of Sprinklesburgh in 1829. In 1841 Luce's plat was merged with Sprinkelsburgh and the name of the town was changed to Newburgh. However, it was Samuel Short's land, a strip on the block west of State Street, that now has some of the most visible and important land in today's downtown Newburgh. Early on in its history Newburgh enjoyed prosperity. By 1850, the town had grown to be one of the largest riverports on the Ohio-Mississippi River between Cincinnati and New Orleans. Much of its growth in this time period was due to coal mining and its beneficial location on the Ohio River. The first underground mine shaft in Indiana was sunk in Newburgh in 1850. However, when the national railway system came to southern Indiana, it bypassed Newburgh completely in favor of Evansville, beginning a permanent shift in regional economic dominance. According to a number of historical sources, Newburgh was a prominent stop on the Underground Railroad between the mouth of the Little Pigeon River and Lake Michigan. On July 18, 1862, Newburgh was the first town north of the Mason-Dixon line to be captured by the Confederate forces during the American Civil War in what would come to be known as the Newburgh Raid. Colonel Adam "Stovepipe" Johnson, with a partisan band, crossed the Ohio River and confiscated supplies and ammunition without a shot being fired. The Confederates would have been unable to shell the city (as promised) had Newburgh put up a fight. The Confederates' "cannons" were an assemblage of a stove pipe, a charred log, and wagon wheels. The raid convinced the federal government that it was necessary to supply Indiana with a permanent force of regular Union Army soldiers to counter future raids. Many of the structures used in this raid are still standing, including The Exchange Hotel. Newburgh's economy benefited from the construction of the Lock and Dam 47 in the 1920s, and its replacement in 1974 with the Newburgh Lock and Dam. The town has also benefited from the arrival, and later expansions, of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) in the 1950s and then the 1970s. Many of Newburgh's residents are commuters to businesses and industry in Evansville and surrounding areas. In 1994, Newburgh leaders planned to annex large areas that would have extended town limits to Frame Road (west) and SR 66 (north and east). From a planning perspective, this would