Huntertown, Perry Township, Allen County, Indiana.
Episode 194: Huntertown April 13, 2023 Granite Ridge Builders on YouTube.
Who knew Huntertown had so much to offer?! From cold brews at Ted's to some of the best schools in the area, the Between the Studs crew explores all things Huntertown.
On Lima Road and the only town in Perry Township, was a natural gathering place for settlers’ homes. Known as the “opening” it was the only spot for miles around that was not covered by forest. It was situated on a slight rise of ground with muck land both on the north and the south. At some earlier date these prairies had burned out, destroying the trees. A number of settlers lived in houses at “the opening” while making clearings for their farms. There had been a village there for some time before the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad crystallized the settlement into an organized town. As many as forty-five town lots were sold in one day after the plat was opened and Huntertown grew rapidly as a shopping center. Today Huntertown has a population of about 1350. See Huntertown Historical Society Family Files From the Huntertown Historical Society at The Genealogy Center.
Huntertown was originally referred to as "The Opening" due to it being a natural forest clearing. Huntertown was first settled circa 1837 and was founded by William T. Hunter. The village was located along the Lima Plank Road connecting Lima (now Howe) and Fort Wayne. The Perry Centre Seminary was founded in Huntertown in 1856, only to close five years later when the entire faculty and adult students enlisted in the Union Army. The town was platted in 1869, but not incorporated until 1966.
Some of the nation's oldest reliable weather observations are from a nineteenth-century Huntertown farm. Rapin Andrews began keeping meteorological records on July 17, 1839, and continued until his death ten years later. His family continued the observations until April 30, 1874. The diary of weather records was presented to the U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) in 1934. The record highest temperature was 102 °F (39 °C) in July 1846 and the record lowest temperature was −34 °F (−37 °C) on January 29, 1873.
