Ball State University Libraries Annual Dinner Lecture event graphic Features the BSU Beneficence logo
Start: April 28, 2026 6 p.m.
End: April 28, 2026 8 p.m.
Location: Student Center, Cardinal Hall A & B
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Contact Details
Amy Petts
765-285-4120

All are welcome!

Schedule
6–6:45 p.m.: Cocktail hour featuring several tables displaying historical artifacts, current University Libraries projects, and more
6:45–7:15 p.m.: Catered meal
7:15–8 p.m.: Kirkham Lecture featuring historian Andy Olson

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Featured Kirkham Lecture

“The Kilgore Pact Legend and the 1818 St. Marys Treaties”

    In seeking to confirm a family legend involving prominent Delaware County resident David Kilgore (1804–1879), Andy Olson uncovered a surprising historical detail connected to the 1818 treaties signed at St. Marys, Ohio. Olson discovered that none of the individuals receiving land grants in one of the treaties were Delawares—raising questions about why and how that came to be. His presentation explores what he found and what it may reveal about the period.

About the speaker

    Andy Olson is an amateur historian and award-winning writer whose work has appeared in Connections, Traces, and other publications. He is the author of Forging the Bee Line Railroad, 1848–1889: The Rise and Fall of the Hoosier Partisans and Cleveland Clique (Kent State University Press, 2017). In 2024, he received the Indiana Historical Society’s Willard C. Heiss Family History and Genealogy Award.