North Liberty, Indiana
Timeline
291 dated events, in order. Each gives the passage that dates it and a link to its full account.
The first 229 dated events are on this page. Scroll to load the next decades, or open 2020s and later decades directly.
18th century 1 dated mentions
1720s
- 1720The machinery, honestly: the foreign-trade zone, corrected whole
But FTZ 125, whose grantee is the St. Joseph County Airport Authority at South Bend, holds an Alternative Site Framework service area that covers this county: the FTZ Board's reorganization order (Order No. 1720, Federal Register, 8 November 2010) names the zone's service area as St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko…
19th century 102 dated mentions
1820s
- 1821The other instruments, each tested
The Treaty of Chicago, 29 August 1821 (7 Stat. 218, Royce Area 117), ceded the country between the 1817 line and the meridian of Parc aux Vaches on the St. Joseph — the townsite stands south of the 1817 line and west of that meridian, outside the tract on both of its limbs.
- 1821–1833The nations, tested one by one against this ground
The Chippewa and Ottawa: parties with the Potawatomi to the Treaty of Chicago of 1821, whose cession ran between the 1817 line and the Parc aux Vaches meridian — north and east of here — and took nothing on this ground.
- 1821–2026Tested nation by nation
Chippewa / Ottawa (Ojibwe / Odawa): NEGATIVE for this ground — parties with the Potawatomi to the 1821 Treaty of Chicago, whose cession missed this ground on both limbs; no cession, reserve, village, or use statement for Liberty Township in any reached carrier.
- 1826Reserves, tested at tract level
The 1826 scholar quarter-sections lay on the St. Joseph by Carey Mission, as the article above states. The nearest named reserve in the county's wider record, the reserve of Menominee's band at the Twin Lakes, stands southeast of here in present Marshall County and does not reach Liberty Township.
- 1826–1838Reserves and the band that stayed
The tract-level reserve tests are printed whole in the land section: the 1828 treaty's anchor reservations stand in the Elkhart and Wabash country; its individual grants could by its own terms be located only inside the 1828 tract, east of the meridian this ground lies west of…
- 1826–1848The reserves around, none on, this ground
The 1826 scholar quarter-sections at Carey Mission lay on the St. Joseph at Niles, Michigan, about 22 miles north-northeast — across the state line and a full township-tier set north; no scholar grant is placed in or near Liberty Township in any carrier reached.
- 1828The 1828 treaty, tested: it did not take this ground
The Treaty of St. Joseph of 1828 — the taking instrument for ground north and east of here — stops at a meridian east of the townsite.
1830s
- 1830–1880The first settlers, in their own sketches — and the three texts that do not agree
David Rupel is the biography-depth anchor of the earliest stratum: born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 31 July 1811, son of German-born parents, Jacob and Ann Rupel; he wintered in Elkhart County in 1830–31 and reached South Bend when it had two houses…
- 1831–1866The law over their heads, whole
Indiana's Black Laws of 1831 required Black residents to register and post bond. The federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made seizure lawful anywhere in the state and penalised aid.
- 1832The taking: the Treaty of Tippecanoe, 26 October 1832
The townsite was ceded by the Potawatomi treaty concluded on Tippecanoe River on 26 October 1832.
- 1833–1836First settlements: 1833, near the site of the town
The first settlements in the township were made in 1833, near the present townsite. The two county histories agree on the year, the place, and the men.
- 1833–1836The first-settler claims (C47)
Chapman, narrative, p. 718: "The first settlements were made in 1833 near North Liberty, by John Kane, John and Jacob Earhart and Isaac Townsend."
- 1833–1837The founders on both sides, in one frame
On the settler side, the founding group as the two bedrock histories carry it: first settlements in 1833 near the townsite by John Kane, John and Jacob Earhart, and Isaac Townsend (Chapman p. 718, Howard agreeing).
- 1834The Huggart Settlement: the first community, whole
The first land purchase was in 1834, and it was made by free Black brothers.
- 1834–1907The land era: Antrim acres and the farm fortunes, unsized
Samuel Huggart's eighty acres, purchased in 1834, is the figure the Indiana Historical Bureau's marker review prints — a free Black family's founding holding, worked in the Huggart Settlement article of the communities leg.
- 1836A town with two birthdays: the plat of 1836 or 1837
North Liberty was laid out in 1836 or in 1837, and the record carries both years. The banked spine prints the conflict whole, unmerged, in its first paragraph and in its plat article: the Antrim plat falls in one year on some carriers and the other on the rest, and the build does not choose.
- 1836The plat: the Antrim ground, 1836 or 1837
The town was laid out on the Antrim ground at the corner of four sections — in 1836 by the dedication Howard prints, in 1837 by Chapman's account.
- 1836The plat's crossing: geometry before roads
The town was centred on a crossing before it had roads to cross: Howard (pp. 313–314) records the plat laid out in January 1836 at the corner common to sections 28, 29, 32 and 33 of Township 36 North, Range 1 East, with Main Street "intended to be of extraordinary width, being 82.5 feet, while others are but 66 feet"…
- 1836–1837The naming of "North Liberty" — what the record proves, and what it tells as story
What the record proves: Howard quotes the plat dedication itself — dated 12 January 1836, by Daniel Antrim, the plat surveyed by Tyra W. Bray — and the dedication as quoted recites no naming statement.
- 1836–1841Removal: what passed, what did not pass, and the band that stayed
(The reserve had been ceded by the Treaty of Yellow River, 5 August 1836, which Menominee refused to sign and whose signatures he claimed were forged; Menominee survived the march and died at St. Marys, Kansas, 15 April 1841.)
- 1836–1900The nineteenth century: inquests without a cause célèbre
Its settler, if the record is larger than the histories admit, is the county coroner's inquest record and the circuit court criminal dockets for 1836–1900, neither of which was read whole; both stand as named gaps.
- 1836–2026The crossing as a place
Stand at the junction and the town's whole road history is underfoot: two two-lane undivided state highways crossing at grade at the corner common to sections 28, 29, 32 and 33 — the plat's centre of 1836, still the town's.
- 1837A town with two birthdays: the plat of 1836 or 1837
North Liberty was laid out in 1836 or in 1837, and the record carries both years. The banked spine prints the conflict whole, unmerged, in its first paragraph and in its plat article: the Antrim plat falls in one year on some carriers and the other on the rest, and the build does not choose.
- 1837The township frame: Liberty organized, 1837
Liberty Township was carved out of Greene by a county-board order of 2 May 1837.
- 1837First houses, first store, the mills on Potato Creek
The town's first things cluster in 1837: the first house, the first store, and the gristmill. Chapman: "soon after its location James Downey built a house; the same year four other houses were built."
- 1837The town's founders as company founders: Antrim's store, the Coles' works
The businesses leg carries the succession whole: the first store, from 1837, passing Antrim to Reynolds to Richardson to Harvey across thirty years, while the Antrim family's own course is the people leg's.
- 1837The first name on the roll: Jas. P. Antrim, justice of the peace, 1837
P. Antrim, who was elected Justice of the Peace" — Chapman's sentence, printed whole in the banked spine beside Howard's differing account of the township's organizing by commissioners' order of 2 May 1837.
- 1837The working creek: the mills, the pond, and the end of water power
The Story of North Liberty section carries the course whole and this section points to it at the size the water owns: the gristmill of 1837, Hiram Bean and Alonzo Hill's sawmill of 1839 "not far from where the present grist-mill stands," a later newspaper history's judgment that Potato Creek "powered more mills than…
- 1837–1867The first store: Daniel Antrim → Reynolds → Richardson → Harvey, 1837–1867
Daniel Antrim opened the first store, general merchandise, in 1837. He sold the stock to E. S. Reynolds in 1838; Reynolds sold to A. P. Richardson in 1840; Richardson sold to James Harvey about 1845, who ran it as a general store.
