Pogue's Run

Pogue's Run
Pogue's Run emptying into the White River southwest of Lucas Oil Stadium
Basin features
Main source	Massachusetts and Ritter avenues, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 720 ft (220 m) 39°49′04″N 86°04′17″W / 39.81779°N 86.07137°W / 39.81779; -86.07137
River mouth	White River south of the Kentucky Avenue bridge 675 ft (206 m) 39°45′22″N 86°10′20″W / 39.75619°N 86.17228°W / 39.75619; -86.17228Coordinates: 39°45′22″N 86°10′20″W / 39.75619°N 86.17228°W / 39.75619; -86.17228
Basin size	13 sq mi (34 km2)
Physical characteristics
Length	11 mi (18 km)

Pogue's Run is an urban creek that starts near the intersection of Massachusetts and Ritter avenues on the east side of Indianapolis, Indiana and empties into the White River south of the Kentucky Avenue bridge over that river. At the stream's intersection with New York Street just east of downtown Indianapolis it enters a double-box culvert conduit through which it flows underneath downtown Indianapolis. It is named for George Pogue, who, along with John Wesley McCormick, were among the first settlers in what would become the city of Indianapolis.

Prior to the arrival of Pogue and McCormick, Indians and wildlife would often follow Pogue's Run as a pathway. George Pogue (c.1763–1821) was a blacksmith from Connersville, Indiana. In 1819 he blazed a trail that corresponds with the present-day Brookville Road. On March 2, 1819, he built a cabin for his family of seven where Michigan Street currently crosses Pogue's Run. However, there is some disagreement among historians about these events; Jacob Piatt Dunn wrote in his 1910 work Greater Indianapolis, that Pogue actually arrived on March 2, 1820, and moved into a cabin that had been built in 1819 by a Ute Perkins, who had left before Pogue arrived. Perkins reportedly had left the area because of his loneliness, later settling in Rush County, Indiana.

The creek became known as Pogue's Run after Pogue disappeared in April 1821; it had been called Perkin's Run (after Ute Perkins) prior to Pogue's disappearance.

When Indianapolis was laid out, only Pogue's Run running diagonally across the southeast portion of the "Mile Square" disturbed the orderliness of the grid pattern. Alexander Ralston had to make compromises due to the stream's location within the congressional donation lands given for the future Indianapolis. Before the state government could be moved to Indianapolis from Corydon, fifty dollars was spent to rid swampy Pogue's Run of the mosquitoes that made it a "source of pestilence".

In the so-called Battle of Pogue's Run on May 20, 1863, during the American Civil War, several Democrats leaving the state party convention on the railroad running parallel to Pogue's Run threw various firearms and knives into the creek because Union troops were looking for contraband weapons. Two decades later, in 1882, the Run flooded, killing at least ten people. A covered bridge that once crossed Pogue's Run was eventually destroyed.