conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Indiana, History, Bloomington with the genre: History, Americas?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'On This Day in Indianapolis History'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: On This Day in Indianapolis History
  In the 1850s, Indianapolis became a state railroad hub. After the Civil War, larger railway companies began to connect the Hoosier capital with Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and the West, as well as with Pennsylvania and New York. By the early 1890s, twenty-five thousand passengers were passing through the city's new Union Station every day, with 120 daily passenger trains. An April 1910 advertisement for the New York Central Railroad suggests the type of train service available: "Four trains daily to the heart of New York. Departures from Union Station, Indianapolis, 7:30 a.m., 2:20 p.m., 3:05 p.m., 6:55 p.m. All these trains arrive at Grand Central Station...Subway, surface and elevated trains from its doors to all parts of the city." Passengers would arrive in New York City, the company assured them, "ready for business or pleasure." In 1913, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central joined together to pay for improvements at Union Station, providing a new train shed and elevated crossings so that passengers would no longer have to cross tracks to reach their trains.
  The day's news was all about the new Federal League baseball team in Indianapolis and the upcoming opening of its new park. In thirty-two days, local construction and steel contractors had raised a stadium on a vacant lot in an industrial area along Kentucky Avenue. The construction company took out an ad bragging that "the pictures of the new Federal League Ball Park will show you the vast amount of work that can be accomplished in the short time of thirty-two days if handled by C.R. Pease Construction Company." Team managers and coaches would not guarantee an outright championship but predicted a winning season and perhaps more; sports writers were more sanguine, having seen the team barely win the previous day at St. Louis. The Federal League comprised eight teams, all playing in new ballparks. At the end of the season, the Indianapolis Hoosiers were on top, but the team went out of business after the season ended, and the league did the same in 1915.
  In 1853, the Bates House, a luxurious four-story brick hotel, opened at the corner of Washington and Illinois Streets in downtown Indianapolis. When presidents and congressmen, foreign dignitaries and wealthy businessmen came to town, they stayed at the Bates House. So when city residents heard that Illinois senator Stephen Douglas was visiting Indianapolis, they went looking for him at the Bates House. Hearing that a large crowd had gathered outside in the rain, Douglas came out onto the hotel's main balcony and gave a brief speech. "The time has arrived," he told his audience, "for true and loyal citizens to rally in support of the Constitution and the laws. This is no time for crimination and recrimination as to the causes that have produced the present disaster; it is enough that the Government is assailed, and our liberties imperiled, and that every American citizen should rally in their defense." At the end of the speech, "three rousing cheers were given for Douglas and the Union." Douglas had undertaken a speaking tour through the Midwest at Lincoln's request. By the end of May, worn by his travels, he contracted typhoid fever; he died in Chicago on June 3.
  Indianapolis began its existence with no local government other than that of Marion County. In 1832, voters elected five town trustees; a local sheriff and a volunteer fire department soon followed. As the population grew, new problems arose. A cholera epidemic in 1832 and 1833 highlighted the need for a board of health; the financial panic of 1837 left trustees wondering how to care for indigent citizens. In 1838, a new town charter added some governance, but Indianapolis did not officially incorporate until 1847. The "new" city needed a mayor and a city council. In 1832, Samuel Henderson had been the first president of the town trustees; he had also worked as the first postmaster of Indianapolis. Henderson was a landowner and businessman, as well as a director of the first bank in Indianapolis. On April 24, 1847, he won the mayoral election and served in the office for two years. Henderson did not remain in Indianapolis: he sold his land and businesses and headed west in the California gold rush.