- 1837–1869To 1869 — 10 linkages
Daniel Antrim — the town's first store, general merchandise (opened 1837; sold the stock 1838). E. S. Reynolds — the first store (bought Antrim's stock 1838; sold 1840).
- 1837–1900The Township Course: A Log School-House in 1838, and a Thin District Record
The township frame around the school is settled: Liberty Township was formed by the county board's order of 2 May 1837, and the territory that became Lincoln Township was taken from it on 7 June 1866 — Chapman and Howard agreeing.
- 1837–1912Officeholders
From the records read: James P. Antrim, Justice of the Peace, elected at the first election, spring 1837. Norman S. Miller, Justice of the Peace (three successive terms from 1857), Township Trustee (1869, seven years), and Postmaster, "appointed by President Lincoln" — all as Chapman prints them.
- 1837–1919The first brewer, tested as a question: none found
The negative's tested span is 1837–1919, at directory-and-county-history strength for 1875–1881 in the first hand and at reference-list strength for the remainder.
- 1837–1943The oldest-institution claims
The record's firsts are not oldest-surviving claims: Chapman's store succession gives the first store to Daniel Antrim, 1837, followed by E. S. Reynolds, then A. P. Richardson (1840), then James Harvey to 1867 — a succession of firsts, none a surviving "oldest."
- 1837–todayThe Kankakee, at its true frame: the township's western water
Howard's printing of the county board's order of 2 May 1837 runs Liberty Township's western line "west to the Kankakee River, down the river to the LaPorte county line" — the river as a boundary call, miles west of the townsite, on ground taken out of Liberty when Lincoln Township was formed in 1866.
1840s
- 1840–1880The Town Schools: A School-House in 1840 and a High-School Building in 1868
The town built its first school-house in 1840 — two years after the township's log house south of it — and a high-school building in 1868, where a graded school then ran under a named principal.
- 1841How old the fair is: two tellings, printed whole
The fair's own banner claims it has entertained St. Joseph County "since 1841," and its grounds history begins with a first fair in the county's early years — the agricultural-society line that Howard's county history carries through fairs at South Bend and Mishawaka in the 1850s and the Portage Avenue grounds to 1872.
- 1842The town cemetery complex: Eastlawn, West Lawn, "Old"
The banked spine dates "the town cemetery" to 1842, among the town's first things — and no carrier reached names who laid it out, a first burial of that year, or a founding act.
1850s
- 1851–todayThe Methodist Church, 1851 — North Liberty United Methodist Church Today
The first church in Liberty Township was Methodist, erected in the town in 1851 and replaced in 1878; its congregation meets today as North Liberty United Methodist Church.
- 1852–1953The farmers' institutions, in a row, each dated
The St. Joseph County Agricultural Society was reorganized on 15 March 1858 under the act of 17 February 1852, and held its first fair on new grounds on 28–30 September 1858…
- 1854The founding benefactions: deeds, not cheques
On 6 September 1854 Samuel Gard deeded land to trustees for a burial ground — Deed Record 72, page 625 — the founding gift of Porter-Rea Cemetery, unpriced in every carrier reached and printed as unpriced…
- 1854–todayPine Creek Church of the Brethren, 1854 — The Township Mother House
Pine Creek, organized in 1854 in the township south of town, is the Brethren congregation from which the town church and two sister houses grew; it meets today on the Pine–Stanton corner.
- 1854–todayPorter-Rea: the community's burial ground, unsegregated from 1854
The Historical Bureau's Porter (Rea) Cemetery marker (71.2003.1, installed 2003) reads: the cemetery was officially created on 6 September 1854, when Samuel Gard deeded land to trustees for a burial ground — the deed is cited to Deed Record 72, page 625…
- 1854–todayExhibits in the open air: springhouse, barn, cemetery
Porter-Rea Cemetery, deeded in 1854, carries its 2003 Historical Bureau marker and a virtual tour produced under the state's cultural-resources program telling the Huggart Settlement's story at the graves themselves.
1860s
- 1863–1895The county maps and the atlas trade
The first county-map class is documented for this ground by the maps the Cole tracing actually used: an 1863 St. Joseph County map showing Cole family land south of town, and an 1895 county map showing Cole property just south of town…
- 1864–1967The drug store line: Hoffman to Moak to Merrick's — and no successor
Daniel Hoffman settled in Liberty Township in 1864 — the atlas prints "Hoffman, D. — Drugs and Groceries — 1864" — kept a first store at the southeast corner of Main and Market, then built the Hoffman Block at 108/110 North Main about 1885 for his drugstore and grocery: the drugstore in the north storefront (still so…
- 1865Saint John's Lutheran Cemetery: the township's one church ground
1865 — Liberty Township," the ground active into 2014 on the reading's own latest dates. Its earliest deaths print exactly as carried, anomalies flagged and not resolved: John Rupert, d.
- 1865–1880The town Chapman counted, and the industry that followed
The trades had been gathering since the war: Elijah Lee, blacksmith, 1865; Norman S. Miller's dry-goods establishment, 1865; Houser Brothers' general store, 1875.
- 1865–1884Blacksmiths and the wagon trade: Lee's bench and its directory life
E. T. (Elijah) Lee kept a blacksmith shop from 1865 — Civil War veteran, builder of wagons as well as shodder of horses, operating into the 1900s, his shop fronting Harrison Street behind 140 North Main; the atlas prints him "Blacksmithing and Horse-Shoeing — Wythe Co., Virginia…
- 1865–1917The horse-trade ground inherited, dated
The nomination's record fills the named courses: Elijah Lee established his blacksmith shop in 1865, "also built wagons," and operated into the 1900s, fronting Harrison Street behind 140 North Main; George R. Flood established his harness business in 1871 and "kept a full stock of harnesses and whips"…
- 1865–todayGeneral stores and groceries: the long line, 1865 – present
Norman S. Miller opened a large dry goods store in 1865 — invoices totalling $9,000 in 1880 — serving also as township trustee and postmaster (the gazetteer headers name him postmaster in 1880–81…
- 1865–todayThe trades whole III: draying and the livery succession; blacksmith to welding
The smithy era stands whole in the businesses file: Elijah Lee from 1865 into the 1900s, and the four-smith bench of the c.1886 patrons list (Lee, Baker, Fetzer, Keesy), with B. F. Berger in 1880–81, and the wagon trade sharing the ground (Ritchie, Rowan, Nelson, Warster, F. M. Lee; carriage painting, Hamilton; harness, Flood).
- 1866Before patents: the Cole works and the making town
The Cole Brothers' planing mill (1866), burned and reincorporated in 1873 as the North Liberty Manufacturing Company, made wagons and buggies at factory scale (businesses leg) — manufacture by craft and jig rather than by patented novelty, and no patent in the record reached attaches to the firm or to Isaac R. Cole.
- 1866Cole Brothers' planing mill → the North Liberty Manufacturing Company, 1866 – into the 20th century
"Cole Brothers built a large planing mill and manufacturing facility in 1866" at North Liberty; it burned in 1871 and was reincorporated in 1873 as the North Liberty Manufacturing Company, which manufactured wagons and buggies and "continued into the 20th century"…
- 1866The maker test: wagons and buggies, whole — automobiles, none
The businesses leg carries the firm whole: the planing mill of 1866, the fire of 1871 (and the paint-shop fire the Tribune records in November 1873), the rebuilding at the south end of town, the wagon-and-buggy product line that made the works the town's largest nineteenth-century employer class.
