Here on Monument Circle, the Columbia Club's limestone clubhouse of 1925 rises in front of you. Imagine this stately private club first gathering here on February 13, 1889, when a group of prominent local Republicans met as the Harrison Marching Society to support Benjamin Harrison’s presidential campaign. After the election they kept the space, renamed it the Columbia Club, and it rapidly became the city’s premier private club.
The limestone building you see now was raised in 1925 — the club’s third home on this very site — anchoring a long public life. According to the club, the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway met here to discuss its construction, and in 1984 secret meetings were held here to negotiate the move of the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis. Though born of Republican politics, the Columbia Club is no longer partisan; today it numbers Democrats and members of other parties among its ranks, and it has hosted every Republican president since Benjamin Harrison while in office or as a candidate.
Notice that secret meetings held right here in 1984 helped bring the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis.