Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Hamilton, IN

Hamilton began in the late 1830s as a town called Enterprise, platted by Dr. Samuel Tuttle on land at the outlet of the lake that New Yorker Nicanor Munson had entered in 1836.

Enterprise became so notorious for illness in 1838 that the name was changed to Hamilton to repair the settlement's reputation, and the name was officially recorded in 1844.

Local history holds that Hamilton had the first post office in Steuben County, established under the name Enterprise in 1837 and renamed Hamilton in 1844; the post office still operates today.

Hamilton was not incorporated as a town until 1914, the same year its namesake lake - originally called Fish Lake - took the town's name.

The town wraps around 843-acre Hamilton Lake, the second-largest lake in Steuben County, a county famous for its more than 100 natural lakes.

A dam built on the lake's outlet creek in 1837 raised the water level about nine feet and created the Mill Pond, where a mill later generated the town's first electricity into the late 1920s.

Hamilton is mainly a resort town whose summer population swells with vacationers locals call 'lakers'; at the 2020 census, 38.4 percent of its 1,180 housing units stood vacant, most of them seasonal lake homes.

Hamilton had a population of 1,529 at the 2020 census, virtually unchanged from 1,532 in 2010, living in 727 households.

With a median age of 54.2 years and more than a quarter of its residents aged 65 or older, Hamilton has the older, retirement-and-lake-house character of a resort community.

Its lake neighborhoods include Russells Point, Oakwood, Penn Park, Forest Park and Island Park.