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1986 Map of Muncie

Name: 1986 Topographic Map of Muncie
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1990
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1990

About this map

The Mississinewa River and White River define the agricultural and industrial drainage of East Central Indiana in this mid-1980s landscape. Central to the map is the expansion of Muncie, anchored by the campus of Ball State University and its proximity to the Prairie Creek Reservoir to the southeast. The regional economy is traced through a dense network of smaller industrial and railway-linked towns such as Gas City, Hartford City, and Dunkirk.

Interstate corridors and rail lines connect established settlements like Fairmount and Jonesboro, while smaller communities such as Shedville and Normal persist in the rural townships. The map documents a mature 20th-century landscape where drainage features like Pipe Creek and Wildcat Creek weave through a strictly gridded survey system. This survey captures the region just as its traditional manufacturing centers and university-driven growth were becoming the dominant features of the local topography.