New Carlisle: The Acrobat Who Founded a Town
Near South Bend, Indiana
The man who platted this northern Indiana town in eighteen thirty-five was not a farmer, a lawyer, or a land speculator. Richard Risley Carlisle was an acrobat and gymnast. He set out to buy a hundred and sixty acres on a hill overlooking the Terre Coupee prairie from a Potawatomi man named Lazarus Bourissa, who had originally held the ground as part of treaty land. The town had been known as Bourissa Hill.
Carlisle renamed it for himself, staked out the streets, and sold lots to settlers drawn by the rich prairie soil to the east. A post office followed in eighteen thirty-seven. Richard Carlisle went on to tour internationally as a performer, eventually becoming famous for his acrobatic act with his children in Europe. He founded a town, then went back on the road.
