Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is carbon with variable amounts of other elements. Coal is formed if dead plant matter decays into peat and over millions of years the heat and pressure of deep burial converts the peat into coal. Vast deposits of coal originates in former wetlands—called coal forests—that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous and Permian times; as a fossil fuel burned for heat, coal supplies about a quarter of the world's primary energy and two-fifths of its electricity. Some iron and steel making and other industrial processes burn coal; the extraction and use of coal causes much illness. Coal damages the environment, including by climate change as it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide, 14 Gt in 2016, 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions; as part of the worldwide energy transition many countries use less coal. The largest consumer and importer of coal is China.
China mines account for half the world's coal, followed by India with about a tenth. Australia accounts for about a third of world coal exports followed by Russia; the word took the form col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula, which in turn is hypothesized to come from the Proto-Indo-European root *gu-lo- "live coal". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian kole, Middle Dutch cole, Dutch kool, Old High German chol, German Kohle and Old Norse kol, the Irish word gual is a cognate via the Indo-European root. Coal is composed of macerals and water. Fossils and amber may be found in coal. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas. Due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil; as more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed. The temperature rose as they sank deeper and deeper; as the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation by mud or acidic water.
This trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were covered and buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was converted to coal; the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification. Coalification starts with dead plant matter decaying into peat. Over millions of years the heat and pressure of deep burial causes the loss of water and carbon dioxide and an increase in the proportion of carbon, thus first lignite sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, lastly anthracite may be formed. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, although coal is known from most geological periods; the exception is the coal gap in the Permian -- Triassic extinction event. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants—this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams are interbedded with other sediments in a cyclothem; as geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: Peat, a precursor of coal Lignite, or brown coal, the lowest rank of coal, most harmful to health, used exclusively as fuel for electric power generation Jet, a compact form of lignite, sometimes polished.
Bituminous coal, a dense sedimentary rock black, but sometimes dark brown with well-defined bands of bright and dull material It is used as fuel in steam-electric power generation and to make coke. Anthracite, the highest rank of coal is a harder, glossy black coal used for residential and commercial space heating. Graphite is difficult to ignite and not used as fuel. Cannel coal is a variety of fine-grained, high-rank coal with significant hydrogen content, which consists of liptinite. There are several international standards for coal; the classification of coal is based on the content of volatiles. However the most important distinction is between thermal coal, burnt to generate electricity via steam. Hilt's law is a geological observation, the higher its rank, it applies if the thermal gradient is vertical. The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from the Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC.
Marco Polo, the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as "black stones... which burn like logs", said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise On stones by the Greek scientist Theophrastus: Among the materials that are dug because they are useful, those known as anthrakes are made of earth, once set on fire, they burn like charcoa
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital and most populous city of the U. S. state of Tennessee. The city is located on the Cumberland River; the city's population ranks 24th in the U. S. According to 2017 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the total consolidated city-county population stood at 691,243; the "balance" population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Davidson County, was 667,560 in 2017. Located in northern Middle Tennessee, Nashville is the main core of the largest metropolitan area in Tennessee; the 2017 population of the entire 14-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,903,045. The 2017 population of the Nashville—Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 2,027,489. Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779; the city grew due to its strategic location as a port and railroad center. Nashville seceded with Tennessee during the American Civil War and in 1862 became the first state capital to fall to Union troops.
After the war the city developed a manufacturing base. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government, which includes six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system; the city is governed by a mayor, a vice-mayor, a 40-member metropolitan council. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee. Nashville is a center for the music, publishing, private prison and transportation industries, is home to numerous colleges and universities such as Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Fisk University, Lipscomb University. Entities with headquarters in the city include Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Captain D's, CoreCivic, Dollar General, Hospital Corporation of America, LifeWay Christian Resources, Logan's Roadhouse, Ryman Hospitality Properties; the town of Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, a party of Overmountain Men in 1779, near the original Cumberland settlement of Fort Nashborough.
