Editing Muncie, Indiana (section)

===Industrial and civic development===
[[File:Muncie, Indiana (2673830741).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Illustration of Muncie, looking southeast in 1884|alt=]]
[[File:Old Delaware County Courthouse. Razed 1960's - panoramio.jpg|thumb|The [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux-Arts]] Delaware County Courthouse was completed in 1887. It was razed in 1966.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/DlwrCtyCrtH/search/page/1|title = CONTENTdm}}</ref>]]
The [[Indiana gas boom]] of the 1880s ushered in a new era of prosperity to Muncie. Abundant supplies of natural gas attracted new businesses, industries, and additional residents to the city.<ref>Greene, p. 10.</ref><ref name="JG">{{cite book |last1=Glass |first1=James |last2=Kohrman |first2=David |title=The Gas Boom of East Central Indiana (Images of America) |date=2005 |publisher=Arcadia |location=Charleston |isbn=9780738539638 |pages=17–32}}</ref> Although agriculture continued to be an economic factor in the region, industry dominated the city's development for the next 100 years.<ref name=Spurgeon27/> One of the major manufacturers that arrived early in the city's gas-boom period was the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, which was renamed the [[Ball Corporation]] in 1969. The [[Ball brothers]], who were searching for a new site for their glass manufacturing business that was closer to an abundant natural-gas supply, built a new glass-making foundry in Muncie, beginning its glass production on March 1, 1888. In 1889 the company relocated its metal manufacturing operations to Muncie.<ref>{{cite book|author=Dwight W. Hoover|title=A pictorial history of Indiana|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1980|isbn=9780253146939|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/pictorialhistory0000hoov}}</ref><ref name=Quigley14>Barbara Quigley, "The Ball Brothers" in {{cite book |editor1=Gugin, Linda C. |editor2=James E. St. Clair |title=Indiana's 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State |publisher=Indiana Historical Society Press |year=2015 |location=Indianapolis |page=14  |isbn=978-0-87195-387-2}}</ref>

In addition to several other glass factories, Muncie attracted iron and steel mills. Kitselman Steel & Wire Company was the largest employer in Indiana in 1900 with 11,000 employees; it later became Indiana Steel & Wire.<ref>A Book of Indiana, pg 420, published 1929 by the Indiana Biographical Association</ref> Others included [[Republic Steel|Republic Iron and Steel Company]] and the Midland Steel Company. (Midland became [[Inland Steel Company]] and later moved to [[Gary, Indiana]].) [[Indiana Bridge Company]] was also a major employer.<ref>Spurgeon, p. 38.</ref> By the time the natural gas supply from the [[Trenton Gas Field]] had significantly declined and the gas boom ended in Indiana {{Circa|1910|lk=no}}, Muncie was well established as an industrial town and a commercial center for east-central Indiana, especially with several railroad lines connecting it to larger cities and the arrival of automobile industry manufacturing after 1900.<ref>Spurgeon, p. 41.</ref><ref name=Greene11>Greene, p. 11.</ref>
  
Numerous civic developments also occurred as a result of the city's growth during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, when Muncie citizens built a new city hall, a new public library, and a new high school. The city's [[gasworks]] also began operations in the late 1870s.<ref name=Spurgeon27/> The ''Muncie Star'' was founded in 1899 and the ''Muncie Evening Press'' was founded in 1905.<ref name=Greene15-16/><ref>By the mid-1940s the two newspapers were under common ownership. See Spurgeon, p. 47.</ref> A [[Carnegie Library (Muncie, Indiana)|new public library]], which was a [[Carnegie library]] project, was dedicated on January 1, 1904, and served as the main branch of the city's public library system.<ref>Spurgeon, p. 50.</ref>

