Our Land, Our Literature: Region - West Central Indiana

West central Indiana, which supports few of the tall grass prairies, sand dunes, and wetlands it once did, is now primarily characterized by agriculture. As part of the great till plain that covered most of the middle third of Indiana, the land was rich from the till, or glacial fill, that was deposited there.

The area has provided the setting for many Indiana authors who have written about the natural environment, most notably the Wabash River, which runs from north to south through the entire region. Crawfordsville, the site of Wabash College, was

home to many Indiana writers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the 1880s, in fact, Crawfordsville was considered the “Hoosier Athens,” because of its flourishing literary and art community.

The two largest cities of the region, both in the mid-1800s and today, are Terre Haute and Lafayette, which established very different identities associated with the land. For Terre Haute, in the latter half of the 1800s, coal mining became an important industry; for West Lafayette, Purdue University (established in 1869) became an important center for agricultural advances on a national scale.

Pertinent ecosystems
Rivers
Sand dunes
Prairies
Wetlands

Relevant environmental terms/issues
Agriculture
Deforestation/habitat destruction
Wetland destruction


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