International Meridian Conference
On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time. Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on December 1, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the US railways' "General Time Convention" and Managing Editor of the "Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways", had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883 across the nation. Although this was not legally established until 1918, there was thus a strong sense of "fait accompli" that preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference.
Time in Indiana
Time zones were first adopted by the United States Congress with the Standard Time Act of 1918. All of Indiana was located in the Central Time Zone. It was at this time the dividing line between Eastern Time and Central Time was moved from the Pennsylvania-Ohio state line to the Indiana–Ohio state line. Daylight saving time (DST) was included in the original Standard Time Act. A year later, Congress repealed daylight saving time from the Standard Time Act of 1918, though some communities continued to follow it. During World War II, daylight saving time was once again mandated by Congress to conserve energy. After the war, the mandate to observe daylight saving time was lifted again.