Howard County Historical Society

Howard County Historical Society HCHS welcomes you to the Seiberling Mansion, Elliott House and Howard County History Museum.

HCHS is the custodian of Howard County's unique history - sharing and preserving that history is our goal. As a home for the history and museum, HCHS manages the Seiberling Mansion and Elliott House, as well as their respective carriage houses. All are icons of the Indiana gas boom era and have been restored to their former glory. The Seiberling is home to the county museum, and the Elliott House

is an event facility that may be rented for receptions, parties, weddings and celebrations of all kinds. Offices are located in the Stan Mohr Building, formerly the Elliott Carriage House.

On the 9th of June 1981, Kevin and Nancy Hardie welcomed the first quadruplets in Howard County. Nancy gave birth to two...
05/07/2026

On the 9th of June 1981, Kevin and Nancy Hardie welcomed the first quadruplets in Howard County. Nancy gave birth to two girls, Amy and Katie; and two boys, Kyle and Andrew; at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. They joined their two-year-old sister Sarah in the family. Due to low birth weights, the babies remained at St. Vincent while they gained weight and got stronger. The Hardie quads finally came home to Kokomo on July 27th. Today, the Hardies have a successful real estate business in Kokomo.

Come back next week for one more…

The HCHS office will be closed for Tuesday, May 5, but will reopen with regular hours 9 AM - 4 PM on Wednesday, May 6.Th...
05/04/2026

The HCHS office will be closed for Tuesday, May 5, but will reopen with regular hours 9 AM - 4 PM on Wednesday, May 6.

The Seiberling Mansion will be OPEN on Tuesday, May 5 during our regular museum hours 1 - 4 PM. Make sure to stop by and see the museum tomorrow!

If you need to contact someone in the office, please email [email protected].

Senator John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Howard County on the 29th of April 1960. Mild fog and light rain put his...
04/30/2026

Senator John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Howard County on the 29th of April 1960. Mild fog and light rain put his flight about 25 minutes behind schedule. Due to this, he bypassed a stop at Northwestern High School and proceed directly to a farm operated by Robert C. Ford, Howard County Democratic chairman. Kennedy was suffering from a severe cold and laryngitis, so a prepared speech was read by one of his assistants.

After his visit to the farm, his motorcade proceeded into Kokomo. Once in town, a group of students at Indiana University Kokomo at the Seiberling Mansion compelled an unscheduled stop of his motorcade. He shook hands with a few students and signed a few autographs before heading towards his last stop in the county. He was to give a speech at a platform set up on the west side of the courthouse. However, this prepared speech was again given by one of his assistants. It was estimated there were about 1,000 people at the event. He then returned to the airport and went to his next destination.

This picture is from Kennedy’s visit to Howard County.

Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of former president John F. Kennedy, visited Kokomo on April 23, 1968 as part of his cam...
04/23/2026

Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of former president John F. Kennedy, visited Kokomo on April 23, 1968 as part of his campaign to earn the democratic presidential nomination. He spoke for approximately 15 minutes on the west side of the courthouse to an audience of mixed ages. After he spoke, he shook hands with the audience and went into the crowd. Newspaper reporting states he was lifted on the shoulders of some of his admirers and placed on a car which carried him away.

Kennedy would be gunned down by an assassin in Los Angeles in the early morning hours of June 5. He died of his wounds 26 hours later.

Get to know our 2026 Hall of Legends inductees!Patricia Arnett Zeck arrived in Howard County with degrees in Biology and...
04/17/2026

Get to know our 2026 Hall of Legends inductees!

Patricia Arnett Zeck arrived in Howard County with degrees in Biology and Ecology from Indiana State University in 1968. A science teacher was needed at Northwestern School Corporation, and the Hoosier native from Terre Haute opened her classroom and laboratory at the school. For 45 years she taught biological sciences, chemistry, and research at Northwestern High School. Zeck-sponsored students advanced to the Indiana state science fairs for 25 years and on to international science and engineering fairs for 27 years. Many of these students she introduced to the wonders of the scientific world went on to teach; several became doctors.

