Noblesville Millers & the Indiana Peony Festival
By KELLY McVEY
President, Indiana Peony Festival Inc.
We’re extremely excited to celebrate our community this month at our August Flower Market, sponsored by Ace Hardware, from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28 at Seminary Park.
This month’s theme is Flowers & Football and is created to help honor our hometown team, the Noblesville Millers. This year the Noblesville Millers are celebrating 100 years in black and gold! Ever wonder how the name was brought to light? We’re here to take you down memory lane.
The following is a summary of an article from the Jan. 29, 1975, edition of Noblesville Topics. Retrieved from Hamilton East Public Library.
In 1925, the Noblesville High School athletic teams became known as the “Millers” after a local merchant, C.B. Jenkins, made them a proposition “they could not refuse.”
Jenkins, manager of the Noblesville Milling Company, addressed a gathering of the students and faculty of the school in the high school gymnasium, and told them that if they agreed to nickname their athletic teams the “Millers”, his company would purchase new athletic uniforms. Don Jenkins, son of C.B. Jenkins, remembers when his father made the proposition to the school. “We were always a big booster for the teams in Noblesville, and I remember my father agreeing to purchase the uniforms in exchange for the Millers being used as a nickname”, said Jenkins.
Flour from the Noblesville Milling Company became famous in the eastern section of the United States, said Jenkins, and for many years was an industry leader in the milling business, as well as an active part of the growing Noblesville community.
The Noblesville High School was constructed in the 1870’s at a cost of about $42,000, and the first graduating class in 1876 had two students. With the turn of the century, sports began to play a big role in Indiana, as well as across the rest of the nation, and Noblesville was no exception. Most of the sports at this time were played outside, and football immediately became the local favorite. Prior to 1925, Noblesville athletic teams were called the “Black and Gold” in accounts of sporting events.
Through the years, despite the fact that Noblesville is no longer one of the “milling capitals of the world”, the nickname Millers is still a part of the tradition and spirit, not only of the high school, but of the entire community.”
– Shouse, Tony. “Noblesville Became ‘Millers’ In 1925.” Noblesville Topics, 29 Jan. 1975, pp. 1–10.
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So how do flowers tie into this story, you ask?
The same Jenkins family that helped sponsor the name to Miller Athletics is the family who owned an historic piece of Noblesville farm property. Some may be familiar, but the Indiana Peony Festival will be developing a new Peony HQ on the east side of Noblesville in the coming years, which just so happens to be the old Jenkins farm property.
More to come, but we’re very excited to help honor history, community, or state flower, and leaders like C.B. Jenkins at this location.
See you soon!
Make sure to stop by our flower market at Seminary Park from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28 to hear more historical local stories, shop festive flowers and artisan goods, and to cheer on the Millers before their home opener the next evening.