The forerunner to [[Ball State University]] also arrived at the turn of the twentieth century. Eastern Indiana Normal School opened in 1899, but it closed after two years. Several subsequent efforts to establish a private college in Muncie during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also failed, but one proved to be very successful. After the Ball brothers bought the school property and its vacant buildings and donated them to the State of Indiana, the Indiana State Normal School, Eastern Division, the forerunner to Ball State University, opened in 1918. It was named Ball Teachers College in 1922, Ball State Teachers College in 1929, and Ball State University in 1965.<ref name="Greene11" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Ball State University: History and Mission|url=http://cms.bsu.edu/About/HistoryAndMission.aspx|publisher=Ball State University|access-date=November 6, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706063516/http://cms.bsu.edu/About/HistoryAndMission.aspx|archive-date=July 6, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Frank D. Haimbaugh|title=History of Delaware County Indiana | publisher =Historical Publishing Company | volume =1 | year =1924 | location =Indianapolis| pages=334–35 | oclc = 7224336}}</ref>

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, in tandem with the gas boom, Muncie developed an active cultural arts community, which included music and art clubs, women's clubs, self-improvements clubs, and other social clubs. Hoosier artist [[J. Ottis Adams]], who came to Muncie in 1876, later formed an art school in the city with fellow artist [[William Forsyth (artist)|William Forsyth]]. Although their school closed with a year or two, other art groups were established, most notably the Art Students' League (1892) and the Muncie Art Association (1905).<ref>{{cite book | author=Ned H. Griner | title =Side By Side With Coarser Plants: The Muncie Art Movement, 1885–1985 | publisher =Ball State University | year =1985 | location =Muncie, Indiana | pages =6–9, 13–14, 23, 37 | oclc=13211261}}</ref>

By the early twentieth century several railroads served Muncie, which helped to establish the city as a transportation hub. The Cincinnati, Richmond and Muncie Railroad (later known as the [[Chesapeake and Ohio Railway]]) reached Muncie in 1903. The Chicago, Indiana, and Eastern Railroad (acquired by a subsidiary of the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] system) and the Chicago and Southeastern (sometimes called the Central Indiana Railroad) also served the city. In addition to the railroads, Muncie's roads connected to nearby towns and an electric [[interurban]] system, which arrived in the early 1900s, linked it to smaller towns and larger cities, including [[Indianapolis]] and [[Fort Wayne, Indiana]], and [[Dayton, Ohio]].<ref>Spurgeon, pp. 46–47.</ref>

With the arrival of the auto manufacturing and the related auto parts industry after the turn of the twentieth century, Muncie's industrial and commercial development increased as the population grew. During World War I, local manufacturers joined others around the county in converting their factories to production of war [[materiel]].<ref>Spurgeon, pp. 50, 55.</ref> In the 1920s Muncie continued its rise as an automobile-manufacturing center, primarily due to its heavy industry and skilled labor force. During this time, the community also became a center of [[Ku Klux Klan]] activity. Muncie's Klan membership was estimated at 3,500 in the early 1920s. Scandals within the Klan's leadership, divisions among its members, and some violent confrontations with their opponents damaged the organization's reputation. Increasing hostility toward the Klan's political activities, beliefs, and values also divided the Muncie community, before its popularity and membership significantly declined by the end of the decade.<ref>{{cite book | author =Dwight W. Hoover | title =Magic Middletown | publisher =Indiana University Press | year =1986 | location =Bloomington | pages =[https://archive.org/details/magicmiddletown0000hoov/page/96 96–100] | url =https://archive.org/details/magicmiddletown0000hoov/page/96 | isbn =9780253285904 }}</ref>

Muncie residents also made it through the challenges of the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]], with the Ball brothers continuing their role as major benefactors to the community by donating funds for construction of new facilities at Ball State and [[Ball Memorial Hospital]].<ref name=Spurgeon63>Spurgeon, p. 63.</ref> (The hospital, which opened in 1929, later affiliated with [[Indiana University Health]].<ref name=Quigley16>Quigley, p. 16.</ref>) The [[Works Progress Administration]] (WPA) also provided jobs such as road grading, city sewer improvements, and bridge construction.<ref name=Spurgeon63/>