- 1868The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 1868 — Built, and Gone from the Roll
The second church in the township was the Seventh-Day Adventist church in town, built in 1868 by six named donors; no Adventist congregation stands at North Liberty today.
- 1868The founding instrument: General Order No. 11
General Order No. 11, Headquarters, Grand Army of the Republic, Washington, D.C., 5 May 1868, issued by Commander-in-Chief John A. Logan (Adjutant General N. P. Chipman), designated 30 May 1868 for strewing flowers and decorating the graves of comrades who died in defence of their country during the late rebellion…
- 1869–todayFurniture and undertaking → the funeral home line: Bettcher to Palmer
P. S. Burkhart stands beside him in the same trade (atlas 1875, settled 1869; patrons list likewise). Jeremiah Steel [Steele] lists furniture across the 1880s gazetteers — the atlas prints a Jeremiah Steele as "Farming and Saw Milling," the same man at two trades or two men, not resolved and printed without merger.
1870s
- 1870–18891870–1889 — 74 linkages
H. C. Baker — blacksmithing (1875 atlas; settled 1870; patrons list). John N. Fetzer — blacksmithing (1875 atlas; from the Rhineland; settled 1847; patrons list).
- 1870–2020The census line, 1870–2020
The town's first separate census return is 1870, not 1880: 223 people.
- 1870–2020The series in full: 1870 to 2020, with the missing censuses named
The series therefore begins, honestly, in 1870 — thirty-four years after the plat — and that late start is itself a fact about a small unincorporated village, not a gap papered over.
- 1870–2020The eras read off the numbers
The first, 1870 to 1920, is village growth: from 223 to 684 across fifty years, with the fastest single decade the 1870s at 55.2 percent and a near-standstill in the 1910s at 0.4 percent — the decade the railroads that made the town a junction were already built and the farm economy around it was full.
- 1871The Cole Brothers planing-mill fire, winter 1871
The one dated mill fire the record carries: Chapman (p. 720) dates the town's fire record in one line of the mills' course — the Cole Brothers planing mill was built in 1866 and burnt in the winter of 1871; Cole, Ragon & Co. was formed January 1, 1873, and built the North Liberty manufacturing establishment…
- 1871–todayThe trades whole I: undertakers into the Palmer line; printers
George A. Bettcher arrived in 1871 to assist his father-in-law's furniture-and-undertaking business — the father-in-law, the trade's true first holder here, named by no carrier reached, a gap inside the trade's first line.
- 1873–1992The System's Founding Line: A Reading Room, a School Board, and "The Castle"
The system North Liberty joined in 1986 was founded by a school board: a voluntary reading room of 1873, a Board of Education resolution of 1888, and an opening in 1889 on the fourth floor of an opera house.
- 1875The Home Manufacturing Company: a second corporation, attested by its officers alone
A whole second manufacturing corporation surfaces in the 1875 directory — and nowhere else any carrier reached.
- 1875–1886The one named saloon: N. A. Travis, and a three-way carrier conflict
The 1875 atlas directory lists the same N. A. Travis, settled in the county in 1872, as "Restaurant and Eating House," and the c.1886 patrons list quoted in the Commercial District nomination likewise gives "N. A. Travis (restaurant and eating house)."
- 1875–1920Distillers: a searched negative, with its span printed in parts
The town and township directories read first-hand (the 1875 atlas; Polk 1880–81 and 1916–17) name no rectifier and no wholesale liquor house here.
- 1875–1967Small manufacturing and the sawmill cluster: brick, brooms, and the fifty-year silo thread
Sawmills beyond Potato Creek and Knepp & Houser: Jacob Geiger, saw mill (Polk 1880–81; the atlas prints a Jacob Geiger as farming, settled 1865); Beck Bros, saw mill, new in 1882–83; H. W. Betz, "Saw Milling" (atlas 1875, settled 1855); Jeremiah Steele, "Farming and Saw Milling" (atlas 1875, settled 1864)…
- 1875–1967Livestock, grain and feed, and the elevator: the rail-era farm trade in town
The livestock dealers print first: L. S. Pearse, "Farmer and Stock Dealer" (atlas 1875), with L. S. and N. W. Pearce [sic] as cattle dealers and "live stock" across the 1880s gazetteers; John N. Rupel, live stock (1882–83, 1884–85) — the Rupel spelling standing apart from the hotel Ruperts, not merged…
- 1878–1885Stage and mail: Miller's line and the gazetteers
Chapman (pp. 743–744) gives John J. Miller's biography: an Ohio-born miller who moved to Walkerton in 1873, "established a stage route between Walkerton and South Bend, running his first trip June 7, 1878," on a Tuesday–Thursday–Saturday timetable, carrying mail and passengers…
1880s
- 1880V. S. Bulla
31 and 32 (p. 724). [REGISTER] Carrying fact: a second-generation Liberty landholder at 240 acres in 1880. Howard Vol. 2 carries him again as Vincent S. Bulla — §4.
- 1880The baseline: Chapman's natural history, 1880
The leg's spine is a dated survey: Chapman's History of St. Joseph County (1880) and its natural-history account.
- 1880Rev. Orlando R. Beebe
Licensed as a local preacher 11 May 1872; Methodist appointments Marmont Circuit, Winamac, Argus, Wheeler, Union Mills, then the North Liberty circuit, “where he now lives and labors” (p. 724). [REGISTER] Carrying fact: the town’s 1880 Methodist circuit pastor, with a three-enlistment Civil War record — the military set’s clerical entry.
- 1880Alex. S. Campbell, M.D.
(2) 9 May 1880 Sarah Gordon, daughter of John W. and Elizabeth Gordon (pp. 724–725). [REGISTER] Carrying fact: North Liberty’s resident physician from 1871, one of the four practising physicians in Chapman’s 1880 town business census.
- 1880Eight Churches in 1880: Three in Town, Five in the Country
Chapman's 1880 count is the baseline of this section: three churches in the town of North Liberty and five more in Liberty Township outside it.
- 1880The Country Churches Nobody Named: The Evangelical and United Brethren Houses of 1880
Chapman counts an Evangelical church and a United Brethren church standing in Liberty Township in 1880; no carrier reached names either congregation, gives a site, or tells a fate.
- 1880Hunting and travel country — the township in Chapman's own telling
Third, a named settler household visited, mid-winter: Chapman recounts about a dozen Potawatomi calling at the house of Mr. Waldsmith (the settler of 1838 on section 30) in mid-winter, his wife at home alone; the visitors warmed at the fire, were fed "with great hospitality," and departed…
- 1880The departed predators: wolves, panthers and bears
The South Bend build carried wolves, panthers and bears whole, with last-record evidence sized, against Chapman's 1880 account.
- 1880The historians of the town, counted as authors first
The Chapman company's History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880) carries the town at page 719 — the source of the 1837 laying-out date and of the trades census the Story of North Liberty section quotes: two dry-goods establishments, the planing mill, the gristmill, the millinery store, the physicians, and the town's…
- 1880One millinery store: the 1880 trades census
The town's dress trade enters the record in a single line of Chapman's 1880 census of its businesses: "one millinery store."
- 1880–1875Chapman's 1880 census, with the names behind its lines
Chapman's town in 1880: two large dry-goods establishments, two boot-and-shoe stores, one drug-and-hardware, one grocery-and-hardware, one planing-mill and manufacturing establishment, one gristmill, one millinery, one butcher, one barber, four physicians, three churches, one schoolhouse.
- 1880–1967Rail-era outward flows, at directory strength only
Pre-rail, in Polk's 1880–81 gazetteer, L. S. and N. W. Pearce stand as cattle dealers at North Liberty (the 1875 atlas lists L. S. Pearse as "Farmer and Stock Dealer"), and the same gazetteer gives the town's nearest railroad approach as Walkerton, six miles — so any 1880s livestock trade moved overland to someone else's railhead.
