James Whitcomb Riley, the acclaimed “Hoosier Poet,” wrote approximately 1000 works of dialect and children’s poems over his lifetime—most famously creating the source material for the Little Orphan Annie media franchise. Riley was born in 1849 in the town of Greenfield, Indiana, the third child of state politician Reuben Riley and his wife Elizabeth. The earliest days of his childhood were spent at the nearby Brandywine Creek, later referenced in his poems “The Old Swimming Hole” and “A Barefoot Boy.” His mother often read him poems and fairy tales. It was…
