Feb. 21
In 1914, the town of Wilkinson was incorporated.
Feb. 22
In 1918, the New Palestine company of the Liberty Guard was organized.
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Feb. 23
In 1970, a heater hose ruptured on an Eastern Hancock bus, momentarily blinding the driver and sending the vehicle into a ditch. The malfunction spewed scalding water onto the driver’s legs and feet; he suffered first- and second-degree burns over 85 percent of his left leg. Students and chaperones on the bus were returning from a junior high Girls Athletic Association bowling trip in New Castle. Thirty-two were injured, though those hospitalized — the driver and five girls — were later reported in fair condition.
Feb. 24
In 1979, Greenfield-Central High School senior Terry Edon won a state title in wrestling, defeating Muncie Central’s Dave Palmer 3-2 to win the 155-pound weight class. Edon died in 2016.
In 1988, the film “Pushed Too Far” premiered in Greenfield.
Feb. 25
In 1912, Cordia Martin, who was facing a burglary charge in connection with a robbery at New Palestine Bank, escaped from Hancock County Jail the day before his trial was to start. He was aided by someone who entered from a basement window; the two left shoeless, and Martin took Sheriff Jesse Cox’s revolvers when he left. Martin was arrested in Litchfield, Illinois, in October 1913 and finally stood trial in the 1910 robbery in January 1914; the jury returned a guilty verdict. He was released from the state prison in Michigan City in 1920 and returned home to Greenfield.
Feb. 26
In 1974, five Hancock County Highway Department employees needed a crane, a dump truck and about four hours to remove an unwanted two-ton safe from the second floor of the Hancock County Courthouse.
Feb. 27
In 1961, an armed robber made the assistant cashier at New Palestine Bank fill a bag with money, leaving with $5,815. Police set up roadblocks, hoping to catch the man days after a snowstorm had made many local streets sluggish.
In 1965, poet Barton Rees Pogue died. He grew up in Greenfield, and his family later moved to Indianapolis. He was a Methodist minister and a professor at Taylor University. He had a radio show on Cincinnati station WLW.
