of the nineteenth century, their communities resettling in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Canada. "Home of the Ball Jar" In the mid-1880s, the Ball family made the decision to move their commercial glass business, Ball Brothers Manufacturing Company, to Muncie. A local natural gas boom in East Central Indiana was then attracting a great deal of industrial business to the region, and the area’s social character appealed to the family. In describing his first visit to Muncie in 1886, Frank C. Ball wrote in his memoirs, “There was nothing about the town that particularly appealed to me, but the men were all courteous, kind, and businesslike.” By the early 1900s, the Ball brothers had expanded their glass business in Muncie into a large, well-respected operation that was producing canning jars and related items in mass for the global market. Between 1893 and 1907, the five Ball brothers each married and built their family homes side by side along the stretch of land they purchased on the north side of the White River. All but one of those homes still stands today. The Frank C. Ball family home, historically known as Minnetrista before the name was applied to the entire property, burned down in 1967. Today, Minnetrista Museum & Gardens oversees the care of three of those houses: Oakhurst, the Lucius L. Ball House, and the Mary Lincoln Cottage. The Ball families at Minnetrista The museum today Members of the second generation of the Ball family began considering the idea of transforming the Minnetrista site into a public space in the late 1970s. Elisabeth Ball, the last member of the family to live full-time on the Boulevard, died in 1982, and plans were subsequently put in place to build a museum facility on the site of the former Frank C. Ball house (the original house was destroyed by fire in 1967) . Groundbreaking for the then Minnetrista Cultural Center began in March 1987 and the building opened to the public on December 10, 1988. The organization’s name changed to Minnetrista Museum & Gardens in 2021. Minnetrista is one of several legacy organizations founded by the Ball family that continue to serve the East Central Indiana community. Minnetrista’s sister legacy organizations include: Ball State University, IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, Ball Brothers Foundation, and the George and Frances Ball Foundation. As close collaborative community partners, the presence of these other organizations can be seen