Established in 1863, Crown Hill Funeral Home and Cemetery at 700 38th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana, sprawls across 555 acres, making it the third largest private cemetery in the United States. Indianapolis architect Adolph Scherrer designed its triple-arch Gothic gatehouse at 34th Street and Boulevard Place in 1885. Crown Hill is the final resting place for one U.S. president, three vice presidents, and several governors, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, industrialists, military generals, and over 190,000 other former residents. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Monument to Brig. Gen. Abel Delos Streight (1828-1892) and family. Streight grew up in New York and moved to Indianapolis to open a publishing business just before the Civil War. He became colonel of the 51st Indiana Infantry Regiment and conducted Streight’s Raid in 1863, when he was captured and later released. He was brevetted Brigadier General after the war and served as a state senator.
Monument to Corliss Randle Ruckle (1877-1889). Corliss was the son of Nicholas and Jane Charlotte Ruckle. He died of diphtheria at 12 years of age.
Monument to President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) and family. Harrison, grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a proponent of protective tariffs and signed into law the Sherman Antitrust Act. He’s generally seen as a competent administrator but ranked as a below average president.
Monument to Mary Ella McGinnis (1869-1875) and family. Mary Ella was the daughter of George and Josephine McGinnis. George F. McGinnis was a brigadier general during the Civil War. When Mary died of lung congestion at five years of age, her parents commissioned a sculpture by Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft but rejected it in favor of another from Italy, which still stands at her grave.
Headstone for John Herbert Dillinger (1903-1934). John Dillinger was a Depression-Era bank robber and outlaw who captured the public’s imagination and was at one time considered by the FBI to be “Public Enemy No. 1.” He led the Dillinger Gang until being gunned down outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater by FBI agents.
Monument to U.S. Vice President Charles Warren Fairbanks (1852-1918). Fairbanks, a U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905, was a reluctant candidate with presidential aspirations, but he ultimately settled for being Theodore Roosevelt’s running mate and served as vice president from 1905 to 1909.
