Commemorating LaGrange Centennial 1836 - 1936

Commemorating LaGrange Centennial 1836 - 1936. . The Centennial Stone was erected in 1936 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Town of LaGrange on June 13, 1836., LaGrange County was established by act of the Indiana Legislature in 1832, sixteen years after Indiana was admitted as a state in 1816. The county and county seat were named after “LaGrange” the estate of General LaFayette in France., Tradition has it that this region was first visited by the white man in 1676 when a French missionary reported to have traveled it enroute from the St. Joseph river to the Indiana village of Kehionga now Ft. Wayne. LaSalle is believed to have visited the region four years later., This territory was inhabited by the Potowatomi Indians. Mongaquiong, near the present site of Howe and Shipshewana Village on the shores of Shipshewana Lake were important Indian Villages., The first white settlement was at Howe, formerly Lima, in 1828, one of the first towns north of Ft. Wayne. The first college west of Oberlin, Ohio, the LaGrange Collegiate Institute, was established at Ontario five miles northeast, in 1837., The county seat was removed from Lima to LaGrange in 1844. LaGrange was incorporated in 1855., LaGrange county has more than fifty lakes and five streams. Her fertile lands give the county high rank in the state agriculturally.