It was named for the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville grew because of its strategic location, accessibility as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 enslaved African Americans and 14 free African-American residents. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named as the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee; the city government of Nashville owned 24 slaves by 1831, 60 prior to the war. They were "put to work to build the first successful water system and maintain the streets." The cholera outbreak that struck Nashville in 1849–1850 took the life of former U. S. President James K. Polk. There were 311 deaths from cholera in 1849 and an estimated 316 to about 500 in 1850. By 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city; the city's significance as a shipping port made it a desirable prize as a means of controlling important river and railroad transportation routes.
In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops. The state was occupied by Union troops for the duration of the war; the Battle of Nashville was a significant Union victory and the most decisive tactical victory gained by either side in the war. Afterward, the Confederates conducted a war of attrition, making guerrilla raids and engaging in small skirmishes, with the Confederate forces in the Deep South constantly in retreat. In 1868, a few years after the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton. Chapters of this secret insurgent group formed throughout the South. In 1873 Nashville suffered another cholera epidemic, as did towns throughout Sumner County along railroad routes and the Cumberland River. Meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base; the post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and Davidson County.
These healthy economic times left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, including the Parthenon in Centennial Park, near downtown. On April 30, 1892, Ephraim Grizzard, an African-American man, was lynched in a spectacle murder in front of a white mob of 10,000 in Nashville, his lynching was described by journalist Ida B. Wells as: "A naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the nineteenth century civilization of the Athens of the South." From 1877 to 1950, a total of six lynchings of blacks were conducted in Davidson County, most in the county seat of Nashville near the turn of the century. By the turn of the century, Nashville had become the cradle of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, as the first chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded here and the Confederate Veteran magazine was published here. Most "guardians of the Lost Cause" lived near Centennial Park. At the same time, Jefferson Street became the historic center of the African-American community.
It remained so until the federal government s
Jonesville, Virginia
Jonesville is a town in and the county seat of Lee County, United States. The population was 995 at the 2000 census. Jonesville was a small but thriving center of local commerce in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but like most towns in the central Appalachian region, it fell into gradual economic decline as the coal boom ebbed in the latter half of the twentieth century. By the end of the century much of the commercial real estate in its downtown area was either unoccupied or underutilized. Most of Jonesville's remaining commercial activity is concentrated in the west end. Jonesville Drug, one of the oldest surviving downtown businesses, relocated to the old Chappell's Dairy site on the west end in 2004. Jonesville is the birthplace of Andrew Taylor Still, MD, DO. Dr Still was a founder of Baker University in Kansas and the founder of the American School of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, MO. Dr Still is considered the founder of osteopathic medicine and is the author of four books published in his lifetime.
In December, 2013 Dr. Still was announced as an inductee to the Hall of Famous Missourians; the Dickinson-Milbourn House and Jonesville Methodist Campground are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Glen Morgan Williams, United States Federal Judge, was born in Jonesville. Andrew Taylor Still, M. D. D. O. father of osteopathic medicine and founder of its first school and infirmary, was born in Jonesville in 1828. Elbert S. Martin, born near Jonesville, VA. John Preston Martin, congressman Senator for Kentucky, was born near Jonesville, VA. Steve Rasnic Tem, American Author, born in Jonesville, VA. Jonesville is located at 36°41′17″N 83°6′59″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.1 square miles, all land. As of the census of 2000, there were 995 people, 497 households, 261 families residing in the town; the population density was 901.1 people per square mile. There were 565 housing units at an average density of 511.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 99.30% White, 0.10% African American, 0.60% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.40% of the population. There were 497 households out of which 22.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.8% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 47.3% were non-families. 45.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 20.5% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.91 and the average family size was 2.66. In the town, the population was spread out with 18.1% under the age of 18, 8.4% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 25.4% from 45 to 64, 23.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 44 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.6 males. The median income for a household in the town was $16,548, the median income for a family was $27,368. Males had a median income of $26,950 versus $19,297 for females; the per capita income for the town was $18,347. About 25.4% of families and 32.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 55.6% of those under age 18 and 24.4% of those age 65 or over.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons United States Penitentiary, Lee is located 8 miles east of Jonesville. Official site
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U. S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 2010 Census, Montgomery's population was 205,764, it is the second most populous city in Alabama, after Birmingham, is the 118th most populous in the United States. The Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area's population in 2010 was estimated at 374,536; the city was incorporated in 1819 as a merger of two towns situated along the Alabama River. It became the state capital in 1846, representing the shift of power to the south-central area of Alabama with the growth of cotton as a commodity crop of the Black Belt and the rise of Mobile as a mercantile port on the Gulf Coast. In February 1861, Montgomery was chosen the first capital of the Confederate States of America, which it remained until the Confederate seat of government moved to Richmond, Virginia, in May of that year. In the middle of the 20th century, Montgomery was a major center of events and protests in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Selma to Montgomery marches.
