Beech Grove: Built by the Big Four Railroad
Near Indianapolis, Indiana
Beech Grove exists because of a single corporate decision. The Big Four Railroad, officially the Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Saint Louis Railroad, chose a field south of Indianapolis to build a massive repair complex for its steam locomotives. Workers needed housing, so a company town was laid out beside the shops, and its town government was organized in November nineteen oh six.
The streets were named for cities served by the Big Four: Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit. Today those street names are the only obvious monument to the industrial logic that created Beech Grove from farmland in just a few years.
