Somebody in the 1880s decided the safest jail was one where the cells turn. The entire cell block rotates inside a fixed outer shell, so only one door lines up with the exit at a time and a guard never has to walk among the prisoners.
Three rotary jails are still standing in the United States. Crawfordsville has the only one that still works.
That is a fair introduction to a town that also calls itself the Athens of Indiana, a nickname that first showed up in a 1930 visitors’ guide and was earned honestly. Wabash College was founded here in 1832 by Presbyterian missionaries and remains one of the few all-male liberal arts colleges in the country.
Median gross rent is $857 a month, the lowest of any college town in Indiana, in a place of 16,491 that has twelve properties on the National Register and sits an hour from Indianapolis.
What to Expect Visiting Crawfordsville, Indiana
The General Lew Wallace Study is the town’s centerpiece and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1976. Wallace was a Union general, the territorial governor of New Mexico, and the author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, which came out in 1880 and became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century…