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Indiana Bicentennial Celebration 2016
Vanderburgh County
Q&A with County Coordinator Laura Libs
What do you consider the key accomplishment(s) of your county’s Bicentennial celebration?
- Working with our citizen committee to organize the Torch Relay.
How/where are you preserving information and artifacts related to your county's celebration?
- The Torch and all memorabilia of the day will be housed at Willard Library in Evansville, IN.
Vanderburgh County Legacy Projects
- All In Block Party Evansville
- Art in the Park
- Art in the Park
- Exhibition: "At the Bend in the River: Our Place on the Ohio"
- Indiana’s Excellent Adventure
- Indiana State Games – Fit & 50!
- Museum Exhibition: "Lincoln: The Formative Years"
- Quilting in Community: A Celebration of a Southern Indiana Amish Tradition
- The Riverside Relay Marathon
- Vanderburgh County Fair Celebrates Indiana's 200th Birthday
- Wesselman Nature Society: Bicentennial Nature Center Network
Vanderburgh County Facts
Vanderburgh County was formed on January 7, 1818 from Gibson, Posey, and Warrick counties. It was named for Captain Henry Vanderburgh, Revolutionary War veteran and judge for the Indiana Territory.
Josie Orr, wife of former Indiana Governor Robert Orr, flew bombers and cargo planes during World War II. The couple met during the war and later married and resided in Evansville, Vanderburgh County, where Gov. Orr had grown up.
During WWII, the P-47 fighter-plane was manufactured in Evansville at Republic Aviation.
About the Ohio River flood of 1937. On January 24 martial law was clamped down on Evansville. On that day the river stage reached 54 feet — far above the 1913 level. Flood damage in six Indiana counties from Leavenworth to Mount Vernon was estimated at nearly $13,000,000 – which would be approximately $290,690,000 today. All of Vanderburgh County’s 4,000 WPA workers worked on flood rehabilitation work.
By the time the Wabash and Erie Canal was finished in 1853, Evansville’s first railroad, Evansville & Crawfordsville Railroad, was opened to Terre Haute.Railroads had made the canal obsolete. Only two flat barges ever made the entire trip. The canal basin at Fifth and Court street in downtown Evansville eventually became the site of a new courthouse in 1891.
County Seat: Evansville
Year Organized: 1818
Square Miles: 233.48
Vanderburgh County Torch Committee
- Laura Libs
- Leslie Townsend
- Robert Scott Wylie
- Mike Linderman
- Amy Walker
- Joshua Armstrong
