Editing Kokomo, Indiana (section)

===Early growth===
In anticipation of business that the court would bring, Kokomo began a fairly quick growth from the time that lots were first sold on October 18, 1844.<ref name=timeline /> David Foster was granted the first license to sell merchandise in Kokomo at the December 1844 commissioners meeting. Two more merchants were licensed in March 1845.<ref name=ED326>[[#Pollard|Pollard]], p. 326.</ref> John Bohan, who would become a major shop owner, merchant, justice of the peace and investor, moved to Kokomo in December 1844, and erected the first two-story frame house, not only in Kokomo, but in all the county.<ref name = ED326 /><ref>[[#Morrow|Morrow]], pp. 202–03.</ref>

After the enactment of the 1846 pre-emption law,<ref>An Act to grant the Right of Preemption to actual Settlers on the Lands acquired by Treaty from the Miami Indians in Indiana, 9 Stat. 50 (August 3, 1846).</ref> settlers rapidly attempted to secure homesteads in the surrounding lands.<ref>[[#Morrow|Morrow]], p. 68.</ref>

In 1848 Stonebreaker's Mill, {{convert|10|mi}} west of Kokomo, began operations.<ref name="Morrow I, p. 202" /><ref name=timeline /> By 1850 Kokomo had a newspaper, when James Beard purchased the printing equipment of the New London ''Pioneer'' and set up the Howard ''Tribune''.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = Newspapers
 | last = Pollard | first = Otis C.
 | publisher = by Jackson Morrow (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Co. [1909?]), Vol. I, pp. 304–18 ("Newspapers"), pp. 304–05
 | work = History of Howard County
 | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/historyofhowardc01morr
}}</ref> By 1851 county business was so brisk that the county ordered the construction of two more court buildings, both one story brick affairs, {{convert|18|by|36|ft}}. The county auditor and treasurer occupied one building, and the clerk and recorder occupied the other.<ref>[[#Morrow|Morrow]], pp. 112–13.</ref>

On April 1, 1854, Kokomo's first bank, the Indian Reserve Bank, was organized with David Foster, John Bohan and Harless Ashly the principal shareholders. (It only lasted a few years until a robbery impaired its capital. The loss substantially injured Foster's fortune.)<ref>[[#Pollard|Pollard]], pp. 327–28.</ref>