Indianapolis Motor Speedway

A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1909. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a motor racing circuit located in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is the home of the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400, and formerly the home of the United States Grand Prix and the Indianapolis motorcycle Grand Prix.”
Wikipedia article Indianapolis Motor Speedway, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 274 National Register listings published here for Marion County · listed in 1975 · category: District · built in 1909, by Carl G. Fisher, James A. Allison · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 4790 W. 16th St., Speedway, 46222
When was it listed? March 1975
Category. district
Township. Wayne township
When was it built? 1909
Architect. Carl G. Fisher, James A. Allison
National Register reference number. 75000044 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

12,230 words

This property stands in Wayne Township. History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, published 1884 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Wayne Township - 12,230 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Indianapolis Motor Speedway: 3 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tungsten, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Kentucky Ave Mine & Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Mallory Metallurgical/ Indianapolis	Tungsten	Past Producer
Ace Lake Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Eagle Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Ok Sand & Gravel Co., Inc.	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Shannon Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Marion County

Storms near this property

42 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Speedway, the town this property stands in, in 42 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 26 thunderstorm wind, 12 hail, 2 lightning, 2 flash flood. The reports record 1 death. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2001	Lightning	Speedway	1 killed	no account filed
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$40,000	Numerous trees were down, with several on vehicles, due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts. Significant tree damage was reported at Crawfordsville Road and Lynhurst Drive. Damage was also reported from Gerrard and 21st Streets.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$30,000	Indiana Department of Homeland Security called reporting trees down, power lines down, and damage to homes from around 10th and Tibbs Streets to Meridian Street and Thompson Road due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
January 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$25,000	Damaging thunderstorm winds caused trees to fall and also caused heavy damage to a building.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$20,000	Damage to homes and numerous trees down
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$10,000	Several large trees were downed at 10th Street near Interstate 465 due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
July 2015	Flash Flood	Speedway	$5,000	Portions of 16th Street was flooded between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Downtown Indianapolis due to heavy thunderstorm rainfall. This report was relayed by a WISH-TV meteorologist.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$5,000	WISH-TV relayed a report of trees down at 10th and Lynhurst Drive, due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
April 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$5,000	Minor roof damage was done to the Indianapolis weather forecast office.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$3,000	Two windows and a window frame blown in by thunderstorm wind gusts.
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$3,000	A large tree was blown over, snapping below ground level, and tree branches were blown down just northwest of Crawfordsville Road and North Lynhurst Drive due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts. There was damage to a carport support beam that was apparently caused by one of the fallen tree branches.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$3,000	Multiple reports of tree limbs down around Speedway due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$3,000	Trees were downed due to thunderstorm wind gusts on the west side of Indianapolis at West 21st Street and Girls School Road.
April 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$2,000	A large tree was downed by thunderstorm wind gusts onto a street.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$2,000	Thunderstorm wind gusts downed a 1.5 foot diameter limb from live walnut tree.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$1,500	A long-time television weather spotter reported a large 100-year-old tree that had been blown over by thunderstorm wind gusts measured at 70 mph. Power was out in the neighborhood.
June 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$1,000	Thunderstorm winds caused tree damage that blocked Speedway Drive.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	$1,000	Utility lines were down near the intersection of 22nd Street and Fisher Avenue due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts. The lines were blocking the road.
July 2015	Flash Flood	Speedway	$1,000	Street flooding of one foot deep was observed at the intersection of Winton Avenue and 22nd Street due to heavy thunderstorm rainfall.
October 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	A thunderstorm wind gust, measured at 62 mph, was observed in this location. The source of this report was an INDOT weather station.
September 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	An estimated 65 mph thunderstorm wind gust was observed in this location. The power was also reported to be out.
September 2012	Hail	Speedway	-	Also, one and a half inches of rain was measured since 6:00 PM.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	A thunderstorm wind gust estimated at 60 mph was observed on the west side of Indianapolis, along with nickel sized hail.
June 2013	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
September 2012	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
September 2012	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
May 2011	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
April 2007	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
April 2007	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
May 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
October 2001	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
July 2001	Lightning	Speedway	-	no account filed
October 2001	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
February 1999	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
July 1999	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
May 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed
June 1996	Hail	Speedway	-	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Speedway	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Marion County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Speedway Historic District	1.2 miles	2005
Henry F. Campbell Mansion	1.5 miles	1997
Indianapolis Veterans Administration Hospital	1.7 miles	2012
Allison Mansion	1.7 miles	1970
Wheeler-Stokely Mansion	1.9 miles	2004
Haughville Historic District	2.0 miles	1992

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75000044 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Marion County	All 274 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.