"Slugger Sam" Thompson is Danville's major league baseball hero. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974 and Judge Jeffrey Boles wants to honor him by declaring June 27 this year "Sam Thompson Day", the day his family will be holding a reunion in Ellis Park.

Boles also suggested naming something in Ellis Park after Thompson to keep the memory of a great man before Danville residents.

Thompson, a carpenter and roofer, was born in Danville on March 5, 1860. He played major league baseball for the Detroit Wolverines and the Philadelphia Phillies between 1886 and 1898. He's called "the most prolific run producer in baseball history". He drove in runs at the rate of .923 runs per game and had a lifetime batting average of .336, twice batting better than .400.

Indiana's favorite sport has always been an integral part of Danville school life. Back in 1912, Danville suffered what was probably its worst defeat at the hands of Jamestown's Skipper Skaggs. The score was 77-7 reported The Republican (Indiana's oldest continually published newspaper at 150 years old).

Then there was thumbless Bill McClain of the early 1940's high school team. Bill lost his thumb in a tractor accident when he was ten, but he loved basketball so much, he refused to quit playing, even though the loss of a thumb was a considerable handicap to holding and throwing the ball.

McClain perfected a new way of holding and throwing the ball which made him one of the high school team's star players. Coaches and scouts from around the state came to watch him play. In McClain's junior year, the Danville Warriors beat Indiana's stellar team, Anderson, 33-32, in the famed Wigwam.

McClain got his degree from Ball State and coached at Ben Davis High School for 25 years. He now lives in Sheridan, Ind.

At one time, Danville was home to the fattest man and the fattest woman in the world. Eight-hundred pound John Hanson Craig and his super heavy wife, Mary Jane Kessler, married and lived in Danville in the house that now houses Melvin Lind's law offices on N. Washington Street. The curve in N. Washington marked the boundary of their small farm where they kept retired and disabled animals from their own circus. They were also associated with the P.T. Barnum's circus.

Danville at one time boasted a commuter rail link with Indianapolis called the Interurban. The station in town was in the building that now houses Hackleman Auto across from the library. Another station was the Copeland home on East Main (old U.S. 36). The Interurban route ran right through Ellis Park.

A home near Danville was once a stop on the Underground Railway which spirited runaway slaves from the South to freedom in the North and in Canada. The White House, unfortunately now torn down, was two miles west and one mile north of Danville set up on a hill where lights in upstairs windows burned perpetually much to the mystification of neighbors.

The house, built by Charlie Rice in 1851, had a secret room behind a fireplace and could only be entered through the fireplace. There were no windows or doors in it.

Danville has had its share of tornadoes, located as it is in the belt called "tornado alley". The most devasting tornado the town ever experienced was March 26, 1948. It was a force 4 (on a scale of 6) tornado that killed 2 people in Danville (14 in nearby Coatesville).

Danville boasts the oldest operational water stand pipe in the state. It's over 100 years old and stands at the old town hall (now part of the Fire Department) on N. Kentucky. Most of Danville's ground water supply comes from Ellis Park around the White Lick Creek. The town has four wells in Ellis Park which was established in 1913 to provide a protective environment for the water supply.

The Hendricks County Historical Museum is housed in the county's former jail and Sheriff's house on S. Washington and Broadway. The original cells, unheated and windowless, are still there and give the visitor a sense of the grim experience it was to have been incarcerated years ago.

The rest of the house is being refurbished to reflect its Victorian origins. It was built in the mid-1800's.

Danville boasts a haunted bridge. It's the arched, concrete one of the twin bridges over Shady Lane leading to the landfill.

There are two legends about the haunting. According to the first, a woman, holding her baby, jumped from the bridge to her death. Her wails, say teenagers who used to party at the bridge before the 'Law' intervened, are still heard when a train approaches.

The second legend concerns a workman who fell into the bridge structure when concrete was being poured and was immured. For many years, people claimed that part of his saw (he was working on the wooden structure) was visible and human-like whines could be heard when trains approached.

Both these stories are documented by Ronald Baker in his book, Hoosier Folktales, Published by Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind.

A fun, unhaunted bridge is the swinging bridge over White Lick Creek between the main part of Ellis Park and Shelter House 1. It crosses the creek at a point where many children like to paddle when the water is low.

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