- 1880–2015The transformation counted as a ladder, with its missing rungs named
Rung one, 1880: Chapman's count, banked above — one grist-mill, one planing-mill and manufacturing establishment, no hands counted.
- 1880–todayThe baseline: a department-store street at farm-town scale
The trades censuses carried in the Story of North Liberty section and businesses legs — Chapman's in 1880, the 1940 directory's twenty-one Main Street businesses…
- 1880–todayThe Lutheran Thread: Chapman's German Lutheran Church and St. John's Today
A German Lutheran church stood in the township in 1880; a St. John's Lutheran Church stands on Riley Road on the town's present roll; whether the second continues the first, no read carrier establishes.
- 1881–1983The Three I: from the Kankakee country to the Kankakee Belt
The north–south line came out of a foreclosure and a decade of building westward: after the Plymouth, Kankakee & Pacific foreclosure sale of 5 May 1881, the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad was created in Illinois on 11 July 1881 and consolidated on 27 December 1881; it built from Momence, Illinois, to North Judson, Indiana…
- 1884–todayThe mutual layer: an integrated burial association, 1884, and the churches
The Porter Cemetery Association, formed 9 May 1884 with both white and African-American charter members (Indiana Historical Bureau marker 71.2003.1), took charge of the burial ground Samuel Gard had deeded in 1854 and manages it still, an active independent cemetery inside Potato Creek State Park.
- 1889–todayThe Directors: Seven Holders, Humphreys to Murphy
Evelyn Humphreys, first Head Librarian, 1889–1903. Virginia M. Tutt, second Head Librarian, 1903–1927; the Tutt Branch of 1928 was named for her.
1890s
- 1890–1893The Wabash building: the Montpelier & Chicago, 1890–1893
The road was built under a name the Wabash itself used only on paper: the Montpelier & Chicago Railroad Company, whose articles were filed in Indiana on 28 February 1890.
- 1892St. Philip's lightning strike, 1892 — pointer
The Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Archives records of St. Philip's: "In 1892, the church was struck by lightning and severely damaged."
- 1892–1896The North Liberty Herald: the first paper, 1892 to about 1896
The town's first newspaper was the North Liberty Herald, established in 1892. The carrier is the National Register nomination for the Commercial Historic District (Garner, 2012), read in its own text: "The town's first newspaper, the North Liberty Herald, was established in 1892 and operated for four years."
- 1892–1967Media as business: a pointer only — the papers' whole course is a later pass's
The North Liberty Herald, established 1892 and operated four years to about 1896, was the town's first paper; its plant's address stands in a small conflict reserved to that pass…
- 1893The railroad age
The Story of North Liberty section fixes the frame: North Liberty "for two generations was the junction of two railroads, both now abandoned"…
- 1893–1894The railroad arrivals as civic days — tested, not carried at event size
The settler class for a celebration account is the South Bend and Walkerton papers of 1893–94 and the railroad trade press — the town's own paper does not reach back that far.
- 1893–1989Two railroads, 1893 and 1894 — and none today
A church periodical carries the town-level proof: "The Wabash railroad has passed through [North Liberty] the present year" (The Spirit of Missions, August 1893).
- 1893–1989Two lines, one junction, none today
What the two lines were, in order: the Wabash's Chicago Extension, an east–west trunk built through the town in 1893 under the Montpelier & Chicago Railroad Company and run in succession as the Wabash's Fourth District and, after the Norfolk & Western lease of 1964, the Gary District; and the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa…
- 1894Incorporation: 8 June 1894
The town was duly incorporated on 8 June 1894 — Howard's whole statement on the act, and the instrument behind it is not in the reached record.
- 1895–1916Dairy: the Schlosser Brothers creamery, bought 1895, operating in 1916
The Plymouth Weekly Republican of 30 November 1911 (read first-hand) profiles Schlosser Brothers of Plymouth, "the largest manufacturers of butter in Indiana," and dates the firm's expansion in a single sentence: "The first extension of the business came with the purchase of creameries at Wanatah in 1890; Hanna, in 1892…
- 1895–1962The North Liberty News: 1895–1962, Dell Woodward's paper
The North Liberty News was founded in 1895, a year before its predecessor folded, and outlived it by sixty-six years.
- 1895–1962Freight life: milk cans, an elevator, and what the record cannot weigh
The town's freight life is documented at the scale a small station leaves: milk cans lined up on the Central's platform in the Albert postcard view — dairy country shipping its morning cans by rail…
- 1896–1897Before the saucers: the 1896–97 airship wave, tested here
The great airship wave of 1896–97 — thousands of reports of a powered, lighted airship across the Midwest, Indiana included — was tested against this ground specifically.
20th century 93 dated mentions
1900s
- 1901–1964The timetable pattern: the town on two station lists
A compiled list of Indiana railroad stations (branchline.uk, "Indiana Railroads — SL 281," its stated basis the Official Guide of 1875/1893 and company public and working timetables) prints the New York Central's "South Bend – Illinois" line (ex-CI&S, ex-Three I) from its 1901 timetable reference: South Bend 0.0…
- 1903–todayChurches as buildings, and the plant as built fabric
For the churches: the North Liberty Church of the Brethren's house was purchased from another denomination in 1903 and remodeled in 1923, and was operated jointly with the Oak Grove house until the congregations separated in 1917 (Shultz, History of the Church of the Brethren in Indiana, 1952).
- 1904The interurban: proposed once, never built
One proposal touched the town, in print, in the summer of 1904: a syndicate under general manager W. H. McCullough proposed a gasoline-motor interurban from South Bend to Plymouth "by way of North Liberty, Walkerton, Tyner, and Plymouth," with materials to be bought in South Bend…
- 1905Livery stables: one attested, and a directory absence that is not proof
No livery stable is listed under that trade in Polk's 1880–81, 1882–83, or 1884–85 editions, or in the 1875 atlas directory's business columns — all read whole…
- 1907William Newcomer
Sold the Ohio farm and came to Liberty Township, purchasing the 80-acre tract his son Charles now lives on, plus another 80 acres c. 1¼ miles east; in summer 1907 erected a cottage home there (Part 75).
- 1907Leonard Amm
27 May 1907 aged 84-4-17 at his son George’s home in Dearborn County) and Margaret (Kundinger) Amm (b. c. 1823 in the same place; d.
- 1907Israel Irvin
5 June 1907 , aged 75-1-24, interred in the Liberty cemetery, after fifty-five-plus years of marriage); six children named — incl.
- 1907Rev. Isaac Early
D. 14 Aug. 1907, aged 69-5-7 — as printed in the entry (a death date inside a 1907 volume; printed as reached) (Part 68). [PROFILE] Carrying fact: minister, 200-acre purchaser, and county commissioner in one Liberty life — the office is cross-pointed to the government leg, the ministry to the Religion section…
- 1907Memberships are not lodges: the 1907 evidence, kept separate
Howard's 1907 county history shows North Liberty men inside the century's orders — without seating those orders here.
- 1909–1916Implement and machinery dealerships: hardware-store departments, at true size
In 1909 a farm implement warehouse stood at the rear of the east Main Street block; its operator is unnamed in the nomination.
1910s
- 1913–2026The counters North Liberty used, era by era
From 1913 into the early 1920s: the mail, and the notary channel (above). From the early 1920s through 1929: the department's county-seat counters at South Bend, at the strength reached.
- 1915The volunteer department: a 1915 founding, at its carrier's strength
The town's department is the Liberty Township Volunteer Fire Department, and its founding year in print is 1915.