In addition to housing many Alabama government agencies, Montgomery has a large military presence, due to Maxwell Air Force Base. Two ships of the United States Navy have been named after the city, including USS Montgomery. Montgomery has been recognized nationally for its downtown revitalization and new urbanism projects, it was one of the first cities in the nation to implement Smart Code Zoning. Prior to European colonization, the east bank of the Alabama River was inhabited by the Alibamu tribe of Native Americans; the Alibamu and the Coushatta, who lived on the west side of the river, were descended from the Mississippian culture. This civilization had numerous chiefdoms throughout the Midwest and South along the Mississippi and its tributaries, had built massive earthwork mounds as part of their society about 950–1250 AD, its largest location was in present-day Illinois east of St. Louis; the historic tribes spoke mutually intelligible Muskogean languages, which were related. Present-day Montgomery is built on the site of two Alibamu towns: Ikanatchati, meaning "red earth.
The first Europeans to travel through central Alabama were Hernando de Soto and his expedition, who in 1540 recorded going through Ikanatchati and camping for one week in Towassa. The next recorded European encounter occurred more than a century when an English expedition from Carolina went down the Alabama River in 1697; the first permanent European settler in the Montgomery area was James McQueen, a Scots trader who settled there in 1716. He married a high-status woman in the Alabama tribe, their mixed-race children were considered Muskogean, as both tribes had a matrilineal system of property and descent. The children were always considered born into their mother's clan, gained their status from her people. In 1785, Abraham Mordecai, a war veteran from a Sephardic Jewish family of Philadelphia, established a trading post; the Coushatta and Alabama had moved south and west in the tidal plain. After the French were defeated by the British in 1763 in the Seven Years' War and ceded control of their lands, these Native American peoples moved to parts of present-day Mississippi and Texas areas of Spanish rule, which they thought more favorable than British-held areas.
By the time Mordecai arrived, Creek had migrated into and settled in the area, as they were moving away from Cherokee and Iroquois warfare to the north. Mordecai married a Creek woman; when her people had to cede most of their lands after the 1813-14 Creek War, she joined them in removal to Indian Territory. Mordecai brought the first cotton gin to Alabama; the Upper Creek were able to discourage most European-American immigration until after the conclusion of the Creek War. Following their defeat by General Andrew Jackson in August 1814, the Creek tribes were forced to cede 23 million acres to the United States, including remaining land in today's Georgia and most of today's central and southern Alabama. In 1816, the Mississippi Territory organized Montgomery County, its former Creek lands were sold off the next year at the federal land office in Milledgeville, Georgia. The first group of European-American settlers to come to the Montgomery area was headed by General John Scott; this group founded Alabama Town about 2 miles downstream on the Alabama River from present-day downtown Montgomery.
