Crawfordsville: Where Ben-Hur Was Born

Crawfordsville, Indiana, was platted in eighteen twenty-three by Major Ambrose Whitlock, a Virginian who had served under General Anthony Wayne. The town was named for William Crawford, a soldier-statesman who served in the cabinets of Presidents Madison and Monroe. Its most famous resident arrived thirty years later.

Lew Wallace moved here in the eighteen fifties, practiced law, and went on to serve as a Union major general in the Civil War. Then, while serving as Governor of New Mexico Territory, he finished the novel that made him a household name. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was published in eighteen eighty and became one of the best-selling novels of the nineteenth century, eventually adapted into two blockbuster films.

Wallace built an elaborate personal study on his Crawfordsville property, begun in eighteen ninety-five and finished in eighteen ninety-eight, a room mixing Romanesque, Byzantine, and Greek architecture where he wrote and painted in his final years. That study still stands today, a National Historic Landmark.