Patty’s list of awards, distinctions, and accolades are too long to list here, but perhaps the most important was when she traveled to Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, then the nation's highest honors for K-12 teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The following year, she visited Japan as a participant in the prestigious Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program for U.S. primary and secondary educators.

Back home in Howard County, she and husband Jon, a retired deputy sheriff, raised two children and several beagles. Son Jon David is a popular local travel and lifestyle influencer working in food service. Daughter Melanie, a reference librarian at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., joins her mother as a fellow Hall of Legends inductee for 2026.

For tickets to the April 23rd Hall of Legends event, visit our Facebook event page, our website at www.hchistory.org/programs/howard-county-legends, or call our office at 765-452-4314. Tickets are $65 and include dinner, video program, and awards ceremony. **TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO BUY TICKETS**

We want to thank our generous sponsors:
Ivy Tech Community College Kokomo
Meridian Title
City of Kokomo
Howard County
Mid-America Beverage
Kokomo Opalescent Glass
Kokomo Tribune
McCool's Flooring
Moore's Home Health
Nick Pate, State Farm Insurance
The Wyman Group

Get to know our 2026 Hall of Legends inductees!One of the things Dr. Melanie Zeck likes about being a reference libraria...
04/16/2026

Get to know our 2026 Hall of Legends inductees!

One of the things Dr. Melanie Zeck likes about being a reference librarian at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., is the “intellectual latitude” of her job. Education through exploration was encouraged while growing up in the Zeck home. Father Jon is a retired deputy sheriff and longtime law enforcement historian in Howard County, Indiana. Mother Patty taught science for 45 years at Northwestern High School. She joins her daughter this year as a fellow Hall of Legends inductee.

Melanie credits her parents for introducing her to the world of libraries and research. Alongside her dad, the reference librarians at the Kokomo-Howard County Public Library taught her how to use a card catalog and she recalls the exhilaration of learning how to find new information that she had not seen before. That experience probably determined her future. “At college, I worked in the library,” she says. “Then I went to library school, and now I’ve been a librarian for over half my life. When you ask for my help with a problem or a question, it becomes our problem or question until it is satisfactorily answered. I just love that about research.”

Today, at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, Zeck serves as invited speaker, panelist, and moderator for events sponsored by organizations including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the Glenn Gould Foundation (Toronto), the League of American Orchestras, and the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Currently, she is editor of the Music Library Association’s Basic Manual Series.

For tickets to the April 23rd Hall of Legends event, visit our Facebook event page, our website at www.hchistory.org/programs/howard-county-legends, or call our office at 765-452-4314. Tickets are $65 and include dinner, video program, and awards ceremony.

We want to thank our generous sponsors:
Ivy Tech Community College Kokomo
Meridian Title
City of Kokomo
Howard County
Mid-America Beverage
Kokomo Opalescent Glass
Kokomo Tribune
McCool's Flooring
Moore's Home Health
Nick Pate, State Farm Insurance
The Wyman Group

Photo credit: Elman Studio

Ellsworth Robey, born in Howard County in 1870, was a lifelong educator in Indiana and Wisconsin. His education career s...
04/16/2026

Ellsworth Robey, born in Howard County in 1870, was a lifelong educator in Indiana and Wisconsin. His education career started in 1890 after graduating from the State Normal School in Terre Haute and continued until 1950. He taught in several places to include Kokomo, Tipton, Indianapolis, and at several schools in Wisconsin. He was principal of the Willard and Jefferson Schools in Kokomo. He served as superintendent of Howard County and West Lafayette schools. Robey was also on the Indiana State Board of Education for six years. Sunday School was a passion of his that he taught for 40 years. Robey passed away in 1953 at the age of 82. He is buried in Crown Point Cemetery.

Address

1200 W Sycamore Street
Kokomo, IN
46901

Telephone

(765) 452-4314

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