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ORGANIZED IN 1830, Elkhart County and the city of Elkhart were both named for the Elkhart River. The Potawatomi named the river for an island at the confluence of the Elkhart and Saint Joseph Rivers, which according to legend the Indians thought resembled an elk’s heart.

Oliver Crane began platting Goshen, the county seat, in 1831. According to one local tradition, Crane chose to name the city after his hometown, Goshen, in Orange County, New York. However, another tradition states the land was rich and productive, like the biblical Goshen, and thus the city was named for the biblical land.

Goshen College, a private preparatory school, was founded in 1894 by the Mennonite Church and was originally called the Elkhart Institute of Science, Industry, and the Arts. The institution moved to its present campus in 1903, where it became an accredited four-year liberal arts school and changed its name to Goshen College. Still owned by the Mennonite Church, Goshen College continues to expand; one of its newest additions is the John S. Umble Center for the Performing Arts. In 1980 Goshen became the first American undergraduate school to negotiate a fourteen-week educational exchange with a college in China.

Elkhart city, located on the south side of Elkhart River, was platted by Dr. Havilah Beardsley in 1832. Elkhart was incorporated as a town in 1858 and a city in 1875. Beardsley’s wife, Rachael Calhoun Beardsley, was said to have been a cousin to Vice President John Calhoun.

Until the railroad arrived in 1851, the city was an active river port, shipping flour, pork, and other produce to Lake Michigan.

Elkhart city also boasts a rich musical history—one that began when a cornet player, C.G. Conn, injured his lip. As a result of this injury, Conn invented the rubber mouthpiece. He began selling them in 1873. This sparked Elkhart’s musical instrument industry, which led to the city being known as “The band capital of the world.” At one time there were eleven Elkhart factories manufacturing band instruments. Today there are approximately eight involved in the manufacturing of woodwinds, brass instruments, and pianos.

At one time Elkhart manufactured more than twenty makes of automobile, second in the state only to Indianapolis. Elkhart is also known as the “recreational vehicle capital of the world,” with approximately two hundred firms manufacturing mobile homes, campers, or other recreational vehicle-related products.

Another Elkhart resident who would become notorious, Dr. Franklin Miles began marketing his home remedy, a sedative known as Dr. Miles’s Restorative Nervine, in 1884. The company achieved fame in the 1930s as the producer of Alka-Seltzer. Several years later One-A-Day vitamins and S.O.S steel wool pads were added to its product line. Miles Laboratory since has been purchased by Bayer AG of West Germany, the developer of Bayer aspirin. The billion-dollar, high-tech Miles Laboratory headquarters are still located in Elkhart.

In front of the Greek Revival-style courthouse at the northwest corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue sits an octagonal limestone structure. Built by the Work Progress Administration (WPA), the structure was erected across the street from the town’s bank—a highly guarded location following the notorious Dillinger gang’s widely publicized bank robberies in neighboring cities. The police manned the bullet-proof enclosure around the clock from 1939 to 1969.

The 155-acre Bonneyville Mill County Park is of historical interest. The state’s oldest continuously operated gristmill is located here. In 1832 Edward Bonney constructed a dam on the Little Elkhart River and erected the water-powered mill. The Bonney Mill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Bonney led a colorful life. He was arrested in 1842 for counterfeiting. He managed to escape from prison, and he and his family moved near the Mormon community of Nauvoo, Illinois.

In a published autobiographical account of his life, The Banditti of the Prairies or The Murderer’s Doom: A Tale of the Mississippi Valley, he told of working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. During his tenure there, he led a thirteen-month chase after nine thieves and murderers across a four-state area. He also served in the 127th Illinois infantry during the Civil War. After his death in 1863 at age fifty-nine, his body was returned for burial near the mill.