Hobart History
The northwest corner of Indiana was once the land of the Potawatomi Indians. French and English explorers, and fur traders, travelled over the area and by the early 1800s a few squatters had also settled on the Indian lands. The treaty of Tippecanoe in 1832 gave the United States this last bit of Indiana.
Englishman George Earle, who had invested heavily in Lake and Porter Counties, dammed Deep River in 1845 and built a saw mill and grist mill. The mill pond formed by the dam became Lake George. In 1847, Earle moved the post office from Liverpool, his first settlement, to the new mill site and named the new settlement for his brother in England, Frederick Hobart Earle. It is from 1847 that Hobart calculates it age, celebrating its centennial in 1947 and its sesquicentennial in 1997. The plat for the town was recorded May 3, 1849.
Indian trails and later the Chicago-Detroit stage coach route went through Hobart, but it was the opening of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad (later the Pennsylvania Railroad) through Hobart in 1858 that changed pioneer Hobart into a center for transportation and industry. In 1882 the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (Now the Norfolk Southern) was built through Hobart, and in 1888, the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern, enhancing Hobart's position as a railroad hub.
Brickmaking was Hobart's most important industry in the 19th century. With a significant supply of clay in the area, small brick yards appeared just west of town in the 1850s. In 1863 Joseph Nash established the first large brickyard with an eye on the Chicago market. In 1886, W.B. Owen took over another small yard and the following year opened the W.B. Owen Terra Cotta Works, producing terra cotta building tile. The Owen Works was tale over by National Fireproofing Company in 1902 and operated until 1964. The Natco Yards were demolished in 1965. Another major brick maker at the turn of the century was the Kulage Brick Works, which flourished from 1893 to the early 1920s. The Hobart Brickie sports teams gained their name from this early industry.
Before Hobart even became a town, it had a school. In 1845, settlers banded together to build a school on Center Street where the Masonic Temple now stands. In 1877, a large brick building was built on Fourth Street for the Hobart Township schools. In the early years, elementary students attended small, one-room schools located throughout the township, but the one room school era came to an end in 1897, when, under Township Trustee N.P. Banks, Hobart was the first school district in the state to bus children to school, using horse-drawn buses.
Music and sports programs have highlighted Hobart school history. The High School Band, started in 1925 by Dr. William D. Revelli, swept state band championships for three years, beginning in 1929, and, with the establishment of national contests, won them in 1930, 1931, 1933, and 1934. The earliest sports program was baseball in 1891. More recently, the Hobart High School cross country team under the direction of Frank Kurth, won state championships in 1957 and 1960; and the Hobart Brickies football team, under the leadership of Don Howell, took state championships in 1987, 1989, 1991, and 1993.
The founding Earle family regarded religion as an important facet of community life and donated land for churches. The Augustana (Swedish) Lutheran Church was the first church to be established in Hobart in 1862, followed by the First Methodist Church in 1871. Trinity Lutheran and St. Bridget in 1873, and the First Unitarian Church in 1874. St. Bridget occupied Earle's Art Gallery as its first church and today sits on land Earle originally reserved for himself. The Unitarian Church, constructed in 1876, is the oldest church in Hobart still occupied by its original congregation.
A town government was organized in 1889 with W.B. Owen as president of the Board of Trustees. A volunteer fire department organized in 1891. The town constructed the Hobart Light & Water Company in 1898. It was one of the few municipally owned utility companies in the state. Interurban street car service to Gary was established in 1914.
With improved roads and transportation, Hobart experienced a population boom as it became a home for people working in the Gary steel mills. In 1921, Hobart became a city; Sherman Henderson, local businessman and ice cream manufacturer, became the first mayor.
Although Hobart is one of the oldest towns in Lake County, it is still vibrant and growing. Major annexations in Hobart Township to the north in 1988 and in Ross Township to the south in 1992 have added even more potential for continued residential and commercial development in the future.
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