Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, lived in this 16-room house in front of you, built from 1874 to 1875. This 16-room house was built from 1874 to 1875 at a cost of $24,818.67, a sum the record notes is equal to $727,638 today. Benjamin Harrison arrived in Indianapolis in 1854 to begin a career as a lawyer, and in 1867 he bought a double lot at auction on North Delaware Street, just north of present-day Interstate 65.
From the front porch of this very house he mounted his famous Front Porch Campaign in the 1888 presidential race, often speaking to crowds gathered on the street below. In 1896 the house was renovated and electricity was added, and Harrison later died here in a second-story bedroom in 1901. Today the property, once known simply as the Benjamin Harrison Home, is owned by the Arthur Jordan Foundation and operated as a museum by the Benjamin Harrison Foundation.
Notice that Harrison died here in a second-story bedroom in 1901, in this house that still anchors the Old Northside Historic District.