Author Paul Hutchens was born on April 7, 1902 and grew up in Sugar Creek Township near Thorntown, Indiana. As a child, he attended a one room country school. He graduated from Moody Bible Institute, became an evangelist, and was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1925. While recovering from tuberculosis, he began writing and published the first Sugar Creek Gang book in 1939. Throughout his career, he wrote 36 Sugar Creek Gang books and 21 books for adults. He died in 1977.