Riley Birthplace and Museum

James Whitcomb Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana on October seventh, eighteen forty-nine, in a modest house on Main Street. He became the best-known American dialect poet of his era, writing in the voices of rural Indiana children and farmers with a warmth that made him famous nationwide. He wrote roughly a thousand poems, including "Little Orphan Annie" and "The Raggedy Man," works that later inspired decades of popular culture.

At the height of his fame his tours were reportedly earning him a thousand dollars a week. Riley died in nineteen sixteen and is buried in Indianapolis. His birthplace in Greenfield is preserved as a historic site and museum, a tribute to the writer once nicknamed the Hoosier Poet, in the town where he first learned to listen to the way his neighbors talked.