In 1851, the Sisters of St. Francis founded a liberal arts school in Oldenburg, Ind., with a program to train teachers. It started as St. Francis Normal School and soon merged with Immaculate Conception Junior College (a separate Sisters of St. Francis school, also in Oldenburg) to form Marian College.
The school moved to Indianapolis in 1937, the year after it had purchased the former James A. Allison estate, known as Riverdale, along Cold Spring Road north of West 30th Street, across from Coffin Golf Course and White River. The school continued to operate there as Marian College until changing its name to Marian University in 2009.
In fact, Allison's Riverdale is one of three estates of entrepreneurs along Cold Spring Road — dubbed “Millionaires Row” — that became part of the Marian University campus, and each of the three entrepreneurs were investors in construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the home of the automobile racing’s most famous annual event, the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race.
James Allison would found Allison Experimental Co., which became Allison Engine Company and Allison Transmission, well-known longtime Indianapolis industries and employers. Along with Carl Fisher, one of the other entrepreneurs, Allison also co-founded a company that produced automobile headlights.
From 1937 until 1970, the campus library was inside the Allison mansion alongside art studios used by the art department. Planning for the current library began in 1964, and after construction it opened in 1970 as Marian College Library. On Oct. 10, 1976, the school held a commemorative ceremony in the new library auditorium as it formally named the facility Mother Theresa Hackelmeier Memorial Library, according to Shelby Riley, library archivist. Mother Theresa was the founder of the Sisters of St. Francis in Oldenburg.
The school preserved 30 acres of the Allison estate immediately north of the academic buildings for what it calls an outdoor ECOLAB, used by the university and the public to study and appreciate nature. Allison’s home today serves as a conference center and houses the offices of university President William Elsener.
Carl Fisher’s estate, called Blossom Heath, was the first of the three to be constructed. Sadly, it had to be razed after a devasting fire in 2014. Fisher operated the first automobile dealership in the United States. He also conceived and developed the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States, and was involved in real estate, including the development of Miami Beach, Fla.
Frank Wheeler’s home on his estate, known as Hawkeye, on Cold Spring Road, is referred to today as the Stokely Mansion, according to Edward Mandity of Hacklemeier Memorial Library on the university campus. It took on that name because it was later owned by William Stokely, president of Stokely-Van Camp Packing Co. The dwelling today is home to the school's admissions office.
Wheeler ran a carburetor business, starting in 1914, out of a building known today as Wheeler Arts Center in Indy’s Fountain Square neighborhood south of downtown. Hawkeye had a Japanese tea house with a green terra cotta tile roof on the property, an attraction that remains on the campus today as part of an oriental garden.
The area where the garden is located was overgrown when the school purchased the property in 1936, but it has been redeveloped and maintained since, and the Japanese American Society of Indiana provided funding to pay for a curved cedar bridge, called the Freedom Bridge, in the garden. The most recent upgrading occurred in 2018 – several years after my visit. It involved new plantings, landscaping and rock features. In addition to being an oasis for students on campus, it provides an ideal setting for special school events such as receptions, teas and yoga classes.
The garden was within sight of where I parked when I arrived at Marian on football game day in late November 2011, so I gravitated toward it after gathering my photo gear and began my stroll through campus. Unfortunately, I allowed myself less time than usual before kickoff for my campus landscape shots, and I found the garden so intriguing that as compact as everything is on the campus, I was not able to visit all of it. Regrettably, I also never made it back in the ensuing years, even though it wasn’t more than a half-hour’s drive from home.
Marian University offers undergraduates bachelor’s degrees in 51 majors (several of which — biology, chemistry, mathematics, psychology and public health — are are offered as either a B.A. or B.S.). It also has 47 minors, 47 specialized fields of study, 10 pre-professional paths and 10 associate degree programs, six at its Ancilla campus in northern Indiana and four through the former St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind.
Marian University offers undergraduates bachelor’s degrees in 51 majors (several of which — biology, chemistry, mathematics, psychology and public health — are are offered as either a B.A. or B.S.). It also has 47 minors, 47 specialized fields of study, 10 pre-professional paths and 10 associate degree programs, six at its Ancilla campus in northern Indiana and four through the former St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind.
In 2021, Marian officially acquired Ancilla College, a private Roman Catholic junior college founded in northern Indiana in 1937 as an extension of DePaul University in Chicago. It began opening its programs to the public as a community college in the 1960s. Today it operates along Gilbert Lake south of the unincorporated community of Donaldson, Ind., under the name Marian University Ancilla College.
Marian also offers seven master’s degrees, two courses/certificates programs and four doctorate degree programs, including one through its College of Osteopathic Medicine, which opened in 2013. It was the first osteopathic medical school in the state and the second operational medical school in Indiana at the time.
Marian University has an endowment of $107,703,867 as of 2024, according to College Raptor.
For a decade longer than the football program’s existence, the school has been better known for its strong and successful interscholastic men and women’s cycling program. Marian cyclists have won 45 USA Cycling National Championships.
The school’s cycling website says its teams compete in all five cycling disciplines – track, mountain bike, cyclocross, BMX and road. Its teams are members of the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference, which includes schools from Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri in addition to Indiana. Knights cycling teams have amassed 29 conference championships in various disciplines since 1997.
Marian operates the Indy Cycloplex, a 42-acre park just north of campus that includes Major Taylor Velodrome, a BMX track, a cyclocross course and mountain bike trails.
With such facilities north of campus, and being a short distance from a golf course and White River, it is not surprising that one would find the Marian University campus a visual delight. While its official address is Indianapolis, its 200 acres is situated sufficiently north of the city’s urban core.
I lead off this chapter with a photo of Wheeler’s tea house, and I begin the remaining campus photos below with more shots of the tea house and oriental garden. The garden and tea house are right next to the Steffen Music Center, which opened in 2010.
To view a full gallery of images from my 2011 visit to Marian University, follow the link in this sentence. To view a post with new pictures on a second visit to Marian in 2024, click on the link in this sentence.
Above and below: the Allen Whitehill Clowes Amphitheater, which is part of the expansive green mall at the heart of the university. It is named for the late Indianapolis philanthropist and supporter of the arts.
Above: The Stokely Mansion, part of the estate of Frank Wheeler’s Hawkeye. Today it houses Marian University’s Office of Admissions.
Above: One side of Doyle Residence Hall, which sits just outside the football stadium.
Above: The Mother Theresa Hackelmeier Memorial Library, named for the founder of the Sisters of St. Francis in Oldenburg. Her image also is one of five likenesses depicted on five vertical stained-glass windows on the southeast side of the university's St. Joseph Chapel.
Above: The Marian University Knights marching band, practicing in the mall before the game.
Next up: Chapter 11, Franklin College vs. Earlham College, Sept. 2012
Previously in Game Day Revisited:
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