17.8 (−7.9) | 5.5 (−14.7) | −7.5 (−21.9) |
| Record low °F (°C) | −27 (−33) | −20 (−29) | −9 (−23) | 14 (−10) | 26 (−3) | 36 (2) | 42 (6) | 41 (5) | 30 (−1) | 16 (−9) | 6 (−14) | −22 (−30) | −27 (−33) |
| Averageprecipitation inches (mm) | 3.20 (81) | 2.25 (57) | 3.42 (87) | 4.27 (108) | 4.63 (118) | 4.80 (122) | 4.32 (110) | 3.27 (83) | 3.12 (79) | 3.16 (80) | 3.32 (84) | 3.10 (79) | 42.86 (1,089) |
| Average precipitation days(≥ 0.01 in) | 13.0 | 10.5 | 11.5 | 11.9 | 13.5 | 11.4 | 10.6 | 8.4 | 8.7 | 9.8 | 9.5 | 12.4 | 131.2 |
| Source:NOAA[28][29] | |||||||||||||
| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1840 | 2,070 | — | |
| 1850 | 1,443 | −30.3% | |
| 1860 | 6,608 | 357.9% | |
| 1870 | 9,445 | 42.9% | |
| 1880 | 12,742 | 34.9% | |
| 1890 | 16,608 | 30.3% | |
| 1900 | 18,226 | 9.7% | |
| 1910 | 22,824 | 25.2% | |
| 1920 | 26,765 | 17.3% | |
| 1930 | 32,493 | 21.4% | |
| 1940 | 35,147 | 8.2% | |
| 1950 | 39,539 | 12.5% | |
| 1960 | 44,149 | 11.7% | |
| 1970 | 43,999 | −0.3% | |
| 1980 | 41,349 | −6.0% | |
| 1990 | 38,705 | −6.4% | |
| 2000 | 39,124 | 1.1% | |
| 2010 | 36,812 | −5.9% | |
| 2020 | 35,720 | −3.0% | |
| Source: US Census Bureau | |||
As of the census[30] of 2010, there were 36,812 people, 15,098 households, and 8,909 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,539.0 inhabitants per square mile (594.2/km2). There were 17,649 housing units at an average density of 737.8 per square mile (284.9/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 83.9%White, 8.6%African American, 0.3%Native American, 1.1%Asian, 0.1%Pacific Islander, 1.9% fromother races, and 4.0% from two or more races.Hispanic orLatino of any race were 4.1% of the population.
There were 15,098 households, of which 28.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.5% were married couples living together, 16.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 41.0% were non-families. 34.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.91.
The median age in the city was 38.4 years. 22.1% of residents were under the age of 18; 11.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.4% were from 25 to 44; 25.6% were from 45 to 64; and 16.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.9% male and 52.1% female.
As of the census[3] of 2000, there were 39,124 people, 16,287 households, and 9,918 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,685.3 inhabitants per square mile (650.7/km2). There were 17,647 housing units at an average density of 760.2 per square mile (293.5/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 86.78%White, 8.87%African American, 0.27%Native American, 0.80%Asian, 0.06%Pacific Islander, 1.09% fromother races, and 2.14% from two or more races.Hispanic orLatino of any race were 2.03% of the population.
There were 16,287 households, out of which 27.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.1% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.1% were non-families. 33.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.89.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 23.4% under the age of 18, 11.0% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 21.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 88.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $30,210, and the median income for a family was $38,346. Males had a median income of $30,849 versus $21,164 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,096. About 12.1% of families and 15.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.8% of those under age 18 and 10.8% of those age 65 or over.
Richmond is home to four colleges:Earlham College,Indiana University East,Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, and thePurdue Polytechnic Institute – Richmond. It is also home to twoseminaries, theQuakerEarlham School of Religion andChurch of the BrethrenBethany Theological Seminary.
Richmond High School includes theRichmond Art Museum andCivic Hall Performing Arts Center.Seton Catholic High School, a junior and senior high school, is a religious high school. It is based in the former home of St. Andrew High School (1899–1936) and, more recently, St. Andrew Elementary School, adjacent to St. Andrew Church of the Richmond Catholic Community.
The town has a lending library, theMorrisson Reeves Library.[32]
Richmond is the headquarters ofFriends United Meeting, and hosts theQuaker Hill Conference Center, of theReligious Society of Friends (Quakers).
The daily newspaper is theGannett-ownedPalladium-Item.
Full-power radio stations includeWKBV,WFMG,WQLK,WKRT, and Earlham College's student-run public radio stationWECI. Richmond is also served byWJYW which is repeated on 94.5 and 97.7. AreaNPR radio stations includeWBSH inHagerstown, Indiana, andWMUB inOxford, Ohio.
Richmond is considered to be within theDayton, Ohio, television market and has one full-power television station,WKOI, which is anIon owned and operated station. The city also has one county-widepublic, educational, and government access (PEG) cable television station,Whitewater Community Television.[33] Richmond'sXfinity system supplements the area withIndianapolis stations.
Richmond Municipal Airport is a public-use airport five nautical miles (6 mi, 9 km) southeast of Richmond's central business district. It is owned by the Richmond Board of Aviation Commissioners. It is also anexclave of Richmond.[34] Richmond's closest airport with commercial service isDayton International Airport.
Richmond is served byInterstate 70 at exits 149, 151, 153, and 156.
Established in 1902, Richmond'sPennsylvania Railroad station was a hub forPennsylvania Railroad, and later,Penn Central trains into the late 1960s. The last train at the station wasAmtrak'sNational Limited betweenKansas City andNew York City, which ended service in 1979.[35] Richmond was also home to aChesapeake and Ohio Railway station.
Public transit service is provided by city-ownedRoseview Transit, operating daily except Sundays and major holidays.[36]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
Media from Commons
Texts from Wikisource
Travel information from WikivoyageMunicipalities and communities ofWayne County, Indiana,United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| City |  | |
| Towns | ||
| Townships | ||
| CDPs | ||
| Other communities | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Geographic | |
| Other | |
