Lyons was named by the proprietor, Squire Joe Lyon of Bloomfield, who for
years had been treasurer and auditor of the county. It was plotted in 1868 before that time
it was known as Mudsock. The name was derived because of the mud
was knee deep on the horses legs.
From the
beginning Lyons was a railroad town. It came into being with the
building of the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railroad and grew from
but a settlement of working men who labored through the muck and
mud for $1 a day. The camp-car life they lead was on a par with
what the early settlers called home, a floor, four walls, and a
roof and no privacy as there was no partitions in either as a
rule. So life wasn't too much of a drag on the builders. Some of
whom remained in the settlement.
A depot was built and passenger trains or combination enough to draw a
few settlers to choose Lyons, regardless of the muck and mud that
they had to wade through. In the heyday of the railroad there
were five passenger trains on the route between Indianapolis and
Vincennes: 6:18 a.m., 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 2:15 p.m., and 8 p.m. A
drayman would haul the freight from the depot.
The railroad repair and service yards were located just one and
one-half miles south at a spot that became known as Bushrod. The
men who worked there would ride the hand car to work.
Two years after the town was laid out a schoolhouse was built, in 1871.
By 1875 Lyons according to Uncle Jack Baber's history was a small village
with a busy and bustling population of about one hundred, with
two dry goods stores, one drug store, one church, one blacksmith
shop and one boarding house.
The 1879 atlas of Greene county. provides four business references: Job
Ashbaugh, Justice of the Peace of Washington Twp.; Joel Benham,
Trustee of Washington Twp.; Akman & Son, Furniture Dealers
and Undertakers. They are skillfull in their profession, and
guarantee perfect satisfaction in all their undertaking; Isaac
Halstead, Proprietor of Hotel. Good accommodations for man and
beast. Forget him not.
Lyons was growing by leaps and bounds. At one time the population was said
to have been 2,200 before 1922. There was four doctors, three
churches, two livery stables, four or five lodges of which were:
Mason, Odd Fellows, Redmen, K of P and Modern Woodmen with
attendant women's lodges.
Soon there was a brick yard, a saw mill, a title factory, and a much
used road going north and south for use by the wagoners who were
hauling the building materials from parts of the country not yet
serviced by the railroad.
The Morgans had came in at Marco and drained a few thousand acres of
land for crops and cereal grains and the open ditching law was
encouraging firms to run ditching machines and the land was
taking on new look - the miles of marshes around Lyons were
becoming farms.
In 1883 Will E. Stacy opened up a nursery east of Lyons and where
thousand of fruit trees, vines and plants were grown. The soil
seemed to be suited for it. He grew many varieties of fruits and
was considered an authority in all the various parts that went
into the art of pomogy. He had available also for buyers from a
distance, who requested shipments. He had to his credit a
background in teaching and had in his tests of thirteen subjects
made twelve straight A's. He later on conducted a poultry yard
where exotic chickens and hatching eggs were shipped from to all
parts of the country.
1894 - The Lyons Fair was established -
a booklet of the fair and one in 1933 toted it as the 29th annual
fair and also in 1940 toted it as the 36th annual fair and that
year it was held from 11 Sept. (Wednesday) to 14 Sept.
(Saturday).
9 Feb. 1894 the Woman's Social and Benevolent Club was started at the
invitation of Mrs. Emil Stein. Ther charter members were: Mrs.
Emil Stein, Mrs. Max Stein, Mrs Riland Criss, Mrs. James
Carpenter, Mrs. Charles O'Haver, Mrs. Mulane wife of Dr. Mulnae,
Mrs. Amelia Stalcup and Mrs. Josephine Reed-Kimberly.
The news paper for the town was the Lyons Herald or Lyons Journal.
1898 the
Stein Block, said to be the finest commercial house in Lyons and
was among the finest in the county was erected by E. & M. Stein The firm was
originally started soon after the close of the Civil War by W. S.
Kauffman. It was a well rounded gerneral store of those days and
also was the local bank in which money was kept in a safe in an
enclosed burglar proof steel vault..
