The History of Fairfield Avenue and Its Streetcar Line

Indianapolis has a penchant for diagonal streets, which makes sense considering the design of the city in the early 1820s included four diagonal streets branching off of the Circle at the heart of the city. Aside from these four streets, there is also Fort Wayne Avenue, outside the mile square, which is anchored in the intersection of Pennsylvania and North Streets, along with a few others.

Additionally, if you take Central Avenue north out of downtown, you will eventually arrive at the intersection of Central and 34th Street, dominated by the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church on the northwest corner. On the northeast corner, the intersection takes a different turn, with a roadway branching of diagonally to the northeast, at a 45-degree angle when compared to Central and 34th Street (yellow highlight below).

This roadway is Fairfield Avenue, and as its name suggests, it is associated with the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Fairfield runs to the northeast to a point just south of the fairgrounds and which today are the parking lots for the fairgrounds, but once were fields sitting on the south side of 38th Street. The image below shows the view looking up Fairfield Avenue (to the northeast) as seen from the intersection of Central and 34th Street.

Fairfield Avenue first appears on city maps in the late 1890s not long after the fairgrounds moved to their current location from the prior site at 19th Street and Central in 1892. However, it was not always called Fairfield. When the roadway was first constructed, it was called Fairgrounds Avenue, reflective of its purpose to transport visitors to the State Fairgrounds. Fairground Avenue wasn't just for vehicular traffic, but it was also the route for a streetcar line which served the State Fairgrounds and likely constructed in 1892. The streetcar line was powered by electricity and was one of the early lines to have such motive power. The line to Fairview Park had been the first in 1890.

The streetcar line along Central to the fairgrounds was the center of a controversy between the Citizens Street Railway Company and a fledgling concern called the Broad Ripple Street Railway Company. The latter was formed with the aim to provide streetcar services to the outlying and suburban areas of Indianapolis. The Citizens Company was the established street railway company in the city and had recently opened Fairview Park. However, the new location for the State Fair spurred the Central Avenue competition, which the Citizens Company ultimately won.

The streetcar line appears in an 1899 bicycling map of Indianapolis, and the 1901 Baist Atlas. Fairground Avenue is not named in the Baist map. Note that the railroad intersecting with Fairground Avenue is today's Monon Trail.

The streetcar line which followed Fairground Avenue ended in a loop, visible in the maps above, which allowed riders to disembark and visit the State Fair.

Interestingly, some maps from this era do not show Fairgrounds Avenue. The excerpt below from the 1903 City Directory Map of Indianapolis does not include the avenue or the streetcar line. Another map I viewed showed the streetcar line, but no Fairgrounds Ave.

Credit: Indiana State Library Map Collection

The streetcar line was a popular method for visiting the fair, especially in an era before automobile ownership became commonplace. In July 1900 the executive committee for the fair called upon the street railway company demanding improved service to the fairgrounds in September when the state fair opened. This was after what was described as "poor" service to the fairgrounds during the July 4 holiday festivities which was roundly condemned by local newspapers. Power supply issues were apparently to blame for the service problems. However, it appeared that the street railway company had not assuaged the committee's concerns, as a few days later they contracted with the Monon Railroad to run special trains from downtown to the fairgrounds to carry attendees.

The streetcar service improved, and was important to the fair itself, as it helped drive attendance, and provided a connection to visitors who took the steam railroads into Union Station downtown to visit the fair. In 1908, the streetcar company reported transporting nearly 50,000 passengers to the fairgrounds on Thursday, September 10. Total attendance that day was estimated at 60,000. Advertisements like the one below promoted the use of streetcars to visit the fair.

Indianapolis Star, September 2, 1941

William Hazen, a third-generation operator for IndyGo, has an extensive collection of transit related photos and other materials, and provided me with a few images of streetcars operating along Fairfield/Fairgrounds Avenue. The image below shows a streetcar passing under the Monon Railroad (today the Monon Trail) heading towards the State Fairgrounds. Click on the arrow on the right of the image to see what the scene looks like today. Note that the "CV" advertisement on the front of the streetcar is for Champagne Velvet beer.

While exploring Fairfield/Fairground Avenue, I found remains of the streetcar line as it turned into the state fair parking lots (or fields) south of 38th Street. The first evidence of the line was a curved area of patched asphalt, which was visible on aerial images. On foot, the curved section is even more apparent.

This appeared to be the route of the streetcar rail line, a hunch which was confirmed upon closer inspection which revealed potholes with sections of streetcar tracks still in place.

In 1915, the name of Fairground Avenue was changed to the present-day name of Fairfield Avenue. The resolution presented to the Indianapolis Common Council did not provide any rationale for the change, nor did I locate any newspapers reports on the issue. I would speculate that with automobiles becoming more common, local and state authorities wanted to direct more traffic onto 38th Street (then called Maple Road) to access the main entrance to the grounds. The “field” portion of the name may have been a reference to the fields on south side of the fairgrounds and 38th Street. The two names were still being used on various maps, or as shown in the excerpt below from a 1930s update to the Sanborn maps, noted both names.

The streetcar line continued to operate through the 1930s and 40s. The images below show a 'then and now' of the northeast corner of College and Fairfield, with a streetcar on its inbound route south on College, ready to pick up a passenger.  

The “loop” the streetcars took off of Fairfield Avenue and through the south fields varied over the years. At times the looped peaked on the south side of 38th street. At one point, the streetcars would cross 38th to drop passengers off in the State Fairgrounds proper. The images below show streetcars on the loop, the first inbound towards where passengers disembarked, the second on the inbound track back towards Fairfield Avenue and downtown Indianapolis.

The image below looks north along what would have been the inbound part of the loop, roughly where the photo above was taken. I did not see any remains of the streetcar line in this section.

Sources

Special thanks to William Hazen for the use of photos from his transit and streetcar collection. You can follow William on Bluesky at William Hazen (@williamhazen.bsky.social) — Bluesky

Indianapolis News: July 10, 1900, July 12, 1900, August 21, 1900, September 2, 1916

Indianapolis Star: September 11, 1908, September 1, 1939, September 2, 1941

Street name changes, old and new names, https://www.digitalindy.org/digital/collection/iwc/id/2378/rec/18

City directory map of Indianapolis, Ind., Indiana State Library Map Collection, https://cdm16066.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15078coll8/id/1073

Indianapolis Baist & Sanborn Collection, University Library, IU Indianapolis

 Journals of the Common Council of the City of Indianapolis, 1892-93, 1915