From Bourissa Hill to a Railroad Junction
New Carlisle's name change tells its own story. The settlement was first known as Bourissa Hill, for Potawatomi landowner Lazarus Bourissa, before Richard Risley Carlisle -- an American gymnast and acrobat -- purchased the 160 acres in 1835 and gave the town his own name. It was incorporated in 1866, and its historic district is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Respecting a National Register Streetscape
The National Register-listed core of New Carlisle preserves housing from the town's mid-to-late-1800s growth around the 1852 South Shore Railroad junction, and those homes typically carry the original tall, narrow double-hung window openings of that era -- replacement work there has to respect the historic district's proportions, not just swap in a standard modern unit.