  On this day, Indianapolis's Union Station reopened as a festival marketplace filled with restaurants and shops, part of the larger downtown renewal. Indianapolis's first railway station had been built in 1853—the nation's first Union Station, built by a consortium of railroads. In 1888, a much larger and grander Romanesque station replaced the first. The brick and granite building, with its beautiful central hall and its distinctive 185-foot-high clock tower, began to decline after World War II, as the popularity of automobiles affected passenger rail service. By the 1970s, the decaying building was in danger of demolition, but it survived to be placed on the National Register in 1982. The festival marketplace began the rebirth of the station, which now houses a hotel (including "rooms" in twenty-six Pullman cars still on their tracks) and a banquet and conference center in the Great Hall.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me another paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: By the early 1950s, suburban shopping centers were the newest trend in U.S. retail. Middle-class families who were moving into suburbs wanted conveniently located stores with free and ample parking, as well as access to many stores in one location. On this day in 1958, the first suburban retail center in Indianapolis opened. Glendale Shopping Center attracted attention even before it opened: those who gathered to watch construction were given "sidewalk superintendent" pins with the Glendale logo. The shopping center was an open-air development that offered thirty-seven retail stores in one location, including the very first branch location of the L.S. Ayres department store.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: S. retail. Middle-class families who were moving into suburbs wanted conveniently located stores with free and ample parking, as well as access to many stores in one location. On this day in 1958, the first suburban retail center in Indianapolis opened. Glendale Shopping Center attracted attention even before it opened: those who gathered to watch construction were given "sidewalk superintendent" pins with the Glendale logo. The shopping center was an open-air development that offered thirty-seven retail stores in one location, including the very first branch location of the L.S. Ayres department store.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In February 1919, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and a group of World War I veterans met to form a new veterans' organization; in November 1919, the American Legion held its first national convention, and during that meeting, the members chose Indianapolis as the site for the group's national headquarters. The legion advocated for veterans' benefits and for national security, offered services for veterans and promoted patriotic ideals. Indianapolis community leaders envisioned the legion linked to the memorial the city was planning to the veterans of World War I. The result was War Memorial Plaza in downtown Indianapolis, flanked on one end by the World War Memorial and on the other by American Legion Headquarters.
  In 1945, an Army Intelligence officer named John Birch was killed while on assignment in China. In December 1958, a group of eleven Indianapolis residents chose to honor what they saw as his sacrifice against the spread of Communism and name their new society after him. The John Birch Society was led by retired candy manufacturer Robert Welch Jr. Welch had been convinced for years that a massive Communist conspiracy had infiltrated U.S. society, especially politics—President Dwight Eisenhower and Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren were Communists or at the least Communist sympathizers, he believed. The society grew quickly, claiming 100,000 members by the early 1960s. The group organized itself in small 20- to 30-member cells and operated as much as possible in secret. Members believed that 40 to 60 percent of the nation was controlled by Communists, and they looked for the philosophy everywhere, teaching their children to report anything suspicious in their classrooms. The society still operates out of its headquarters in Appleton, Wisconsin—now with a website and an online newsletter.
  In 1850, the Tremont House, a roadhouse and bar, opened for business on South Meridian Street. For many years, its upstairs front room was used by railroad passengers from nearby Union Station. During the Civil War, tunnels from the bar to Union Station were part of the city's Underground Railroad network. For a period after the war, the upstairs was subdivided into twenty-three rooms and operated as a brothel. Through various owners and under a variety of names, with customers unknown and infamous (including the Brady and Dillinger gangs), the bar continued to do business. Just prior to Prohibition, it was Moore's Beer Tavern; during Prohibition, Moore's Restaurant operated in the former bar (and made beer in the basement). In December 1963, the Yeagy family took possession of the business, renamed their bar the Slippery Noodle Inn and made the inn the "Home of the Blues in Indiana," using what was once the livery stable as the music room. The Slippery Noodle Inn is now the oldest surviving commercial building in the city of Indianapolis.
  Only two shopping days until Christmas, and L.S. Ayres & Company knew its male customers—all those husbands, sons and boyfriends who dreaded shopping and still hadn't bought the women in their lives a single gift. "MEN!" began the eye-catching ad in large type, "we're all alike—we all feel lost when it comes to buying a gift for a woman." Ayres offered "a REAL Way Out...It's safe to buy a woman's gift in a woman's favorite store! It's twice as safe if you have the assistance of a clever, talented, sympathetic woman when you shop." The store had trained "a dozen or so of our cleverest, most agreeable, tactful young women" to come to the aid of desperate male shoppers. The women were ready "to shop WITH you, to shop FOR you"; men needed only to bring their shopping list "to a commodious private office on the street floor" where nobody else could discover their dilemma. And just to be certain of success, the advertisement concluded: "Women—Be Sure the Men See This Announcement!"
  After the death of Madame C.J. Walker, her daughter A'Lelia became director of the family company. It was she who planned the Madame C.J. Walker Building, which opened in late 1917 at the intersection of Indiana Avenue and West Street in Indianapolis. The building housed company headquarters; the manufacturing facility where three thousand workers made the famous hair and beauty products; the "home" salon in a line of beauty salons across the country; professional offices for African American doctors, lawyers and others; and a ballroom and theater. On December 26, the Madame Walker Theater opened with a Hollywood film starring Ronald Coleman and the music of Reginald DuValle's Blackbyrds Orchestra. Freeman B. Ransom, the Walker company's general manager, offered a dedication of the building "to those who toil; those who think; those who love good music; good pictures, high class entertainment...to all races." DuValle and the Blackbyrds, along with hundreds of other orchestras, jazz and blues combos and soloists, would perform at the Walker Theater and create its reputation as a musical destination in Indianapolis.