IRVINGTON — On December 17, 1904, a new character appeared on the back pages of the Indianapolis News for the first time — Abe Martin. This Hoosier country philosopher was the creation of cartoonist Kin Hubbard. Each day, Abe Martin offered up his rustic humor and sharp-eyed observations of everyday life in just two unrelated sentences. Abe appeared daily, with one exception, until the humorist’s death in 1930 and was reprinted in the Indianapolis News until 1980. After his passing, Hubbard’s friend and fellow humorist Will Rogers called Hubbard “America’s greatest humorist” who expressed more original philosophy in just two daily lines than was expressed in all the rest of the newspaper.
Long before Garfield the Cat became the most popular cartoon to come out of Indiana, Kin Hubbard’s creation captured the eye of newspaper readers all over the country. Today, Abe Martin is best remembered as a denizen of Brown County, Indiana, but in reality, he is a true son of Irvington. A wedge shape pocket park was created in 1982 to memorialize Hubbard, but nothing in the park makes a connection between Hubbard and his famous creation.
On Dec. 17, 2019, the Irvington Historical Society added the image of Abe Martin to Kin Hubbard Park, an Indianapolis City Park dedicated to the memory of this Irvington-based humorist and cartoonist. Hubbard Park stands at the corner of Emerson and New York Street, in front of the “House that Abe Martin Built.”
The Irvington Historical Society, the City of Indianapolis Parks Department and the Irvington Garden Club collaborated on the project in bringing Abe Martin to Hubbard Park.