In June 1818, county courts were moved from Fort Jackson to Alabama Town. Alabama was admitted to the Union in December 1819. Soon after, Andrew Dexter Jr. founded the present-day eastern part of downtown. He envisioned a prominent future for his town. New Philadelphia soon prospered, Scott and his associates built a new town adjacent, calling it East Alabama Town. Rivals, the towns merged on December 3, 1819, were incorporated as the town of Montgomery; the name Montgomery came from a Revolutionary War general. Slave traders used the Alabama River t
Wilderness Road
The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers to reach Kentucky from the East. Although this road goes through the Cumberland Gap into southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, the other is sometimes called the "Cumberland Road" because it started in Fort Cumberland in Maryland. Despite Kentucky Senator Henry Clay's advocacy of this route, early in the 19th century, the northern route was selected for the National Road, connecting near Washington, Pennsylvania into the Ohio Valley of northern Kentucky and Ohio. In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap, it was lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep and narrow, could only be traversed on foot or horseback. By contrast, wagons could travel along the National Road route after the improvements. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used the Wilderness Road slaveholders after the states of Ohio Indiana and Illinois became free states on the northern bank of the Ohio River, where travelers embarked on boats to travel westward.
In 1792, the new Kentucky legislature provided money to upgrade the road. In 1796, an improved all-weather road was opened for carriage travel; the road was abandoned around 1840. The first European explorers of the southern Appalachian Mountains were Spanish. Hernando de Soto and his troops traversed the region in 1541 searching for gold; the first recorded English explorations of the mountains were those of Abraham Wood, which began around 1650. Wood sent exploring parties into the mountains; the Batts-Fallam expedition reached the New River Valley in 1671. In 1673, Wood sent James Needham to the Overhill Cherokee of modern Tennessee; the purpose was to try to make direct contact with the Cherokee for trade, so as to cirmumvent the Ocaneechee "middlemen" traders. The expedition did reach the Overhill Cherokee area. Gabriel Arthur was killed, but was rescued and adopted by a Cherokee chief. For his own safety, Arthur was sent with one of the chief's raiding parties. For about a year, he traveled throughout the Appalachians.
He was the first European to visit modern West Virginia and cross the Cumberland Gap. In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, an investor in the Loyal Land Company, with five companions, made a famous exploration through the Cumberland Gap and into eastern Kentucky; the Loyal Land Company settled people in southwest Virginia, but not Kentucky. In 1769, Virginia longhunter and explorer Joseph Martin made the first of several forays into the region. Acting as an agent for Dr. Thomas Walker, to whom Martin was connected through family relationships, Martin began an expedition to Powell's Valley in early 1769 in return for a promised 21,000-acre land grant from Walker and the Loyal Land Company. Martin and his men built the earliest westernmost frontier fort at present-day Rose Hill, Virginia, a fort dubbed Martin's Station; that year Indians chased off Martin and his men, who returned to Albemarle County. Martin returned six years to rebuild the fort, a few months became an agent for Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company.
In 1774, Richard Henderson, a judge from North Carolina, organized a land speculation company with a number of other prominent North Carolinians called the Transylvania Company. The men hoped to purchase land from the Cherokees on the Kentucky side of the Appalachian Mountains and establish a British proprietary colony. Henderson hired Daniel Boone, an experienced hunter who had explored Kentucky, to blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky; the Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to east–west travel. From New York to Georgia there are only five ways to travel to the west, with only three natural interior breaks allowing animal powered travel without great engineering works; these were the Gaps of the Allegheny and the several ways such as the Kittanning Paths in Pennsylvania, the Cumberland Narrows in northwestern Maryland host to Nemacolin's Path, the Cumberland Gap in the four-state region of North Carolina and Virginia on the east side and through the gap and Kentucky.
While late 19th and 20th century technologies would bridge the mountain chain in other places, these all required significant civil engineering works to make a road bed past the barrier range geologist classify as the ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Settlers from Pennsylvania tended to migrate south along the Great Wagon Road through the Great Appalachian Valley and Shenandoah Valley. Daniel Boone migrated south with his family along this road. From an early age, Boone was one of the longhunters who hunted and trapped among the Native American nations along the western frontiers of Virginia, so-called because of the long time they spent away from home on hunts in the wilderness. Boone would sometimes be gone for months and years before returning home from his hunting expeditions. Boone recommended three essentials for a pioneer: "A good gun, a good horse, a good wife." He would need a strong body, a sharp ax and good luck. Another essential was salt. Before 1776, it had to be shipped into the Thirteen Colonies from the West Indies at great expense.
