White Pigeon land office

This photo of the White Pigeon Prairie land office is from a weekend tour in July 2006.

My first visit to White Pigeon was in August 1997. That was the first year of the Black Hawk Slept Here project. I had read many references to the White Pigeon land office, so routed a tour to Kosciusko County, Indiana via White Pigeon.

I had never been to White Pigeon, and hadn’t done any real research on it, either.

One of the advantages of not knowing very much of the history beforehand is that when I get to a place I can ask ignorant questions. That can get me into interesting conversations with interesting people. When I think I know too much, I don’t make so much contact with other people.

This time I didn’t get to talk to anyone, but I was going to try. I rode into White Pigeon from the north, on Kalamazoo Street, and stopped where it crosses Highway 12 – Black Hawk’s old route. It was late in the day, but there was time. I looked around for a likely place to find someone to ask. Usually it doesn’t take much asking to find out who knows the local history. Maybe the site of the old land office was known to the locals. Maybe there was even a historic marker.

My eyes didn’t light on any likely targets for my questions. Then I saw it. It was right across the street from me. A sign on the building said “United States Land Office 1831-1834.” The land office itself was still standing! It was a memorable sensation.

The office was open for visitors only a very few days a year, and one of them was going to be later that weekend. So at the end of the bike ride we drove back there and visited.

A couple months ago I received a phone call from a woman asking if I could give a talk at one of the meetings of the St. Joseph County Historical Society. We talked only a bit, and then realized we remembered each other from that visit. She was running the museum when we visited 10 years ago.

My talk is mostly going to be about one of Black Hawk’s contemporaries, the Odawa leader Noonday. But I’m going to find a way to work in some of what I’ve been doing over at my Black Hawk Slept Here wiki with the land entries that were recorded at that land office during the land-rush years of 1831-1834.