Terre Haute, IN

Terre Haute — "high land", from its French traders — stands on the Wabash at the Crossroads of America, where the old National Road crossed the great north–south highway; the city marks the intersection with pavement plaques and a certain satisfaction. Its contributions to the national imagination are oddly assorted and all genuine: the contoured Coca-Cola bottle was designed here at the Root Glass Company in 1915; Paul Dresser wrote "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away", Indiana's state song, about this stretch of river, while his brother, the novelist Theodore Dreiser, was born in the family house; and Eugene V. Debs, the railway unionist and five-time Socialist candidate for president, lived and organised here all his life — his home is a museum of American labour's conscience.

The city's academic anchors are Indiana State University downtown and the engineering powerhouse Rose-Hulman on the east side. The archive's stage is Tilson Auditorium — the concert hall of Indiana State's Tilson Music Hall building — where the university's performing series has long brought touring orchestras, opera and celebrated soloists to the Wabash Valley. A bottle, a ballad and a conscience: Terre Haute's exports weigh more than its size suggests.