It was
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the capital and second largest city of the U. S. state of South Carolina, with a population estimate of 134,309 as of 2016. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County, it is the center of the Columbia metropolitan statistical area, which had a population of 767,598 as of the 2010 United States Census, growing to 817,488 by July 1, 2016, according to 2015 U. S. Census estimates; the name Columbia is a poetic term used for the United States, originating from the name of Christopher Columbus. The city is located 13 miles northwest of the geographic center of South Carolina, is the primary city of the Midlands region of the state, it lies at the confluence of the Saluda River and the Broad River, which merge at Columbia to form the Congaree River. Columbia is home to the University of South Carolina, the state's flagship university and the largest in the state, is the site of Fort Jackson, the largest United States Army installation for Basic Combat Training.
Columbia is located 20 miles west of the site of McEntire Joint National Guard Base, operated by the U. S. Air Force and is used as a training base for the 169th Fighter Wing of The South Carolina Air National Guard. Columbia is the location of the South Carolina State House, the center of government for the state. In 1860, the city was the location of the South Carolina Secession Convention, which marked the departure of the first state from the Union in the events leading up to the Civil War. At the time of European encounter, the inhabitants of the area that became Columbia were a people called the Congaree. In May 1540, a Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto traversed what is now Columbia while moving northward; the expedition produced the earliest written historical records of the area, part of the regional Cofitachequi chiefdom. From the creation of Columbia by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1786, the site of Columbia was important to the overall development of the state; the Congarees, a frontier fort on the west bank of the Congaree River, was the head of navigation in the Santee River system.
A ferry was established by the colonial government in 1754 to connect the fort with the growing settlements on the higher ground on the east bank. Like many other significant early settlements in colonial America, Columbia is on the fall line from the Piedmont region; the fall line is the spot where a river becomes unnavigable when sailing upstream and where water flowing downstream can power a mill. State Senator John Lewis Gervais of the town of Ninety Six introduced a bill, approved by the legislature on March 22, 1786, to create a new state capital. There was considerable argument over the name for the new city. According to published accounts, Senator Gervais said he hoped that "in this town we should find refuge under the wings of COLUMBIA", for, the name which he wished it to be called. One legislator insisted on the name "Washington", but "Columbia" won by a vote of 11–7 in the state senate; the site was chosen as the new state capital in 1786, due to its central location in the state.
The State Legislature first met there in 1790. After remaining under the direct government of the legislature for the first two decades of its existence, Columbia was incorporated as a village in 1805 and as a city in 1854. Columbia received a large stimulus to development when it was connected in a direct water route to Charleston by the Santee Canal; this canal connected the Cooper rivers in a 22-mile-long section. It was first chartered in 1786 and completed in 1800, making it one of the earliest canals in the United States. With increased railroad traffic, it ceased operation around 1850; the commissioners designed a town of 400 blocks in a 2-mile square along the river. The blocks were sold to speculators and prospective residents. Buyers had to build a house at least 30 feet long and 18 feet wide within three years or face an annual 5% penalty; the perimeter streets and two through streets were 150 feet wide. The remaining squares were divided by thoroughfares 100 feet wide; the commissioners comprised the local government until 1797 when a Commission of Streets and Markets was created by the General Assembly.
Three main issues occupied most of their time: public drunkenness and poor sanitation. As one of the first planned cities in the United States, Columbia began to grow rapidly, its population was nearing 1,000 shortly after the start of the 19th century. In 1801, South Carolina College was founded in Columbia; the original building survives. The city was chosen as the site of the institution in part to unite the citizens of the Upcountry and the Lowcountry and to discourage the youth from migrating to England for their higher education. At the time, South Carolina sent more young men to England; the leaders of South Carolina wished to monitor the development of the school. Columbia received its first charter as a town in 1805. An intendant and six wardens would govern the town. John Taylor, the first elected intendant served in both houses of the General Assembly, both houses of Congress, as governor. By 1816, there were a population of more than one thousand. Columbia became chartered with an elected mayor and six aldermen.