- 1915–todayTelephone, electric, and the utilities as businesses
A municipal utility also stands inscribed: the City Hall building carries "North Liberty Water Co. 1915" beside "CITY HALL 1915" (the nomination), registered here for completeness.
- 1915–todayCivic buildings at anchor
Town Hall of 1915 stands in the district inventory at its Main Street address in the town's early government; the present seat of government is Town Hall at 300 South Main Street, where the clerk-treasurer's office sits (banked government section).
- 1916–1917The one hard figure class: bank capital
R. L. Polk & Co.'s Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1916–1917 lists the North Liberty State Bank at a capital of $25,000, with Isaac Reamer as president and A. C. Steele as cashier — the banked banks section carries the line whole, with its transcription variance.
- 1916–1917The market line: a grain buyer in town, and the South Bend market
Polk's 1916–17 directory lists Finch Bros, grain and feed, among North Liberty's businesses, with the North Liberty Lumber & Coal Co. beside it — a grain-and-feed dealer proven in town, printed as exactly that and not as an elevator; the elevator's own course is dug in the businesses leg.
- 1916–1917The first sellers: the 1916–17 census, with its count — garages 1, dealers 0
Polk's 1916–17 gazetteer's whole auto-trade listing for the town is "Barnes Roland C, garage" — and no "automobiles" dealer entry at all: garages 1, automobile dealers 0 named.
- 1916–2026The founding bankers as a roll; the modern chiefs tested
The North Liberty State Bank's documented officers — Isaac Reamer, president, and A. C. Steele, cashier, in the 1916–17 Polk gazetteer (banks leg) — are the first bank's chiefs at the strength of that line…
- 1917–todayThe North Liberty Church of the Brethren, 1917 — In the Episcopal Building
The town's Brethren congregation was separated from the mother congregation in 1917 and worships still at 201 East Market Street, in the building bought from the Episcopalians.
- 1918The Eastern Star, the Woodmen, and the orders in the wartime press
The assessment-insurance alphabet that the discipline sweeps — the tents, hives and camps of the benefit machine — surfaces for this town once in the sources reached, and vividly: the South Bend News-Times of 10 April 1918 (Hoosier State Chronicles) reports a Liberty Loan meeting of the Modern Woodmen of America to be…
- 1918Influenza 1918: the town named, the town bound, the toll uncounted
The Indiana State Archives' influenza chronology (compiled from the Indianapolis Star) records for 2 October 1918 that cases had appeared across Indiana in a list of named communities including, verbatim, "cases in South Bend, North Liberty, Walkerton, and other communities around Indiana"…
- 1918The Armistice: the county seat's scene; this town's unreached
South Bend's Armistice stands in the county seat's file at pointer: the News-Times of 11 November 1918 headlines the city joining "All America in Celebration" — factory whistles tied down for half an hour, the downtown "a seething [mass] of humanity," improvised bands and noisemaking contraptions…
- 1918–1933The dry years and the drug era: two tested negatives
That is a finding about the record reached, not about conduct in the township; the settling sources are the St. Joseph County court dockets for 1918–1933 and the federal prohibition-enforcement files for the Northern District of Indiana.
1920s
- 1920Suffrage: the state frame, and a local absence printed as such
The frame is the state's: Indiana women voted in part under the state's brief partial-suffrage grant of 1917 and its loss in the courts, and Indiana ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in a special session in January 1920.
- 1920–todayThe Branch Roll: Nine Branches, and Where North Liberty Stands in the Building Line
North Liberty was the seventh branch seat the system opened, in a building programme that ran from 1920 to 2009 and put a branch in each taxed township's town.
- 1927–1928The bank closing of 1927 — a failure litigated, not a crime prosecuted
As the banks leg of this build establishes at anchor strength, the North Liberty State Bank was closed by the state effective 17 January 1927 (Federal Reserve Board Mimeograph Letters X-1530, week ended 21 January 1927), and in September 1928 the Walkerton Independent reported the State Banking Department's insolvency…
- 1929The bank that one record places in 1929 and no record names
In 1929 North Liberty had a second bank — one sentence says so, and nothing else does.
- 1929The second bank of 1929 — a nomination sentence no carrier names
The Commercial District nomination (§8) states that the town "also had a second bank operating south of the movie theater in 1929" — the theater then occupying the south storefront of 140 North Main.
- 1929–1988The patronage era as it landed here: a system with no local post
The frame, in brief: the Act of 13 March 1929 (ch. 162) put the branches under the parties' county organisations; the system's texture is documented at state strength in the November 1958 UPI reporting on the Handley administration; Governor Orr's 1986 move against it and the commission takeover of July 1988 ended it.
1930s
- 1930–1964State Road 23 beyond the frame: no predecessor, a borrowed number, a late pavement
The five 1917 Main Market Roads are all accounted for without this corridor (see the auto-trail article for the accounting); the 1927 numbering left the road unnumbered; and no pre-1930 predecessor designation was found in any record reached…
- 1930–todayCorridors: State Road 23, State Road 4, and the tested U.S.-highway claim
The number's history at frame strength: before 1926 the SR 23 number sat elsewhere in the state; the 1926 renumbering left it unused; in late 1930 it was applied to the modern routing, the National Register nomination corroborating at town level that the "designation of Main Street as Indiana State Road 23 in 1930……
- 1932–1981The Shamrocks surveyed: two conferences, one peak season in the papers
The conference record, carried in the schools file at snippet strength and in the conference tables, runs the school from the St. Joseph County Conference — reorganised as the Northern Indiana Valley Conference in 1932…
- 1932–2016State Road 4: three roads wearing one number
The designation history sorts the segments out: the pre-1926 southern SR 4 was renumbered away (the US 41/US 50 corridors) and the number lay unused from 1926 to 1932, when the Goshen–SR 13 piece was designated SR 4…
- 1933–1962The Gary Local: the last mixed train in Indiana
The Gary Local began operation in 1933, when regular passenger service was discontinued on the Fourth District, and ran between Montpelier, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana…
- 1933–1994The centennial line — the birthdays the record does not show
No celebration of any of the town's three birthdays is in the reached record — not the settlement centennial of 1933, not the plat centennials of 1936–37, not the incorporation centennial of 1994.
- 1933–2026The anniversaries that were not staged, and the festival that is
The events file tests the point whole: no celebration of the settlement centennial of 1933, the plat centennials of 1936–37, or the incorporation centennial of 1994 appears in any carrier searched, across three passes.
- 1935The park as built fabric: WPA fieldstone, 1935 and 1937
The Works Progress Administration developed the seven-acre park in two campaigns, 1935 and 1937, constructing the ornamental fieldstone entrance structures, a footbridge, a bandshell, a tool shed, a bath house and other fieldstone features, on ground along Potato Creek reached from Jefferson Street between Market and Mill.
- 1935–1937North Liberty Park: the fieldstone park the WPA built
Its National Register nomination — read in the federal record for this section — tells the building whole: President Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration in 1935, Indiana got projects under way that summer, and WPA crews built this park in two campaigns, 1935 and 1937, "using local labor and…
- 1935–todayCrossings, cup, and sewer: the creek in the town's works
The crossings of record are the park's: the Works Progress Administration's footbridge over the creek at North Liberty Park, built in the 1935 and 1937 projects the park's nomination catalogues, is the one bridge on the town's water that any carrier names…
- 1935–todayThe swimming life: a fieldstone pool in the town park
The park's National Register nomination records that WPA crews in 1935 and 1937 outlined the swimming pool with fieldstone and built its bathhouse, alongside the park's entrances, steps, footbridge, and bandstand; the nomination adds five fish-rearing ponds in the park's corners, a common 1930s park feature, of which none survive.
