The story
Welcome to Osolo Township
Osolo Township lies north of the St. Joseph River and the city of Elkhart, against the Michigan line. Its sandy oak “barrens” and small lakes, Simonton, Heaton and Cooley, drew settlers in the 1830s, and today it holds the north side of Elkhart.
Osolo was set off from Cleveland Township, Chapman (1881) says, after a petition circulated in the winter of 1837–1838, and was organized in January 1838. Samuel Simonton is thought to have been the first settler, about 1834, on section 9. Abraham Heaton came soon after to section 25 and Philip Mechling to section 26, and in 1835 James and Ezekiel Compton, the widow Long, John Gardner and a Mr. Nutting made a settlement on Christiana Creek. Alpheus Bugbee came in 1836.
Abraham Heaton was the first justice of the peace. In 1839 came Nathaniel Newell, whose portrait Chapman printed, Henry Salmon and Guy Johnson, and soon Luther Wood and William, Erastus and Walter Beach. The first election was held in the first schoolhouse, the Johnson school on section 20, built in 1838. A post office opened in 1839 with Alpheus Bugbee as postmaster, but it was later discontinued.
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Chapman notes Simonton, Mud and Cooley lakes in the north and Heaton Lake in the east, and Christiana Creek, “said to have been thus named in honor of the wife of a Christian missionary.” Deahl (1905) names the missionary as Isaac McCoy, who crossed the St. Joseph in 1824. The country, once covered with small oaks, was called the barrens, and its groves gave it a picturesque look.
Today Osolo is largely suburban, taking in the north quarter of Elkhart and the Simonton Lake community, and the 2020 census counted 28,769 people.