Two years Columbia had a police force consisting of a full-time chief and nine patrolmen. The city continued to grow at a rapid
Indianapolis
Indianapolis shortened to Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U. S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to 2017 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion County was 872,680; the "balance" population, which excludes semi-autonomous municipalities in Marion County, was 863,002. It is the 16th most populous city in the U. S; the Indianapolis metropolitan area is the 34th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U. S. with 2,028,614 residents. Its combined statistical area ranks 27th, with a population of 2,411,086. Indianapolis covers 368 square miles, making it the 16th largest city by land area in the U. S. Indigenous peoples inhabited the area dating to 2000 BC. In 1818, the Delaware relinquished their tribal lands in the Treaty of St. Mary's. In 1821, Indianapolis was founded as a planned city for the new seat of Indiana's state government; the city was platted by Alexander Ralston and Elias Pym Fordham on a 1 square mile grid next to the White River.
Completion of the National and Michigan roads and arrival of rail solidified the city's position as a manufacturing and transportation hub. Two of the city's nicknames reflect its historical ties to transportation—the "Crossroads of America" and "Railroad City". Since the 1970 city-county consolidation, known as Unigov, local government administration operates under the direction of an elected 25-member city-county council headed by the mayor. Indianapolis anchors the 27th largest economic region in the U. S. based on the sectors of finance and insurance, manufacturing and business services and health care and wholesale trade. The city has notable niche markets in auto racing; the Fortune 500 companies of Anthem, Eli Lilly and Company and Simon Property Group are headquartered in Indianapolis. The city has hosted international multi-sport events, such as the 1987 Pan American Games and 2001 World Police and Fire Games, but is best known for annually hosting the world's largest single-day sporting event, the Indianapolis 500.
Indianapolis is home to two major league sports clubs, the Indiana Pacers of the National Basketball Association and the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League. It is home to a number of educational institutions, such as the University of Indianapolis, Butler University, Marian University, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis; the city's robust philanthropic community has supported several cultural assets, including the world's largest children's museum, one of the nation's largest funded zoos, historic buildings and sites, public art. The city is home to the largest collection of monuments dedicated to veterans and war casualties in the U. S. outside of Washington, D. C; the name Indianapolis is derived from the state's name and polis, the Greek word for city. Jeremiah Sullivan, justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, is credited with coining the name. Other names considered were Concord and Tecumseh. In 1816, the year Indiana gained statehood, the U. S. Congress donated four sections of federal land to establish a permanent seat of state government.
Two years under the Treaty of St. Mary's, the Delaware relinquished title to their tribal lands in central Indiana, agreeing to leave the area by 1821; this tract of land, called the New Purchase, included the site selected for the new state capital in 1820. The availability of new federal lands for purchase in central Indiana attracted settlers, many of them descendants of families from northwestern Europe. Although many of these first European and American settlers were Protestants, a large proportion of the early Irish and German immigrants were Catholics. Few African Americans lived in central Indiana before 1840; the first European Americans to permanently settle in the area that became Indianapolis were either the McCormick or Pogue families. The McCormicks are considered to be the first permanent settlers. Other historians have argued as early as 1822 that John Wesley McCormick, his family, employees became the area's first European American settlers, settling near the White River in February 1820.
On January 11, 1820, the Indiana General Assembly authorized a committee to select a site in central Indiana for the new state capital. The state legislature approved the site, adopting the name Indianapolis on January 6, 1821. In April, Alexander Ralston and Elias Pym Fordham were appointed to survey and design a town plan for the new settlement. Indianapolis became a seat of county government on December 31, 1821, when Marion County, was established. A combined county and town government continued until 1832. Indianapolis became an incorporated city effective March 30, 1847. Samuel Henderson, the city's first mayor, led the new city government, which included a seven-member city council. In 1853, voters approved a new city charter that provided for an elected mayor and a fourteen-member city council; the city charter continued to be revised. Effective January 1, 1825, the seat of state government moved to Indianapolis from Indiana. In addition to state government offices, a U. S. district court was established at Indianapolis in 1825.
Growth occurred with the opening of the National Road through the town in 1827, the first major federally funded highway in the United States. A small segment of the failed Indiana Central
Lee County, Virginia
