Lawrence Lutz was a lifelong resident of Haubstadt, and was an award-winning corn grower in Gibson County. The picture below was taken in the fall of 1925, when Lawrence was 43, showing him with his record-breaking 132 bushels of corn per acre according to the Gibson County Purdue Extension Office. It was Lawrence’s third straight prized crop, but in 1925 it was the biggest ever produced in Gibson County.
He was born Lorenz Lawrence Lutz in 1882, to Joseph Karl and Mary Ann Schafer Lutz, original settlers in the Haubstadt area. He was the youngest of thirteen children, nine of which survived to adulthood. Lawrence had a brief stay in Denver, Colorado, where he married Carrie Schulte, and had his first son, Lawrence Cletus. They returned to Haubstadt after a few years where they had two more sons, Linus and Leonard. In 1932, due to the Great Depression and an illness, Lawrence lost his farm and passed away from cancer at the age of 49.
*Information from “A History of the Haubstadt Area”, 2002, page 73.
*Photo also from page 73; “Photo courtesy of Cletus Lutz family” written on the page.