1940s
- 19401940: shoes, clothing and beauty on one street
The 1940 telephone directory's North Liberty section, transcribed whole in the banks leg, shows the dress trades at their fullest documented spread.
- 1940The lunch-room town: the 1940 table
In 1940 a traveller could eat in North Liberty at the Chat En Chew Lunch Room, at Jay's Lunch Room, or at Gardner's Inn.
- 1940The street record: garages, agencies and gasoline
The 1940 directory transcribed in the banks leg fills in the trade at that date: the Bare & Heim Service Station, Hazelbaker's Phillips 66, and Poynter's Service Station — three fuel-and-service houses in a town of under a thousand, the gasoline street in miniature.
- 1941–1945The Second World War
A county page-image count of the Honor List was not completed and stands in the note as residue, with the St. Joseph County Public Library's Service Notes index (1941–1979) named as the name-level settler for this war above all others.
- 1942The Mother Congregation and Oak Grove, Disorganized 1942
Before there were separate Brethren congregations there was one — the Whitmer church, covering much of the county's southwest — and its remainder, Oak Grove, was disorganized in 1942.
- 1942–1945The war years, 1942–45: an honest small negative
The only 1942 Ford-garage advertising hit in the local newspaper record is the Walkerton Ford Garage (Walkerton Independent, 30 April 1942) — Walkerton's business, a boundary exclusion, not this town's.
- 1943–1987The bank item: Community State Bank
The Community State Bank of North Liberty was chartered in 1943 and merged into 1st Source Bank in 1987 — it did not fail, and it is not independent.
- 1943–1987The Community State Bank of North Liberty, 1943–1987: Certificate 15942
The FDIC's institution history for the Community State Bank of North Liberty (Certificate 15942, state charter, headquarters on Main Street) carries exactly two events: its establishment on 1 May 1943, and its merger — without assistance…
- 1943–2026The modern federal tail: no case
The Community State Bank traded from 1943 to 1987, and its successor branch trades still, with no robbery case in the record reached.
- 1947–1969The national frame: 1947 and the Air Force files
The modern era of reports opens in the summer of 1947; the Air Force investigated under successive projects — Sign (1948), Grudge (1949) and Blue Book (1952–1969) — headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, filing each report as a case with a disposition: identified, insufficient data, or unknown.
- 1949–2010The county centre founded: Madison Center, 1949
The community mental health centre that served this town for six decades was founded in 1949 and sat in South Bend.
1950s
- 1950–2003The plate record: county 71 on a North Liberty windshield
The prefix systems' ceilings print as ceilings, not registrations: 69,993 combinations under the 1950 scheme, 239,976 under the 1963 scheme.
- 1952The farm communities of Liberty Township: Brethren, German, Quaker threads
The Church of the Brethren thread is the best documented: Lawrence Shultz's History of the Church of the Brethren in Indiana (1952) traces a congregation whose territory once covered much of the county's southwest, worshipping in two houses — the North Liberty house, purchased from another denomination in 1903, and Oak Grove…
- 1952–1969The Blue Book ledger for this ground
At county frame the file is not empty: the South Bend record dug in this build's South Bend leg carries a Blue Book ledger for St. Joseph County, including the county's official Unknown of 23 July 1952 and the dated first-wave and factory cases over the city and its works.
- 1954The VFW: Post 1954
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1954 holds the township's second veterans' hall, south of town at 66992 Tamarack Road, and its paper trail is the permit record: the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission's local-board schedules carry 'Veterans of Foreign Wars 1954 Inc, DBA V.F.W. #1954, 66992 Tamerack Dr, North Liberty'…
1960s
- 1960The laundry: the Modern Speed Wash, 103 W. Center, 1960 – and its ground's whole sequence
The Commercial District nomination's bibliography attests the hometown source: "New Building to House Laundry," North Liberty News, 6 October 1960.
- 1962The current holder whole: Oaklawn Psychiatric Center
Founded in 1962 and sponsored by Mennonite Health Services Alliance — accountable to Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in Christ churches — Oaklawn is described in its own record as the only faith-based mental health centre in Indiana.
- 1965The Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, 11 April 1965 — the county's course proven; the township's share not shown
The National Weather Service, Northern Indiana, records the outbreak of April 11–12, 1965 as 47 tornadoes and 261 deaths across the Midwest.
- 1965–todayNorth Liberty Elementary: The Town's School Today
The school's earlier course is reached at one point before the present: in September 1965 Gary G. Nelson was its principal, announcing the opening enrollment for 7 September 1965 with eighth-grade pupils placed in the elementary building that year — a newspaper record at snippet strength, its grade table only partly recoverable.
- 1966–1981The Northern State years and the end
In 1966 the Shamrocks moved with their peers into the Northern State Conference — into the same league as the new John Glenn Falcons, the rivalry the schools file records.
- 1966–todayThe service clubs, at record size
The IRS exempt-organizations record, as carried in the nonprofit directories, holds two subordinate entries for the International Association of Lions Clubs at 26750 Quinn Road, North Liberty: one under the secondary name North Liberty Lions Club (EIN 35-6063801, ruling dated March 1966) and one under the secondary…
- 1968–todayThe Falcons, at the town's size
The Falcons began in 1968, in a corporation North Liberty did not yet belong to, and were the Shamrocks' rivals until the merger made them the town's own.
- 1969Potato Creek State Park: township ground, not town ground
The record gives the park three dates, and they print whole because they are three different events that looser sources conflate into one "establishment": the area was designated to become a park in 1969; the six square miles were formally dedicated on 6 June 1977 by Governor Otis R. Bowen, as Potato Creek Recreation Area…
- 1969Potato Creek State Park: 3,840 acres and a lake a man nagged into being
The park was established in 1969, before the lake, on primarily farmland. Native peoples used the area for hunting and fishing and gathered the wild tubers that gave the creek its name.
- 1969–todayThe museum on township ground: the Potato Creek Nature Center
The park, at 25601 State Road 4 in Liberty Township, was established in 1969 on what was primarily farmland, and its reservoir was created in 1977 (DNR park history).
- 1969–todayThe club movement's surviving form: Tri Kappa, Zeta Pi, 1969
Kappa Kappa Kappa — Tri Kappa — is Indiana's own women's philanthropic sorority, founded at Indianapolis in 1901 to promote charity, culture, and education; its chapter list records the Zeta Pi chapter at North Liberty, chartered 28 March 1969 and active.
1970s
- 1972–1984The Formation of John Glenn School Corporation: Three Carriers, Three Tellings
The first telling is an obituary, read first-hand: Harold "Hal" Muncie was principal of Tyner High School 1963–1965, then of Walkerton High School from spring 1965; "In June of 1972, Hal was named Superintendent of PLJ School Corporation.
- 1972–1984The loss of the high school: a contested decision the record dates three ways
The schools file prints the conflict unmerged: a superintendent's obituary dates the PLJ–North Liberty merger he oversaw only to sometime after June 1972 and before about 1984; a publisher's summary of the standard local pictorial history puts the consolidation in "the early 1980s"…
- 1972–todayThe Superintendents: Muncie, a Twenty-Six-Year Silence, Reese, and Winchell
Harold Rubert "Hal" Muncie heads the reached line: superintendent of PLJ from June 1972, then of the merged John Glenn corporation through the merger, serving twelve further years and leaving by April 1985 for Western Boone, where he served seven more and retired in 1992…
- 1974The J & H Tavern robbery and the death of John F. Britton, 1974–1977
On the night of 19–20 November 1974 — the information dates the acts to 19 November, the opinion's narrative to the night of 20 November, and both print here unmerged — Robert Eugene Candler and two companions robbed the J & H Tavern at 59400 Crumstown Highway, North Liberty, a house run by Helen Elliot.
