Earl Townsend, Jr.
Earl Townsend, Jr.
(11/9/1914 – 8/5/2007)
Earl Townsend, Jr. was known as a prominent attorney and collector of Native American artifacts known as bird stones, but his life was far from limited to those two activities.
After graduating from Arsenal Technical High School, he went on to the University of Michigan (where he roomed with future president Gerald Ford). In both high school and college, he was a standout basketball player. On the radio, he announced the high school basketball finals. All these accomplishments got him inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
His work on radio positioned him for a job broadcasting on TV, albeit briefly. The Indianapolis 500 had its first television broadcast in 1949 to help boost sales of television sets. Townsend was chosen as the voice for this coverage.
He served in the role for two years, but after only two races, owner Tony Hulman fired Townsend — not because he did a poor job, but because race tickets dropped significantly with the TV airing. Live, local coverage of time trials would come in future years, and the race would be shown nationwide, but the race itself is frequently blacked out in the Indianapolis area.
Townsend left broadcasting and went on to make a difference in Indianapolis in other ways. As a child, he collected Native American artifacts from the freshly tilled land on his father’s farm. This led to a passion and a 740-page book entitled Birdstones of the North American Indian, as well as having one of the largest collections of precontact lithic artifacts. This effort was acknowledged by the Black River-Swan Creek Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, who made him an honorary chief in 1971.
Townsend worked as a trial lawyer at the law firm Townsend and Townsend, which he and his brother established in 1940. He worked as the Marion County Deputy Prosecutor from 1942-1944, lectured at Notre Dame University, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan, was chairman of faculty of seminars on personal injury trials at Indiana University School of Law, Notre Dame School of Law, and Valparaiso School of Law, served on the Committee to Revise Indiana Supreme Court Pattern Jury Instructions, and lectured at the Trial Lawyers Institute. He also served as the editor of the American Association of Trial Lawyers American Journal.
