North Liberty, Indiana · 19th century
1870s
13 dated events in 1870s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
19th century 13 dated mentions
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…