Location: 106 North Main Street, Farmland. (Randolph County, Indiana)
Installed: 2005 Indiana Historical Bureau and Farmland History Book Committee of Historic Farmland USA, Inc.
ID# : 68.2005.1
Text
Side one:
Farmland platted 1852 in Randolph County and listed as station on Indianapolis and Bellfontaine Railroad. Town incorporated 1867. Commerce based on agriculture and, by late 1880s, gas and oil production nearby. Responding to 1897 fire, community built six major buildings within two years of disaster.
Side two:
Historic district boundaries include parts of Main, Henry, and William streets, on original plat. Buildings were built circa 1867-1929 and are close to original condition. District demonstrates growth of railroad-based rural agricultural community. Listed in National Register of Historic Places 1994.
Keywords
Historic District, Neighborhoods, and Towns, Buildings and Architecture, Agriculture, Transportation
Annotated Text
Farmland platted 1852 in Randolph County(1) and listed as station on Indianapolis and Bellfontaine Railroad.(2) Town incorporated 1867.(3) Commerce based on agriculture(4) and, by late 1880s, gas and oil production nearby.(5) Responding to 1897 fire, (6) community built six major buildings within two years of disaster.(7)
Historic district boundaries include parts of Main, Henry, and William streets, on original plat.(8) Buildings were built circa 1867-1929(9) and are close to original condition.(10) District demonstrates growth of railroad-based rural agricultural community.(11) Listed in National Register of Historic Places 1994.(12)
Notes:
1. Plat map, Farmland, 1852; George Pence and Nellie C. Armstrong, Indiana Boundaries, Territory, State, and County (Indianapolis, 1933), 704-11.
2. Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era: 1850-1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 332, states that Bellefontaine line reached Ohio border by end of 1852; Tucker, 506. "[Farmland] laid out on the route of the Bee Line railroad."; Exhibit of the Affairs of the Bellefontaine and Indiana Rail-road Company (New York, February, 1852), 4, states: "Indianapolis and Bellefontaine Rail-Road. . . from Union [Ohio] to Indianapolis, is partly finished and in operation, and the remainder to be finished in the fall of 1852"; Fourth Annual Report of the President of the Indianapolis and Bellefontaine Railroad Company, May 10, 1852 (Indianapolis, 1852), 4, 10-11. [Page 4 states: that a buildings will be ready for use at . . . Farmland, . . . by the time we reach those points. Also reported that 3 acres of "Station Grounds" were in Farmland. Reported that "Stations on the Road" included Farmland, 66 miles from Indianapolis.]
3. Minutes, Randolph County Commissioners, June 3, 1867 include petition for incorporation from Farmland, boundaries of Farmland, and date for electors in Farmland, June 17, 1867 to determine whether or not to incorporate; Winchester Journal, June 27, 1867, p. 3, states "Our town being now incorporated, our citizens will elect town officers on Monday next."; E. Tucker, History of Randolph County, Indiana, reprint 1967 (originally published 1882), p. 506 states that Farmland was organized as a town in 1867. Tucker also lists selected town ordinances passed circa 1867 and the town officers through 1882. This suggests that Tucker might have used town records for this information.
4. Winchester Journal, September 22, 1880; National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, January 1994, NRHP Continuation Sheet, section 7, p. 1; Randolph County Interim Report: Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory (Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, DNR, 1998), 33.
5. Clifton J. Phillips, Indiana in Transition: The Emergence of an Industrial Commonwealth 1880-1920 (Indianapolis, 1968) 193-94, 198.
6. Farmland Enterprise, December 3, 1897.
7. Interim Report, p. 33.
8. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, [p. 1]; plat map, Farmland, 1852.
9. Standard secondary sources for dating historic buildings include the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form and the specific county Interim Report. In this instance, these sources do not agree on the dates for the oldest and newest historic structures in the Historic District. The applicant has supplied newspaper sources from the time that suggest dates different from either standard secondary source. The building (used for the early 1875 date) at 100 N. Main is dated c. 1880 in National Register Registration Form, Section 7, p. 9; dated c. 1875 in the Interim Report, p. 34; and the Winchester Journal, June 27, 1867, p. 3, states that D. Thornburg has purchased a corner lot and will soon erect a fine business room on it. (Deed provided by applicant shows purchase by D. Thornburg of said lots, August 5, 1867. The Farmland City Building (used for the 1922 date) at 104-06 E. Henry St. is dated 1923 in the National Register Registration Form, Section 7, p. 11; dated 1922 in the Interim Report, p. 34; and the Farmland Enterprise, February 6, 1929, states that the new City Building is almost completed.
10. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, January 1994, NRHP Continuation Sheet, section 8, p. 1.
11. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, January 1994, NRHP Continuation Sheet, section 8, p. 1.
12. Historic Indiana: Indiana Properties Listed in the National Register of Historic Places 2003-2004 (Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, 2002), 43.