May 18
In 1999, moviegoers began lining up in the afternoon outside the then Legacy 6 cinema on West Main Street in Greenfield, anticipating the showing of “Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.” By 10 p.m. more than 100 patrons were in line.
May 19
In 1919, Hancock County Council was taken to task for not yet using $400 it appropriated to prepare the courthouse so that its restrooms could be open to the public on Sundays, even as the rest of the building was closed. According to this day’s edition of the Daily Reporter, “People traveling through Greenfield in automobiles are apt to have a distasteful memory of the town for this lack of accommodation.”
May 20
In 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh soared over Hancock County in his Ryan NYP monoplane during a flight of seven hours, 20 minutes, from St. Louis to Long Island.
In 1935, the sale of household goods drew buyers to the Riley Home, as Julia Riley — sister-in-law of poet James Whitcomb Riley — prepared to move to California to live with a niece. A group of residents was gathering funds to buy the home, “so that it can be cared for and maintained in the future, and this association would also have liked to have kept the furnishings intact but did not have sufficient money at hand to time to do so,” according to that day’s edition of the Daily Reporter.
May 21
In 1964, the Cumberland Heights subdivision received tentative approval from the Hancock County Plan Commission in a preliminary hearing. The May 22, 1965, edition called the 174-lot development “the first major residential subdivision to jump the Marion-Hancock county line on the march toward Greenfield.” About 35 area residents came to the meeting to either protest the project or receive more information about it.
In 2018, the former business building at the northwest corner of Main and Franklin streets was torn down.
May 22
In 1871, the town of New Palestine was incorporated.
In 1902, the cornerstone was laid for what is now Bradley United Methodist Church. According to George Richman’s “History of Hancock County Indiana,” among the items placed inside were a Bible; hymn book; list of church officers, teachers and Sunday School members; a church history and copies of local newspapers.
In 1924, Greenfield City Council issued $10,000 in bonds to buy 40.54 acres that would become Riley Park.
May 23
In 1952, Hancock Circuit Court Judge Samuel J. Offutt heard arguments in the State of Indiana vs. 11,000 cases of tomatoes. The tomatoes belonged to Virgil Etchison, owner of a canning factory in New Palestine. A federal court had declared them unsanitary, and Etchison had been ordered not to ship them out of state. The state later seized them and sought to have them destroyed.
May 24
In 1932, “the greatest crowd ever before assembled in Riley Park” watched Greenfield High School’s baseball team defeat Morton High School, 7-6. The win in this last game of the season prompted speculation, driven by the Tigers’ undefeated record and their wins over prominent teams, that Greenfield was the state baseball champion.
In 1976, a squirrel scampering across a Public Service Indiana transformer grounded the equipment. Its fatal romp knocked out power in Greenfield for more than an hour. Power was restored when the carcass was removed.
