Minor league baseball names have had a long history of unusual nicknames that are usually connected to the city, geographic location, or the parent club. Many have been lost in time, a blip on the radar, but one name always had me scratching my head. Why were the Terre Haute Huts called the Huts?
The city had quite the history of baseball dating back to amateur teams in 1870. By 1883, one of those clubs went by “Awkwards” which meant at the time “someone difficult or dangerous to deal with.” They merged that year with a ball club named the Blue and remained the “Terre Hautes”.
Luckily, team names would get a little more creative with the advent of professional baseball in 1884. Terre Haute would be home to minor league baseball for the next, and the name most commonly used for ball clubs was Tots, short for Hottentot.
It was a corruption from the term Terre Hautentots, a name historically used and found in countless articles around the state and the country to describe someone from Terre Haute. By the 1880s, the name was used in baseball articles describing teams from the city; then in 1891 referred to the professional club in town.
However, the name was replaced with something new derived from a name-the-team contest or by new management. Besides the Tots, baseball teams in towns would use the names Stags, Browns, Highlanders, Terre-iers (yes, spelled that way), and Miners. Several times, newspapers used a combination of these names in one season.
A headline in the Marion (IN) Leader-Tribune, July 24, 1913
However, the Tots name never disappeared, and the local media often refer to it in bylines. It became the official name in 1921 and would remain that way until the team disbanded in mid-1937.
When baseball returned in 1946, it took the name of its parent club, the Philadelphia Phillies. The Three-Eye League club would leave town after the 1954 season, and it was time for a new name for its ball club, one that would have its own identity outside of its new parent club in Detroit.
The Terre Haute Baseball Club held a name-the-team contest in the Terre Haute Tribune, soliciting hundreds of responses from fans of all ages. The winner received a $100 watch from Hillman’s Jewelers. The paper suggested names that are alive and in motion, along with ones that aren’t too long that would fit much better in newspaper headlines.
“A lot of fans like the name of the Tigers, but others oppose this on the sole ground that they believe the city should have a permitted name for a team that would be suitable under all conditions, meaning it would fill the bill regardless of the big league affiliation that the city might have.”
On April 13, the name picked for the team was the Huts. The newspaper did not provide a reason for the decision, and there does not seem to be a connection to the area, nor was it “alive and in motion”. The other top entries were the Tots, Browns, and Brownies.
When Ralph Nichols, a local barber by trade, was awarded his $100 watch. The article added that another citizen, Jim Walker, suggested the name. Walker campaigned to have it adopted, and he rounded up as many votes as possible from city residents.
A modern photo of a Quonset hut that were constructed in Terre Haute
A Bob Nesbit column from the Terre Haute Tribune on April 19 shed some light on the Huts moniker. He penned the following blurb:
“Those fans down at Stran Steel, who make Quonset huts, did a good job of putting up a campaign to name the new team in honor of their product. Since the name also fits well with the name of our city, everything worked out fine.”
Did the Terre Haute Huts get their name from a local steel company and had its employees send ballots to the local newspaper? Has the mystery been solved after almost 70 years?
A Quonset hut is a prefabricated structure in the shape of a semicircle that was mass-produced after World War II. There were 150,000 to 170,000 produced during the war and sold to the public after the fighting ended. They are still visible in many parts of the country as homes, businesses, and even military bases.
Nesbit added that the name fit the city well and probably liked that it was short for print purposes. Terre Haute is French for "high ground" and the word "Haute" would be mispronounced by locals as "hut". The name was short and similar in sound to the former team name Tots, and it did make for great print in newspaper bylines.
Surprisingly, more than 121 names were proposed and listed regularly in the newspaper. Many of these names were fascinating and hinged on modern branding in today’s game. They included the following: Wabash Valley Catapults, Vigo Gems, Candlelighters, Hoosier Pacemakers, Gold Cox, Hustlers, Bowcats, Bingos, Meows, Tiger-Cats, Cavaliers, Valley Cubs, Speeders, White Hats, and Atoms.
There were many entries for the new baseball team in 1955, Terre Haute Tribune
The Huts name would last a little over a year; the club folded after the first half of the 1956 season with a 40-26 record due to lack of attendance. It marked the end of minor league baseball in Terre Haute. A little over a decade later, the ballpark would be converted solely into a football stadium with artificial turf.
In 2011, the summer collegiate Prospect League added a team in town. The name selected was Rex, and there was a good reason behind that decision. Besides being the Latin word for king, the name comes from Rex Coffee, produced, roasted, and packed downtown by Clabber Girl. The club also mentioned its unique name ties in with others from the past: Tots, Huts, Stags, and Terre-iers.
The Huts name briefly shined in Terre Haute between 1955 and 1956 and before anyone began to pay attention to the ball club, it was gone. However, a look back at old newspaper articles of the era produces a possible reason behind its name.
If Rex can pull out a retro jersey night, this reporter will be there.
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Follow all of Marc’s stadium journeys on Twitter @ballparkhunter and his YouTube channel. Email at Marc.Viquez@stadiumjourney.com
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