Biography
LEROY BURTON TROBAUGH was born in Delphi, Ind., in 1878; he died there in 1955. Roy, as his friends and neighbors called him, spent his entire career as the Monon Railroad station agent in Delphi. Today he is best remembered as an artist.
The modest Mr. Trobaugh never considered himself a professional, but his talent is manifest in the many paintings he produced over several decades. Apparently his only formal training came at the celebrated Art Students League in New York City, where he took a variety of classes from the fall of 1901 to the spring of 1902.
After returning to Delphi in 1902, Mr. Trobaugh spent the rest of his life there as a dedicated Monon employee and a prolific artist. He worked in charcoal, pencil and watercolor. But it is his oil paintings, his Carroll County landscapes, for which he is best known among collectors. Plein-air scenes of the Wabash River, local creeks, small towns, woods and farm fields abound.
As a
Monon employee, Roy Trobaugh could travel on railroad systems for free with
a pass. He used this perquisite to journey frequently to the western United
States, to the East Coast and to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. He
painted mountains in the West and seascapes in the East; he depicted the Smokies with their namesake haze and small homesteads; and, as did many of
his fellow Hoosier artists, he painted in Brown County, Ind.
Over the years, Mr. Trobaugh submitted his works to several regional exhibitions. He showed with the Indiana Art Association, the Brown County Art Gallery and the Hoosier Salon. In fact, he was in the Hoosier Salon repeatedly between 1926 and 1954. He won awards for his landscapes and still lifes.
Roy Trobaugh was known for not selling his paintings; he gave his works to friends and to public institutions in Delphi. When he died, his estate numbered over 450 oil paintings and sketches. A private sale was held at the Trobaugh home for several weeks. The 200 remaining works were taken to the Marott Hotel in Indianapolis, lined up against the wall and sold to the highest bidder on Feb. 12, 1956. A program from that day shows that most of Roy Trobaugh’s pictures sold for $5 to $20.
While most of his works are unaccounted for, many citizens around Carroll County and throughout Indiana have preserved his legacy. Whether a beloved Wabash riverscape or a Rocky Mountain peak, Roy Trobaugh’s paintings are in homes and offices throughout the state.
*Special thanks to Rachel Berenson Perry, fine-arts curator at the Indiana State Museum. Her articles about Leroy Trobaugh supplied much of this information.