- 1974–1977Candler: the tavern killing, the trial, and the opinion of 24 June 1977
The facts are stated in the crime leg and repeated here only as the murder file requires: during the armed robbery of the J & H Tavern at 59400 Crumstown Highway on the night of 19–20 November 1974…
- 1974–2026The modern database era: the reporting-center record for North Liberty
The modern era files differently: the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC, founded 1974) takes self-filed reports by telephone and web form and publishes them by place.
- 1975Whitmer v. Town of North Liberty: the strip on State Road 23
On 22 December 1975, at a regularly held year-end meeting, the Town Board of North Liberty unanimously adopted Annexation Ordinance No. 4-1975.
- 1977Candler: the tavern killing, the trial, and the opinion of 24 June 1977
State , 266 Ind. 440, 363 N.E.2d 1233 (Ind. 1977), the Supreme Court of Indiana affirmed the murder conviction and the life sentence, held that the felony-murder conviction absorbed the underlying armed-robbery conviction so that its separate sentence had to be vacated, and held a warrantless search of the defendant's…
- 1977The one dam: Worster Lake, 1977
In 1977 the state dammed the creek on township ground east of North Liberty to make Worster Lake, the 327-acre centre of the new Potato Creek Recreation Area, dedicated by Governor Otis R. Bowen on 6 June 1977 and named for Darcy Worster, the naturalist who had lobbied for the reservoir for decades.
- 1977Potato Creek State Park: the township's park, at its true frame
Its facts, from the Department of Natural Resources' and the park's own record: 3,840 acres at 25601 State Road 4, around the 327-acre Worster Lake made by damming Potato Creek in 1977; natural habitats of old fields, mature woodlands, restored prairies, and wetlands on ground that had been farmland…
- 1978The Blizzard of 1978 — the town's share at reached strength
Settler: the Independent-News (Walkerton) for January–February 1978.
- 1978The blizzard test, and the modern position
The snowmobile's documented moment in this region's life is the Blizzard of 1978 (26–27 January), when northern Indiana stopped entirely and snowmobiles became emergency transport across St. Joseph County — a county-frame fact carried in this build's South Bend and county record.
- 1978–2012The surveys: the county volume, under two datings (C121)
From 1978 to 2012, Indiana Landmarks partnered with the Indiana DHPA to conduct the Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory, completing 85 of 92 counties with a printed report per county…
1980s
- 1981North Liberty High School: The Shamrocks, and a Closing Nobody Dated
The conference record, at snippet strength, runs the school's affiliations: a member of the Northern Indiana Valley Conference from 1932 to 1966, then of the Northern State Conference from 1966, leaving it in 1981 — "none (consolidated into Glenn)."
- 1982–2022The county in numbers: the Census of Agriculture series, 1982–2022
St. Joseph County's farm census, as the published carriers print it: about 1,000 farms on 172,500 acres in 1982; about 900 farms on 174,226 acres in 1987; about 780 on 172,348 in 1992; about 680 on 154,142 in 1997…
- 1982–2022Conversion, measured: consolidation, an honest uptick, and what remains
The measured arc, from the series article above: land in farms ran about 172,500 acres in 1982, 174,226 in 1987, 172,348 in 1992, 154,142 in 1997, 151,975 in 2012, 149,981 in 2017 — and 153,034 in 2022, a slight rise against 2017.
- 1983The field-specific highest honor: the presidency of the American Statistical Association
Richard Loree Anderson, born in North Liberty on 16 November 1917, was president of the American Statistical Association in 1983.
- 1983–1999The abandonment ledger: G-SP-2 settled, and the Three I's open end
The Indiana Department of Transportation's "Indiana Railroad Abandonments" list, read first-hand, carries the Fourth District's end segment by segment (distances and dockets as the list prints them): Gary to Dillon, 41.72 miles, 1983, Docket AB-10(24); Ashley-Hudson to Wakarusa, 30 miles, 1985, Docket AB-10(21F)…
- 1986–todayThe North Liberty Branch: Opened 1986, on Market Street Today
The branch first opened in 1986 at 105 West Center Street, then the system's newest branch; it stands today at 105 East Market Street, and the year it moved is not stated by any carrier reached.
- 1988–2026The township's aviation record at its true size
The earliest dated aviation event inside the township is not a field opening but the accident of 22 May 1988 (see its article), which proves a grass strip in use here two years before the first activation date of record.
- 1989–2026The frame, and the remaining tests
Indiana's lottery, authorised by referendum in 1988, sold its first tickets in October 1989, and North Liberty's retailers have sold the state game since that era as part of the town's ordinary store trade (businesses leg)…
1990s
- 1990Peterson Ultralight Flightpark — 36IN
The FAA record (as republished by AirNav, FAA information effective 17 April 2025) prints: identifier 36IN; position 41.5362° N, 86.4439° W (estimated), elevation 730 feet; "From city: 1 mile W of NORTH LIBERTY, IN"; use, private — "PERSONAL USE"; activation date 04/1990; no control tower; attendance unattended…
- 1990–todayThe District Truth: Named for the County, Taxed by Eight Townships
The system's own history page dates the county turn to a rename: "South Bend Public Library is officially renamed the St. Joseph County Public Library in 1990."
- 1992Stewarts Green Acres Airport — IN38
The township's second strip is the larger of the two survivors: the FAA record (AirNav republication, FAA information effective 22 January 2026) prints identifier IN38; position 41.5453° N, 86.4528° W (estimated), elevation 725 feet; "From city: 2 miles NW of NORTH LIBERTY, IN"…
- 1992The records regime: where this township's dead are written down
The working reading is the county society's: St. Joseph County, Indiana Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol. 1, covering Greene, Liberty, and Lincoln Townships (SBAGS, 1992) — attested by the Historical Bureau's own citation of it for Porter-Rea — with a surname index standing on the society's site…
- 1992–todayThe pooled vehicle: the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County
The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County was established in 1992 (its profiles differ by a year at the edges — one compiler prints founded 1991…
- 1997–todayNorth Liberty Christian School: K–6 in the Church's Building Since 1997
The town's one private school has run kindergarten through sixth grade since August 1997 inside the North Liberty Church of Christ, and counts 54 students in 2026–27.
21st century 33 dated mentions
2000s
- 2000Composition: race, Hispanic origin, and the foreign-born question
In 2000 the census recorded the town as 97.65 percent white, 0.43 percent Black, 0.21 percent Native American, 0.29 percent Pacific Islander, 0.29 percent some other race and 1.14 percent two or more races, with Hispanic or Latino residents of any race at 0.71 percent.
- 2000Age and households, in dated snapshots only
Median age: 34 years in 2000, 30.6 in 2010, 34.3 in 2020, and 33.5 in the American Community Survey's 2020–2024 five-year estimates — a survey figure, printed as one, from the banked current-today section.
- 2000The counts: five people in 2020, and the series behind them
The series behind that figure, as the census returns are published: in 2000 the town's Black share was 0.43 percent of 1,402 people, about six residents; in 2010, 0.5 percent of 1,896, about nine or ten.
- 2000–2002The pipeline at boundary size; the bust with nothing to take
The bust, carried whole in larger cities' files, is here a one-line account: the crash of 2000–2002 took no named North Liberty firm, there being none in the record to take, and no acquisition-at-the-top case names this town.
- 2000–2020The counts that jump: +35.2 percent, then −14.4 percent, unexplained
The banked spine prints the figures and flags them, offering no explanation because none was found in a reached source: from 1,402 in 2000 to 1,896 in 2010, a rise of 494 people, +35.2 percent, the largest rise in the series after 1880, following a decade of +2.6 percent…
- 2000–2020The boundary question at the jumps
The Census Bureau's Gazetteer area for the town was 0.98 square miles in 2010 and 1.04 square miles in 2020; the 2000 figure carried in the banked spine is 0.75 square miles.
