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© Copyright 2003 EPICS TCHA Team at Purdue University, All Rights Reserved.
Joshua Chew won a $63,671 contract to build Purdue University's Memorial Gymnasium.
Animal house construction began in Columbian Park for future acquisition and exhibition of foxes, skunks, a pair of pelicans, a lynx (which died May 10), prairie dogs, a coyote and, on May 21, deer donated by Jeptha Crouch.
Purdue University approved a Department of Education to meet a growing national demand for college-trained teachers.
Washington Township built a high school at Colburn.
A school for grades 1 through 12 opened in Americus.
At the Indiana Soldiers Home, 38 counties now had built cottages for their veterans, and membership reached 1,238. A 53-room hospital and ice plant were constructed, and powerhouse improvements completed.
William Jennings Bryan, campaigning for U.S. president, spoke for 40 minutes from a Monon Railroad train in the Market Space along Fifth Street.
Wabash River floodwater washed up evidence of a Wea Indian burial ground on the east bank downstream from Lafayette near the suspected site of Ft. Ouiatenon. Hundreds of bones were found in a half-acre space.
John Harper, first Purdue University graduate in 1875, died in Los Angeles. He had spent his working life in Durango, Colo., in irrigation projects for the federal government.
St. Boniface Catholic Church announced plans to operate an elementary school beginning in the fall.
A Courier story revealed that in the summer of 1907 Victoria, wife of Purdue President Winthrop E. Stone, had left him and gone to Germany, then on to India, to study philosophy.
Tippecanoe County registered 111 automobiles (more were suspected of being unregistered). Archa Hoffman ran a Harley-Davidson motorcycle sales agency at 517 N. Fourth St.; the Wayne Automobile Co. of Detroit was seeking a Lafayette agent; and C.A. Haag sold Indian brand motorcycles at 811 Columbia St.
Purdue University honored Prof. Harvey W. Wiley, a member of the first faculty in 1874, at dinner. Wiley, head of the federal government pure food department, gave the commencement speech in Eliza Fowler Hall.
Jerome H. Crouse, of Dayton, physician, Civil War soldier, church leader, IOOF and Masonic member, died at 65.
Tippecanoe County Commissioners pondered building a bridge over the Wabash River a mile upstream from Tecumseh Trail Park. It would replace the Davis ferry, operating since the 1820s.
Ray Ewry, the champion athlete with Lafayette and Purdue University roots, won the London Olympics gold medal in the standing high jump event, leaping five feet two inches, and also won the long-jump.
Fire destroyed the new clubhouse at the private German National Park. Opened earlier in the year, the structure housed bowling alleys. The park association held no fire insurance.
John Worth Kern, Indianapolis Democrat, campaigned for U.S. vice president with governor candidate Thomas R. Marshall, of Kendallville, Ind., in the Jackson Club in Lafayette.
William Howard Taft, Republican candidate for U.S. president, stopped at Lafayette's union depot enroute from Indianapolis to playwright George Ade's farm, Hazelden, near Brook, Ind., for a political rally with 20,000 people. Taft's train sped from Indianapolis to Lafayette in a record 65 minutes.
Governor Frank Hanly called a special legislative session to push a controversial county-option liquor sales law which split political party ranks. As arguments raged, it was seven months before Tippecanoe Countians voted on the wet-or-dry issue as prescribed in the law.
A new Lafayette Sales Company announced plans to build a livestock auction and sales barn, a motor speedway and amphitheater south of State Street levee west of the Wabash River.
William Howard Taft campaigned for U.S. president from the balcony of the Lincoln Club, northwest corner of Sixth and Columbia streets.
Voting machines were used for the first time in county elections. Republicans swept local races in a turnout of more than 11,000. William Howard Taft, Ohio lawyer, judge, territorial governor and cabinet member, defeated Bryan for President 7,679,906 to 6,409,106 and 321-162 in electoral votes. Tippecanoe gave Taft 6,164 to Bryan's 4,959.
On the 97th anniversary of the Battle of Tippecanoe, the state Battle Ground Monument Commission dedicated a 92-foot-tall white granite battlefield monument. The contract had gone to a firm from Buffalo, N.Y.
James Murdock, 70, died in the State Street home of his son Samuel. With Eastern capitalists Murdock had invested in natural gas drilling and interurban railroad ventures; formed the Indiana Lighting Company, presided over Merchants National Bank and the Evansville & Southern Indiana Traction Company. He was a Sterling Electric Company, Belt Railway and Romney Stock Farm stockholder, and a director of the Monon Railroad, other banks and traction companies. Born in Ireland, he had come to Lafayette from Kentucky to work in a brickyard.
About 2,500 attended the first auction of horses, mules and other livestock at the Lafayette Sales Company's barn south of State Street Levee.