Welcome to Kokomo: a creek, a courthouse square and the City of Firsts

Kokomo is the seat of Howard County, a city of roughly 60,000 people in the level farm country of north central Indiana, about sixty miles north of Indianapolis. Wildcat Creek runs through the middle of town, and a good share of Kokomo's story, from its first trading post to its newest trail, sits along its banks.

The town was laid out in 1844, and its name comes from a Miami man whose name early clerks wrote down as Kocomo, Cocomo and, within a year or so, Kokomo. A natural gas strike in 1886 turned a small county seat into a factory town, and Elwood Haynes's early gasoline automobile, built here in the 1890s, helped give Kokomo the nickname it still uses: the City of Firsts.

How the city fits together

Downtown is a grid around the Howard County Courthouse. Main, Buckeye, Union and Washington streets run north and south; Sycamore, Walnut, Mulberry and Superior cross them. The Greater Kokomo Downtown Association calls these blocks the Kokomo Cultural District, and its map puts painted art alleys, the restored train depot on North Buckeye Street, Foster Park on the creek and Kokomo Municipal Stadium on South Union Street within an easy walk of one another.

West of downtown, the Old Silk Stocking neighborhood holds the large houses of the gas-boom years, the Seiberling Mansion among them. South of the creek, Highland Park and the Elwood Haynes Museum share the area around Webster Street and Defenbaugh Street. Since 2013, US 31 has bypassed the city on the east side; the old highway through town is now State Road 931, and Sycamore Street, part of State Road 22, carries much of the east-west traffic.

You can get around without a car. The City Line Trolley runs five color-coded routes on weekdays, all starting and ending at the downtown Transit Center, and this year the city announced a new app for it in the Transit app. The city's Spirit of Kokomo service offers curb-to-curb rides for residents 65 and older and people with qualifying disabilities. Walkers and cyclists have two trails that cross downtown: the Industrial Heritage Trail, close to six miles north to south, and the Wildcat Creek Walk of Excellence, about four miles east to west along the water, with the KokoGo bike share where they meet.

A year in Kokomo

Kokomo has a humid continental climate: real winters with regular snow, warm and humid summers, and rain spread through the year. Life here follows that calendar closely.

Warm months center on the outdoors. The downtown farmers market fills its lot at Washington and Mulberry streets on Saturday mornings, Foster Park hosts the Summer Concert Series, movie nights and yoga, and families head to the lazy river and slides at Kokomo Beach on West Park Avenue. The municipal stadium welcomed a new tenant this year, as the Kokomo Creek Chubs made it their home starting in 2026.

When the weather turns, so does the stadium. The Frozen Sandlot, an outdoor skating rink run by Bridges Outreach with the city, opens its ninth season there on November 27. The city's Christmas parade, themed Miracle on Main Street this year, comes down Main Street from Madison to Superior on Saturday, December 5, and city crews are running a citywide leaf pickup this November.

Places that define the city

Ask a longtime resident where to start and Highland Park often comes first. The 83-acre park on West Defenbaugh Street is home to Old Ben, a preserved steer that weighed more than two tons (4,585 or 4,720 pounds by the city's records), the hollow stump of a sycamore that grew along Wildcat Creek for centuries, and the Vermont Covered Bridge, moved from the nearby town of Vermont. The Seiberling Mansion on West Sycamore Street, finished in 1891 and now the Howard County Museum, tells the gas-boom story room by room. The Elwood Haynes Museum, in the inventor's former home, asks only a free-will donation.

Downtown's newest building is the Kokomo Conference Center on East Superior Street, which opened in September 2026 with an automotive gallery on the city's car-building past. Indiana University Kokomo and Ivy Tech Community College both have campuses in the city.

Independent businesses give the square its everyday life. Cook McDoogal's Irish Pub has served Irish and American food on Main Street since 2010, and Marble The Steakhouse serves dinner and a weekly-changing Sunday brunch inside the historic train depot. Fired Arts Studio on West Sycamore Street lets anyone paint a piece of pottery or join a clay or canvas workshop, with seasonal projects for children and adults. P.F. Hendricks & Co., a family-owned outdoor clothing shop on North Buckeye Street, has outfitted locals for work and trail since 2015. On the south side, Half Moon Restaurant & Brewery on South Lafountain Street brews its own beer to go with slow-smoked barbecue.

Getting settled

City Hall is at 100 South Union Street, and the City of Kokomo's website posts news releases, the trolley map, park pages and a community calendar. The Kokomo-Howard County Public Library's main branch is on North Union Street downtown, with a South branch on East Center Road and a family and local history department for anyone tracing roots here. Visit Kokomo keeps a community events calendar, and the Kokomo Tribune covers local news.

Kokomo rewards an unhurried first look. Walk the square, follow the creek trail to Foster Park, then drive south to meet Old Ben. By the time the parade lights go up in December, the place should start to feel like home.