First Unitarian Church of Hobart

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

From the record

“First Unitarian Church of Hobart is the oldest Unitarian Church in Indiana, and the oldest church still occupied by its original congregation in the city of Hobart. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 9, 1999.”
Wikipedia article First Unitarian Church of Hobart, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 88 National Register listings published here for Lake County · listed in 1999 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 497 Main St., Hobart, 46342
When was it listed? September 1999
Category. building
Township. Hobart township
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 99001112 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

146 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 146 fires within 5 miles of First Unitarian Church of Hobart between 1992 and 2020, burning about 856 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 22 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	47
Debris and open burning	35
Arson/incendiarism	22
Railroad operations and maintenance	18
Fireworks	10
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Recreation and ceremony	2
Natural	2
Smoking	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 1999	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	FLEA2
19 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	2.0 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	BUFFALO
8 August 1999	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	1-5
8 August 1992	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	DAYTONA
8 August 1992	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	TENSION
6 August 1999	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	MILLER
3 August 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	AUTO
17 August 1999	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	BUS

Every fire recorded in Lake County

Storms near this property

16 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hobart, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 2003 and 2026: 9 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	$100,000	no account filed
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Numerous tree limbs and power lines were blown down in Hobart. A utility pole with a transformer was blown down at 2nd Street and Main Street.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	A large tree was uprooted and fell onto a house and a pickup truck in the 1100 block of Garfield Street.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	A measured wind gust to 65 mph was reported.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Large tree limbs were blown down near Lake George.
August 2014	Flash Flood	Hobart	-	Waist deep water was reported on 8th Street near the middle school.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Wind gusts were estimated to 65 mph in Hobart.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Trees blown down across the city.
August 2007	Hail	Hobart	-	Golfball size hail reported at 61 Street, 3 miles east of Interstate 65.
May 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Large tree limbs blown down.
July 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Hobart	-	Power lines were torn down. Large tree limbs and moderate sized trees were broken off and on top of houses.
March 2026	Hail	Hobart	-	no account filed
May 2024	Hail	Hobart	-	no account filed
May 2024	Hail	Hobart	-	no account filed
August 2007	Hail	Hobart	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Hobart	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lake County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Hobart Commercial District	0.1 miles	2014
Hobart First Methodist Episcopal Church	0.1 miles	2017
Pennsylvania Railroad Station	0.4 miles	1984
Hobart Carnegie Library	0.6 miles	1982
John Wood Old Mill	4.1 miles	1975
Morningside Historic District	4.4 miles	2009

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 99001112 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Lake County	All 88 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.