MUNCIE, a city of eastern Indiana, U.S.A., 54 m. N.E. of Indianapolis, on the White river, at an altitude of 950 ft.; the county seat of Delaware county. It has a municipal airport II m. from the business district, and is served by the Big Four, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Nickel Plate, the Pennsylvania, and three belt-line railways, and by numerous interurban trolleys and motor-bus lines. The population was 36,524 in 1920 (92% native white) and was 46,548 in 1930 by the Federal census. It is a well built city, occupying 7 sq.m. of level ground, with an as sessed valuation for 1927 of $59,980,22o. The residential sec tions are beautiful with trees and wide lawns ; zoning regulations are in force; and a boulevard along the river is under construc tion (1928). The Ball Teachers' college in the western part of the city (named after the Ball brothers, manufacturers of Muncie, who since 1918 have given about $5oo,000 to the institution) is the eastern division of the State Normal school. It has a plant
valued at $2,000,000 and an enrolment of about 1,250. Muncie has a wide trading territory, embracing 22 counties of eastern Indiana and western Ohio. Its manufacturing industries are many and varied, with an output in 1927 valued at $52,381,207. The principal products are automobile parts, tops, bodies, hoods and castings; storage batteries, glass fruit jars and jelly glasses, in sulators and bottles ; and steel wire and cable and articles made from them. The combined resources of the banks amounted in 1927 to $15,000,000. Muncie was founded about 1833, incor porated as a town in 1847 and as a city in 1865. Its name (origi nally Munseytown, but changed by the state legislature in 1845) commemorates the Munsees, a division of the Delaware Indians, who formerly lived along the White river.