The Bonkers Story of How Lydick Got Its Name

Community west of the airport owes its name to impressive customer service.

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED NOVEMBER 13, 2025

Maybe you've never been to Lydick. Maybe you've cruised through the place without ever realizing that you did. There's not much there, but there's not nothing either, and next time you're around, maybe stop long enough to tell your driving companions the story of how the place got its name.

You'll finish the drive before you finish the tale.

Turns out, Lydick wasnt its first name. Not its second name either.

First the community was called Warren Center, named after the railroad station within its limits. Next, they called it Sweet Home as that was the name of the Post Office. Since the community was never incorporated — and still hasn't been — it didn't really need to define a proper name for itself.

The sign at the train station said Warren Center. The sign at the post office said Sweet Home.

There weren't any other signs.

Warren Center and Sweet Home were used more or less interchangeably into the late 1800s, at least until both names were abandoned altogether. That's when the new controversy would begin.

It was 1901 when a blacksmith named Irvin Lydick ordered a sleigh to be shipped from Sears and Roebuck. Unfortunately, due to confusion with the railroad, his package was sent instead to the town of Warren, Indiana.

And yes, a blacksmith ordering a sleigh from Sears & Roebuck might be the most 1901 thing that has ever happened.

Anyway, due to a shipping mixup, the sleigh wouldn't arrive at Warren Center until spring, after the snow had melted. This is, of course, not the ideal time to receive your sleigh.

An incensed Lydick launched a complaint with the railroad. In order to make things right with the jilted blacksmith, the railroad renamed the station in his honor; further evidence that customer service isn't what it used to be.

 

 

After the renaming of the station, some in the community began to follow suit. For them, Lydick became the name of their town. However, it wasn't a consensus opinion. Mina Lindley, whose husband Ashbury Lindley ran the Sweet Home Post Office, was furious, and demanded that the town be named in honor of her husband and their family. After carrying a pair of competing names for the first seventy years of its history, now they were carrying a second and distinct pair of competing names.

The debate was fierce, but it was relatively brief. The post office closed in 1913, the Lindleys were left without a leg to stand on, and the Lydick name has appeared to stick — at least for the better part of the last century.

As for Irvin Lydick, the blacksmith at the center of the whole thing, he lived out his days in South Bend and died in 1928, long enough to see his own name established as the name of a community he never actually lived in. He's buried in the Riverview Cemetery.

Aaron Helman is an author, historian and adventurer from South Bend. You may have seen him around South Bend drinking coffee. Learn more about his work or check out his books at aaronhelman.com.