Helping to define "Communiversity," Eli’s Books, the DePauw University bookstore, is on the Putnam County Courthouse Square.
Located in the campus Union Building for decades, the DePauw University bookstore relocated to a renovated historic space in downtown Greencastle as another way to draw the campus and broader communities together. The 11,000 s.f. floorplan includes a full-service Starbucks café (pictured above), rumored to be the highest-grossing in the state. The space also features mezzanine level seating for Starbucks that is perfect for studying or socializing, as well as community rooms available to both DePauw and Putnam County residents, free of charge.
Eli’s Books is named for Colonel Eli Lilly, an avid book collector and founder of the Indianapolis pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Company. Lilly, beginning in 1853, attended the Academy at Indiana Asbury University, which would eventually become DePauw University. After an apprenticeship with a pharmacist in Lafayette, Ind., Lilly opened his first drug store in Greencastle in 1861, in the exact space Eli’s Books now occupies.