The Indiana Historical Society, located downtown on the canal at 450 West Ohio Street, opened a new technology-based, interactive history feature a few years ago called Destination Indiana. Destination Indiana, part of the Indiana Experience exhibit, is an area in the museum with large touch screen displays that allow visitors to explore the history of each county in Indiana. Recently, the scope of the project was increased to include neighborhood histories. Broad Ripple Village was lucky to be one of the first neighborhoods to be included.

Here is a bit of background on how that happened...

Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA) board member Tom Healy visited the Destination Indiana exhibit in the Indiana Experience gallery at the Indiana Historical Society with his wife, Elsa Kramer. She had just taken a tour with her students, and hoped that Broad Ripple could have a video "journey" included. After enjoying the interactive exhibit, Tom agreed that it has great value in teaching Indiana history.

Healy, who serves as president of the Broad Ripple Alliance for Progress, the BRVA's 501(c)(3) fund-raising arm, said, "When we learned that IHS wanted to include neighborhoods as part of the digital journeys in Destination Indiana, we thought it would be a great way to commemorate Broad Ripple's 175th anniversary. And thanks to the generosity of Bruce and Julie Buchanan and Richard Vonnegut, who underwrote production costs, and members of the BRVA's Committee for Historic Broad Ripple - especially Alice Roettger and Alan Hague - Broad Ripple became the first neighborhood video in the exhibit."

Destination Indiana includes several seating areas with large-screen touch-sensitive displays in a darkened room in the Indiana Experience section of the museum. Visitors choose their own journey by spinning the images on the screen to select a region of the state. Under the Central Indiana region, Neighborhood Journeys can be found. Touching that icon displays an icon for Broad Ripple Village. The presentation on the story of Broad Ripple Village starts. Visitors can stop the presentation and move back and forth through it at their own pace, taking more time to explore and to zoom in on images for more detail.

When you visit, find your home county and discover stories and history. Every county is included in the experience, as are many historic topics such as sports, wars, and businesses. Also, be sure to visit the real-life history section of the Indiana Experience which currently includes a jail with a locked-up bootlegger, available to be grilled by you about his life of illegal liquor, and a working polio vaccine production line in an Indianapolis factory of old. Visit our website www.broadripplegazette.com for more pictures of the exhibits.