Editing Churubusco, Indiana (section)

==History==

[[Image:Churubusco Indiana 1889 Plat Map.png|thumb|150px|left|An 1889 plat map of Churubusco showing the first two towns, "Union" and "Franklin."]]
Originally, the area of Churubusco was made up of two towns founded in the 19th century by European Americans: Union and Franklin (in honor of [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Father]] [[Benjamin Franklin]]) that bordered each other across a railroad track. In the 1840s, the populations of both Franklin and Union grew large enough to qualify each for a [[post office]]. Before that time, residents of both towns had to trek 11 miles by foot or horse and buggy to nearby [[Columbia City, Indiana|Columbia City]] to get their mail.  Since the towns were in the same location, the [[United States Postmaster General|Postmaster General]] ordered the towns to apply for a joint post office.  The Postmaster General denied the use of either "Union" and "Franklin" as the new post office name, since both were already used by other Indiana towns.

After a community meeting, the residents selected [[Churubusco]] for the new post office, named after the site of the 1847 [[Battle of Churubusco]], in [[Mexico]] during the [[Mexican–American War]].  At the time, after the suggestion of local school teacher Eliza Rich, the townsfolk thought it was as patriotic a name as Union and Franklin, since the United States won a large victory there.  More importantly, they were certain no other Indiana town would already have chosen such a unique name.<ref>S. P. Kaler and R. H. Maring, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=-hUVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA860&dq=churubusco+indiana&lr=&ei=cBiTSbffOKSayATmjtnPCA#PPA296,M1 Whitley County Indiana]'', B.F. Bowen & Co., 1907.</ref> The Churubusco post office has been in operation since 1848.<ref>{{cite web |title=Whitley County |url=http://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?task=display&state=IN&county=Whitley |access-date=July 6, 2016 |publisher=Jim Forte Postal History}}</ref>

The name ''Churubusco'' is a [[Spanish (language)|Spanish]] corruption of an [[indigenous peoples|indigenous]] [[Nahuatl]] [[toponym]] (place name) referring to a temple area celebrating the [[Aztec]] god ''[[Huitzilopochtli]]''.  It is bordered by the [[Rio Churubusco]] in [[Mexico City]].  The Spanish-Nahuatl word literally translates as 'place (or temple) of ''Huitzilopochtli'' (the left side or south of the hummingbird)'.<ref>[http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0820/082097.opin.opin.1.html Howard LaFranchi, "How the Southwest was won"], ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'', August 20, 1997, accessed May 9, 2008</ref>