Julia Carson House

Julia Carson was born in Kentucky in 1938 and raised by her single mother. They moved to Indianapolis when Carson was young. She attended Crispus Attucks High School and married shortly after her graduation in 1955. Her two children, Samuel and Tonya, were still young children when their parents divorced, leaving Carson to raise the children on her own [1].

In 1972, Representative Andy Jacobs persuaded Carson into running for office in the Indiana legislature. She served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1973 to 1977, when she was elected to the Indiana State Senate, serving until 1990. In 1996, she became the first African American and first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress when she was elected as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Throughout her career, she was known for defending civil rights and the poor, determined to help those whose lives might have resembled her own childhood and early life as a single mother. She passed away in her Indianapolis home in 2007 [2].

During the last decades of her life, Carson lived in her Indianapolis home on North Park Avenue in Fall Creek Place. In 2015, Carson’s son, Samuel, contacted Indiana Landmarks for assistance in nominating his mother’s home for the National Register of Historic Places. The Partners in Preservation (PIP) National Register Program awarded funds to support nominations of ten Hoosier sites and districts to the National Register, including Julia Carson’s home. Samuel, who lived in the house at the time of the award, matched the $1,450 in PIP funding. Dr. James Glass of Historic Preservation and Heritage Consulting LLC wrote the nomination [3].

The home was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and State Register of Historic Places in October 2017 as both the Lovel D. Millikan House and the Julia M. Carson House [4]. It was built in 1911 by architect Frank Baldwin Hunter and is celebrated for its architectural significance. It represents the American Four Square house style popular between 1894 and 1930 and is an “especially fine example” of the early twentieth century style of home in Indianapolis [5]. The home is stately, unique, and an unforgettable part of Indianapolis history, much like Julia Carson herself.

[1] “Carson, Julia May,” United States House of Representatives, accessed March 15, 2021, https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/10693.
[2] “Carson, Julia May,” United States House of Representatives.
[3] “Landmarks Names Partners in Preservation,” Inside Indiana Business, August 18, 2015, https://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/29823163/landmarks-names-partners-in-preservation.
[4] “Lovel D. Millikan House,” SHAARD, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, October 8, 2017, https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/structural_surveys.html?_flowExecutionKey=_cECD86AEA-87AA-F974-EAFF-0A73DC5C3997_kDF1B4068-2999-E826-5C96-A8F25E7377BA.
[5] Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, accessed, March 15, 2021, https://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/files/hp_NR2.pdf.

Student Author: Gwyneth Harris
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey

PHOTO & VIDEO:
Millikan House, attributed to Jon Roanhaus, Public domain, via Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Millikan_House2_NRHP_100001608_Marion_County,_IN.jpg