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() is a city in Center Township, Delaware County in east central Indiana, best known as the home of Ball State University and the birthplace of the Ball Corporation. It is the principal city of the Muncie, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 118,769. The population within city limits, as of a 2000 Census, was 65,287.
The area was first settled in the 1770s by the Delaware Indians, who had been transported from their tribal lands near the east coast to Ohio and eastern Indiana. They founded several towns along the White River including Muncietown, near the site of present-day Muncie. The tribes were forced to cede their land to the federal government and move farther west in 1818, and in 1820 the area was opened to white settlers. Muncie was one of the considerations for state capital when it was moved from Corydon. It was considered by many to be a suitable location due to its location on the White River. The city of Muncie was incorporated in 1865. Contrary to popular legend, the city is not named after a mythological Chief Munsee, rather it was named after Munsee Town, the white settlers' name for the Indian village on the site.
Muncie was lightly disguised as "Middletown" by a team of sociologists, led by Robert and Helen Lynd, who were only the first to conduct a series of studies in Muncie—considered a typical Middle-American community—in their case, a study funded by the Rockefeller Institute of Social and Religious Research. In 1929, the Lynds published
. They returned to re-observe the community during the Depression and published
(1937). Later in the century, the National Science Foundation funded a third major study that resulted in two books by Theodore Caplow,
(1983). Caplow returned in 1998 to begin another study, Middletown IV, which became part of a PBS Documentary entitled "The First Measured Century," released in December 2000. The Ball State Center for Middletown Studies continues to survey and analyze social change in Muncie. An enormous database of the Middletown surveys conducted between 1978 and 1997 is available online from ARDA, American Religion Data Archive . Ironically, a Henry County farming community actually called Middletown, is only a 20-minute drive from Muncie.