around and primarily lived on self-sufficient farmsteads.
This way of life continued right into the 20 th century, when a third migration occurred. Artists, mainly painters, discovered Brown County. This migration was started by Theodore C. Steele, who built a home and studio near Belmont in 1907. By 1917, artist Adolph Schulz with his wife Ada, also an accomplished painter, moved to the county and proselytized its scenic virtues to friends and fellow artists.
In 1926 there were enough artists in and around Nashville to start a formal“ Brown County Art Gallery Artist Association.”
Despite diligent research, I have not been able to uncover any of the association’ s initiation rites, passwords, secret handshake, or information regarding ritual regalia. But I will keep trying.
Paint, canvas, and easels were not all that the migrating artists brought with them.
This was the first migration of sophisticated outsiders. They brought knowledge of the outside world. Many of the artists studied in Europe and had lived and worked in places like Chicago and New York City. They brought new ideas, fashions, and mores. Some of the local folks looked at the newcomers with amusement and some with disdain. One county resident is said to have remarked that“ It looked like plumb ignorance,” after watching an artist go about his business of painting the landscape.
By the early 1920s, word about Brown County’ s unique scenery, quaint log cabins, and reluctance to adopt 20 th century progress spread across the Midwest. Some of this was due to word of mouth, and some because a feller named Kin Hubbard started publishing observations he got from Brown County commentator“ Abe Martin” in the Indianapolis News and syndicated in newspapers across the country.
In addition to Hubbard’ s work, another transplant to Brown County, Frank Hohenberger, started photographing everyday scenes and people in and around Nashville. He wrote a column for the Indianapolis Star entitled,“ Down in the Hills o’ Brown County.” This garnered more attention for this little patch of Indiana and tourists.
Americans in the 1920s were beginning to enjoy
the fruits of a modern industrial economy. Jobs were more prevalent and better paying. It was getting harder to“ keep them down on the farm” since there were affordable automobiles. I believe that some of the tourism was in part nostalgia, and part bringing the younger generation down here to show what life had been like not long before.
The last wave of migration to the county started in the 1960s. There was an idea going around that young people had to get out of the urban environments, move to the country, get land( optimally communally) and gain skills to be selfsufficient both physically and spiritually. So, where better to do that than a place where people had already been living that way for generations.
The young folks who moved here in the 1960s brought with them enthusiasm and optimism. They settled in and plied their crafts. There were potters, blacksmiths, candle makers, leather workers, and gardeners. It was a new beginning using old ways.
There were many successes, and some failures, but the“ back-to-the-landers” revitalized Brown County with overall positive changes. •
July / August 2026 Our Brown County 35