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Welcome to Indiana, the Crossroads of America


[photo courtesy of wikipedia]

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INDIANA HISTORY

Indiana is one of eight states that make up the Great Lakes Region.
It was admitted to the United States as the 19th state on December 11, 1816.
It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, the states of Michigan to the north and Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash River and the state of Illinois to the west.

The Native American tribes in the area prior to European settlement included the Shawnee, Miami, and Illini.
Refugee tribes from eastern regions, including the Delaware who settled in the White and Whitewater River Valleys, later joined them.

The first trading post was established in 1702 near Vincennes

In 1787, the US defined the Northwest Territory which included the area of present-day Indiana.
In 1800, Congress separated Ohio from the Northwest Territory, designating the rest of the land as the Indiana Territory.
President Thomas Jefferson chose William Henry Harrison as the governor of the territory, and Vincennes was established as the capital.
After the Michigan Territory was separated and the Illinois Territory was formed, Indiana was reduced to its current size and geography.

Effective January 1, 1825, the seat of state government moved to Indianapolis from Corydon, Indiana. In addition to state government offices, a U.S. district court was established at Indianapolis in 1825.

During the American Civil War, Indiana became politically influential and played an important role in the affairs of the nation. Indiana was the first western state to mobilize for the United States in the war, and soldiers from Indiana participated in all the war's major engagements. The state provided 126 infantry regiments, 26 batteries of artillery and 13 regiments of cavalry to the Union

After the Civil war, Indiana remained a largely agricultural state. The discovery of natural gas in the 1880s in northern Indiana led to an economic boom. The abundant and cheap fuel attracted heavy industry and the availability of jobs in turn attracted new settlers from other parts of the country as well as from Europe. This led to the rapid expansion of cities such as South Bend, Gary, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne.

With the onset of the industrial revolution, Indiana industry began to grow at an accelerated rate across the northern part of the state.
With industrialization, workers developed labor unions and suffrage movements arose in relation to the progress of women.
In the early 20th century, Indiana developed into a strong manufacturing state with ties to the new auto industry. Haynes-Apperson, the nation's first commercially successful auto company, operated in Kokomo until 1925.
The construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the start of auto-related industries were also related to the auto industry boom.
[Excerpted from wikipedia]
 

Biographies	Census
Church Records	Death Records
Family Bibles	History
Land Records	Military Records
Native Americans	Newspaper Gleanings
Obituaries	Passenger Lists
Pioneers	Population
State Institutions	School Records
Tax and Voting Lists	Trivia

County	Date Formed	County Seat	Host
Adams	1836	Decatur
Allen	1823	Fort Wayne	Bonnie Thompson
Bartholomew	1821	Columbus	Tammie Stills
Benton	1840	Fowler
Blackford	1838	Hartford City
Boone	1830	Lebanon
Brown	1836	Nashville	Rhonda Dunn
Carroll	1828	Delphi
Cass	1828	Logansport
Clark	1801	Jeffersonvile	Linda Sparks
Clay	1825	Brazil
Clinton	1830	Frankfort
Crawford	1818	English
Daviess	1818	Washington
Dearborn	1803	Lawrenceburg
Decatur	1822	Greensburg
DeKalb	1835	Auburn
Delaware	1827	Muncie
Dubois	1818	Jasper
Elkhart	1830	Goshen
Fayette	1818	Connersville	Brenda Wiesner
Floyd	1819	New Albany	Barbara Ziegenmeyer
Fountain	1826	Covington	Sharon Miller
Franklin	1811	Brookville
Fulton	1835	Rochester
Gibson	1813	Princeton	J. Mike Kell
Grant	1831	Marion
Greene	1821	Bloomfield
Hamilton	1823	Noblesville	Rhonda Dunn
Hancock	1828	Greenfield
Harrison	1808	Corydon	Barbara Ziegenmeyer
Hendricks	1824	Danville
Henry	1821	New Castle
Howard	1844	Kokomo
Huntington	1832	Hunington
Jackson	1816	Brownstown
Jasper	1835	Rensselaer
Jay	1836	Portland
Jefferson	1811	Madison
Jennings	1817	Vernon
Johnson	1823	Franklin
Knox	1790	Vincennes
Kosciusko	1836	Warsaw
LaGrange	1832	LaGrange
Lake	1837	Crown Point	Kim Torp
LaPorte	1832	LaPorte
Lawrence	1818	Bedford
Madison	1823	Anderson
Marion	1822	Indianapolis
Marshall	1836	Plymouth
Martin	1820	Shoals
Miami	1832	Peru
Monroe	1818	Bloomington	James D. VanDerMark
Montgomery	1823	Crawfordsville
Morgan	1822	Martinsville
Newton	1859	Kentland
Noble	1836	Albion
Ohio	1844	Rising Sun
Orange	1816	Paoli
Owen	1819	Spencer
Parke	1821	Rockville	James D. VanDerMark
Perry	1814	Tell  City
Pike	1817	Petersburg
Porter	1835	Valparaiso
Posey	1814	Mount Vernon	J. Mike Kell
Pulaski	1835	Winamac
Putnam	1822	Greencastle
Randolph	1818	Winchester
Ripley	1816	Versailles
Rush	1821	Rushville
Scott	1820	Scottsburg
Shelby	1821	Shelbyville
Spencer	1818	Rockport	J. Mike Kell
Starke	1835	Knox
Steuben	1837	Angola
St. Joseph	1830	South Bend
Sullivan	1817	Sullivan	Mark Hill
Switzerland	1814	Vevay
Tippecanoe	1826	Lafayette
Tipton	1844	Tipton
Union	1821	Liberty	Brenda Wiesner
Vanderburgh	1818	Evansville	J. Mike Kell
Vermillion	1824	Newport
Vigo	1818	Terre Haute
Wabash	1835	Wabash
Warren	1827	Williamsport
Warrick	1813	Boonville	J. Mike Kell
Washington	1813	Salem
Wayne	1810	Richmond	Brenda Wiesner
Wells	1837	Bluffton
White	1834	Monticello
Whitley	1838	Columbia City

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