Ten things worth knowing about Kokomo

Every city has facts its residents like to pull out when company comes to town. Kokomo has more than most, from a famous steer to a famous stump. Here are ten worth knowing, each one checked against the people who keep the records.

1. Nobody is quite sure what Kokomo means

The city is named for a Miami man who lived in the area before the town existed, but the meaning of the name has never been found among known Miami words. Gil Porter of the Kokomo Early History Learning Center, writing for the Howard County Historical Society, points out that clerks of the day often garbled Miami names, so "Kokomo" may be an English approximation of something else. A Miami signer of an 1834 treaty, recorded as Co-come-wah, is thought to be the same man. The city marks the reported site of his village near West Harrison and South Main streets, and a cenotaph honoring him was dedicated in 1911 in the 400 block of Purdum Street.

2. The spelling took a while to settle

When Richardville County's commissioners named the new township in August 1844, they wrote "Kocomo," and that is how the first town plat was approved that October. Newspapers elsewhere preferred "Kokomo," and by June 1845 the county's own books had switched. A federal list of post offices printed "Cocomo" as late as 1846, the same year the county itself became Howard County.

3. Natural gas built the city you see

A gas well drilled in 1886 set off Kokomo's part of the Indiana gas boom, and factories followed the cheap fuel. The boom's showpiece still stands on West Sycamore Street: the Seiberling Mansion, built between 1889 and 1891 for industrialist Monroe Seiberling and originally lit and heated by natural gas. It now houses the Howard County Museum.

4. The City of Firsts nickname starts with a car

Elwood Haynes, already a figure in Indiana's natural gas industry, conceived a horseless carriage in his hometown of Portland in 1891, then moved to Kokomo and hired brothers Elmer and Edgar Apperson to build it. Haynes took it for its famous test drive on July 4, 1894, and began commercial production under the Haynes-Apperson name in 1898. His home on South Webster Street is now the Elwood Haynes Museum, run by the city and open for a free-will donation.

5. Haynes also changed how metal is cut

The car is the famous part, but Haynes's alloys may have mattered as much. Working with chromium, nickel and cobalt, he patented cobalt-chromium alloys in 1906 and went on to develop the hard, wear-resistant metals he called Stellite. During World War I, lathe tools made of Stellite roughly tripled machining output, according to the city's museum history.

6. Old Ben weighed more than two tons

Old Ben was a steer who weighed 125 pounds at birth and grew to more than two tons: the city's records give 4,585 or 4,720 pounds. His owners showed him at fairs across the Midwest, including the Indiana State Fair, until he broke a leg around 1910 and had to be put down. When word spread that he might be turned into frankfurters, local objections saved his hide, which was preserved, brought to Kokomo and eventually placed in Highland Park, where visitors still stop to stare.

7. Beside him sits an 800-year-old stump

Next to Old Ben is the hollow remains of a sycamore that grew along Wildcat Creek in western Howard County, about two miles north of New London. The tree stood about 100 feet tall, measured roughly 57 feet around and is estimated to have lived about 800 years. Lightning left it dying, and it was moved to the park instead of being lost. City officials call it the largest sycamore stump in the world.

8. Highland Park has a one-of-a-kind bridge

Also in Highland Park is the Vermont Covered Bridge, moved from the town of Vermont, about five miles east of Kokomo. The city says it is the last remaining Smith Type #3 truss bridge in Indiana. The park's old footpaths, known as the Indian Trails, run from Country Club Hills Lane and Old Ben Drive down to the dam, and the city's advice is to follow the creek.

9. Wildcat Creek still shapes the town

The town grew up south of Wildcat Creek, and the creek flooded badly in 1913. Today it is the spine of the Wildcat Creek Walk of Excellence, a path of about four miles that links Foster Park, the municipal stadium and several other parks. That stadium on South Union Street became home to the Kokomo Creek Chubs baseball team in 2026, and each winter it turns into The Frozen Sandlot, an outdoor skating rink that opens its ninth season on November 27.

10. Downtown has a Geek Street

East Sycamore Street on the courthouse square has picked up a nickname. Kokomo Toys & Collectibles, a family-owned shop that has bought, sold and traded toys since 2008, calls its block Geek Street, and the Downtown Association's map marks a painted Geek Alley beside it, one of four art alleys downtown. A few doors west, Palmer's Jewelry has been on East Sycamore since 1944, a reminder that the square has had long-running family businesses for generations.

Kokomo's best facts tend to come with a place attached, so most of these can be seen in an afternoon: the square, the creek trail and Highland Park are all within a short drive of one another.