Conner Prairie dispute settled
Conner Prairie celebrated its own Independence Day on Tuesday, two years after a struggle for control of the living history museum fractured a four-decade bond with Earlham College.Under Tuesday’s agreement, the museum:• Receives $85 million of the $175 million endowment created by Lilly gifts and subsequent interest income from investments; Earlham will receive the rest.
• Gets a deferred payment of $6.5 million from nearby land that Earlham intends to sell and a $2.5 million interest in Prairie View Golf Course, which is owned jointly by the college and museum.
• Keeps the 58-acre museum site and buildings, and receives a parcel of land between River Road and White River from Earlham; Earlham will retain hundreds of acres west of River Road and south of 146th Street.
Carter and Earlham attorneys will ask a Hamilton Superior Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the attorney general that demanded an accounting of how the Lilly gifts have been used.
