From the Files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society

Editor’s note: This is a retrospective article that runs a few times a month on InkFreeNews.

Information for this retrospective series is courtesy of the Kosciusko County Historical Society.

July 2, 1974 — “Hippies and cyclists” became the only debatable business at Monday’s meeting of the county commissioners as Judge Arthur Osborn asked the commissioners if they could keep those “types” out of the Epworth Forest area.

Osborn told the commissioners that the residents of Epworth Forest didn’t want to “ban” those types, but just put a “restriction on them.”

County attorney Rex Reed explained to Osborn that the county shouldn’t and wouldn’t become involved in prohibiting people from public throughways just on the basis of how they look or how they wear their hair.

Osborn replied that while traveling in the western part of the United States, he saw law enforcement pull over people with long hair and search “every inch” of their car but left him alone because “they (the police) must have seen that we were square and all right.”

Continuing his plea for a need to keep those “types” of people out of Epworth Forest, Osborn explained his concept of having a deputy sheriff stationed at a “checkpoint” to “restrict” the admittance of “hippies and cyclists.”

July 1, 1974 —  O.J. Simpson was crowned 1973 King of Sports Saturday night in North Webster. But it didn’t come easy.

A 3-1/2-hour parade, a 20-minute press conference, a dinner interrupted by autograph seekers and speeches from what seemed like a deluge of dignitaries all proceeded the coronation and the dedication of the International Palace of Sports.

June 29, 1836 — Turkey Creek Township abounds with lakes, some of which are more than 100 feet deep.

Syracuse Lake, one mile long and three-fourths of a mile wide, lies directly east of the village, and Nine-Mile Lake (Wawasee), about five miles long and one mile wide, is a beautiful body of water.

Turkey Creek was organized as a township June 29, 1836, and prior to 1838 comprised the territory which afterward formed the townships of Van Buren, Jefferson and Scott.

The first settlers were Henry Ward and Samuel Crawson, who, in 1832, constructed a dam across Turkey Creek, intending to erect a mill as soon as the lands were open for settlement.

The mill was completed in 1833 and in 1836, the same parties built a sawmill.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels