23 Fountain
Fountain County lies in the western part of the U.S. state of Indiana on the east side of the Wabash River. The county was officially established in 1826 and was the 53rd in Indiana. The county seat is Covington.
County Website – http://www.fountaincounty.net/
According to the 2000 census, its population was 17,954; the 2010 population was 17,240. The county has eight incorporated towns with a total population of about 9,700, as well as many small unincorporated communities; it is also divided into eleven townships which provide local services. An interstate highway, two U.S. Routes and five Indiana state roads cross the county, as does a major railroad line.
History
The state of Indiana was established in 1816. The first non-indigenous settler in the area that became Fountain County is thought to have been a Mr. Forbes, who arrived here in early 1823 and was soon followed by others.[8] Fountain County was officially created on December 30, 1825, the act taking effect on April 1, 1826; the boundaries of the county have not changed since that time. It was named for Major James Fontaine of Kentucky who was killed at Harmar’s Defeat (near modern Fort Wayne, Indiana) on October 22, 1790, during the Northwest Indian War.
Courthouse
The first Fountain County courthouse was a two-story frame building constructed in Covington in 1827; Abraham Griffith submitted the winning bid of $335.[n 1] Two years later in 1829 it was decided that a brick building was needed, and plans were made for a new courthouse; but then an act of the legislature called for the county seat to be moved. In the end it was decided that the county seat should remain in Covington, and the brick courthouse was completed in 1833. A third courthouse was commissioned in 1856, and was completed in 1857 at a cost of $33,500.[n 2] The circuit court met for the first time in the new building in January 1860, and the building was largely destroyed by fire the same day. Isaac Hodgson was the architect for the rebuilt courthouse, which was first occupied in January 1861; the total cost, including the reconstruction, totaled $54,624.05.[n 3][13] The current courthouse was built in 1936–37 at a cost of $246,734;[n 4] it replaced the previous building which had been declared unsafe. It was constructed by the Jacobson Brothers of Chicago; the architects were Louis R. Johnson and Walter Scholar of Lafayette. The courthouse walls display many murals painted by Eugene Francis Savage and others from 1937 to 1940; the murals cover over 2,500 square feet (232 m2) of wall space and depict the settlement of western Indiana.
Canal
Construction on the Wabash and Erie Canal began in 1832 and worked southwest; it reached Lafayette by 1842. In 1846 it reached Covington, and by 1847 traffic had begun to flow through the county via the canal. Although the coming of the county’s first railroad a decade later heralded the end of the canal’s usefulness, it wasn’t until 1875 that the last canal boat passed through Covington.
Railroads
The first railroad through the county was the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway (later the Wabash Railroad) which was built from the east across the northern part of the county and reached Attica in 1856; it continued west through Warren County and reached the Illinois state line the following year. Another line, the Indianapolis, Crawfordsville and Danville Railroad (later the Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway), was started in 1855, but the general state of the economy halted construction in 1858. It was completed by another owner in 1870, and trains began operating on it in 1871; locally, it ran through Covington, Veedersburg and Hillsboro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_County,_Indiana
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Indiana is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U.S. state on December 11, 1816. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Indiana was 6,619,680 on July 1, 2015, a 2.10% increase since the 2010 United States Census. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana
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There are 8 Towns / Cities, each with their own ZIP codes, still in existence, in Fountain County, Indiana.
47918 Attica
47932 Covington
47949 Hillsboro
47952 Kingman
47958 Mellott
47969 Newtown
47987 Veedersburg
47988 Wallace
The County seat is in Covington.
47918-attica
47932-covington
47949-hillsboro
47952-kingman
47958-mellott
47969-newtown
47987-veedersburg
47988-wallace
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In addition to the eight incorporated cities and towns, there are also many small unincorporated settlements. Cates and Silverwood are in Fulton Township in the southwest corner of the county. To the east of Fulton, Mill Creek Township includes Harveysburg, Steam Corner (at the intersection of U.S. Route 41 and State Road 32) and Yeddo (north of Kingman). North of Fulton, Wabash Township has the town of Coal Creek. Van Buren Township, which contains Veedersburg, also includes Stone Bluff; and Shawnee Township to the north of Van Buren holds the hamlets of Fountain (on the banks of the Wabash) and Rob Roy (at the intersection of U.S. Route 41 and State Road 55). The town of Riverside is across the river from Independence in Warren County, and lies in Davis Township.
Stringtown was a mining settlement south of Covington in Wabash Township in the late 19th century, but it no longer exists. There are several coal mines in Fountain County, especially in the southwest.
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There are 11 townships in Fountain County, that provide local services. Each of the townships has a trustee who administers rural fire protection and ambulance service, provides poor relief and manages cemetery care, among other duties. The trustee is assisted in these duties by a three-member township board. The trustees and board members are elected to four-year terms.
Cain
Davis
Fulton
Jackson
Logan
Millcreek
Richland
Shawnee
Troy
Van Buren
Wabash
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