- 2003–2010The modern count, as the compiled tables give it
The City-data compilation of reported offences for North Liberty (drawn from agency reporting) lists, for each year 2003 through 2010, zero murders and zero robberies in most years — a single robbery appears in 2010…
- 2005–2026The modern course: reform at a distance, the kiosk test, and November 2026
The 2005 Silverman rounds pass here at boundary size (Walkerton's article carries them whole): Walkerton was named in them, its 56,470 transactions and 11 employees printed, and it survived — a fight North Liberty watched from six miles away, having no seat at risk.
- 2007The National Register listings in the town
North Liberty Park, at 309 North Jefferson Street, was listed 29 March 2007 under reference 07000211 — a historic district of New Deal and Works Progress Administration resources developed in 1935 and 1937…
- 2007The record itself: two Register listings and the survey behind them
North Liberty Park, at 309 North Jefferson Street, was listed on 29 March 2007 (reference 07000211) as a historic district of two contributing buildings, one contributing site, three contributing structures and two contributing objects.
- 2007Inside the line: the town park, and the cemetery in the state park
North Liberty Park — seven acres at 309 North Jefferson Street, listed on the National Register in 2007 — is famous at the scale a Register listing confers: its WPA fieldstone entrances, footbridge and bandshell of 1935 and 1937 are the documented work, carried whole in the Architecture section.
- 2008–2009The 2008–09 recession at town size — tested negative at reached strength
Settlers: the State Board of Accounts town audits for 2008–2010, town minutes for those years, and the South Bend Tribune archive.
2010s
- 2010Designation lost, contract ended, successor named: September 2010
The handover was announced on 7 September 2010 and took effect at 5 p.m. on 24 September 2010, and its structure was agreement, not collapse.
- 2010–2013Paul W. Futa Jr.: gas-turbine fuel controls, patented from a North Liberty address
The applications the index names, with their publication years: a fuel divider system for a gas turbine engine (application published February 2010); a flow-equalising override assembly for that divider system (2010); an ecology-valve fuel-return system (2010); and a gas-turbine engine fuel-return valve and system (2013)…
- 2011The township trustee line, and the uniformed successions tested
Sue Dittmar (Sue A. Dittmar) was Liberty Township Trustee in 2011, answering a Public Access Counselor advisory opinion in that office; a salary compilation observed in November 2026 labels her "Former" trustee as of 2025, with no successor, manner or date of leaving in the reached record.
- 2011–todayPublic office, tested one by one: the clerk-treasurer and the trustee
In the township, Sue Dittmar was Liberty Township Trustee in 2011, answering a Public Access Counselor opinion in that office, and had left it by 2025 on a salary compilation's labeling…
- 2013–2017The modern anchor: the aluminum extrusion plant, 400 S. Main — Sapa North Liberty → Hydro Extrusion USA, LLC
Sapa the group was formed 1 September 2013 as a 50/50 joint venture of Norsk Hydro's Extruded Products and Orkla's Sapa, and Sapa's own 2016 corporate presentation lists North Liberty, Indiana among its North America production sites.
- 2014The commercial block, and the screen test run both ways
Listed 26 March 2014 under Criteria A and C, the district's buildings — the bank houses of c. 1911, the 1915 town hall, the 1960 bank — are famous the way Register places are famous, by nomination and listing rather than by event, and the leg prints them at exactly that size, cross-referring the Architecture section for the inventory.
- 2014The one district: Main Street between Center and Harrison
The North Liberty Commercial Historic District — State Road 23, which is Main Street, between Center and Harrison Streets; fourteen contributing and seven noncontributing resources of about 1880 to 1960; listed under Criteria A and C on 26 March 2014…
- 2014The Two Nominations as Sources: Bibliographies Read Whole
The Commercial Historic District form — prepared by Kurt West Garner of Partners in Preservation, dated 15 May 2012, filed 2014, for the fourteen contributing and seven noncontributing resources along State Road 23 between Center and Harrison — rests its history on a named shelf: Chapman and Howard; the 1875 atlas…
- 2014–2024The presidents, and the councils around them, as far as the record carries
Gerry Brown was elected president at the council's January 2014 meeting — moved by Will Groves Jr., seconded by Brett Voreis, carried without dissent, Groves taking the vice presidency — and re-elected for 2015 on 21 January 2015, presiding through at least 7 October 2015…
- 2014–2026The president's line, as far as the record carries it
Gerry Brown was elected president at the council's January 2014 meeting — the minutes record the motion by Will Groves Jr., seconded by Brett Voreis, carried without dissent, Groves taking the vice presidency at the same meeting…
- 2015The 2015 sewer rates: the money fight that did not happen in the room
On 4 March 2015 the council took up Ordinance #2015-03 with a proposed wastewater rate increase stated in the meeting at 32.1 percent, funded in part by a $500,000 state grant and a $2,800,000 State Revolving Fund loan at 2.3 percent, the wastewater plant then running at 65 to 80 percent of capacity.
- 2015Trails and the planning line
The 2015 Stellar Communities projects, as the adopted 2022 comprehensive plan recounts them, included a School Trail and a planned new trail toward Potato Creek State Park, alongside the downtown facade program, Shamrock Alley, and senior housing…
- 2015–2026Modern mutual provision: the fire territory and the community building
Beside it the IRS record carries the North Liberty Community Building Association (exempt from April 2015, P.O. Box 406, North Liberty), classified for community improvement — the corporate shell behind the town's community-building life, at the one-line size the register gives it.
- 2015–2026The town as others saw it
In August 2015 Indiana named North Liberty a Stellar Communities Designee — one of two Division 2 designees that year — and the Lieutenant Governor came to the Community Building on 18 September 2015 for the "Stellarbration," the events file's record.
- 2015–2026The industrial era: a fortune that is not local
The 2015 Comprehensive Plan names "Sapa North Liberty," in the North Liberty Industrial Park, as the town's anchor manufacturer; the plant's operator today is Hydro Extrusion USA, LLC, on Hydro's own March 2026 carrier (banked current-today section).
- 2017Snell Family / Snell-Miller Cemetery: one stone
4, T35N, R1E; "Only one stone was surviving in 2017. West side of Sage Rd. and Quinn Rd., North Liberty, IN.
- 2017The station, and the territory of 2022
The government file carries the station at pointer strength — the address shared with the township office, opened in 2017 on a weaker carrier…
- 2017–2022Orchards and small fruit: the county's smallest line
The 2022 census's county table carries land in orchards at a single-digit farm count and roughly 34 acres (the row's column alignment in the text extraction is imperfect and the figure prints at that strength, its settler the table's page image); the 2017 profile prints "fruits, tree nuts, berries" as withheld, "(D)."
- 2018Screen honors — Emmy: Marci Miller, three nominations, no wins
Marci Miller, born and raised in North Liberty, was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series three times — in 2018, 2019 and 2022 — for her work as Abigail Deveraux on Days of Our Lives .
- 2019The screening program whole: the Zac Mago Foundation
The foundation — founded by Teresa Mago in memory of her son Zac (2000–2018, as his screening flyers carry his years), a nonprofit based in North Liberty and exempt from July 2019…
- 2019–2026The modern record: a foundation raised on giving, and the tests that return thin
The Zac Mago Foundation, founded in North Liberty in 2019 by Teresa Mago in memory of her son Zac, states its mechanism in its own words: "With generous donations from our community, my Foundation can provide heart screenings.