Editing Fountain County, Indiana (section)

==History==
Indiana was granted statehood near the end of 1816. The first non-indigenous settler in the future Fountain County is thought to have been a Mr.&nbsp;Forbes, who arrived in early 1823 and was soon followed by others.<ref>Clifton 1913, p. 47.</ref> The legislative act creating Fountain County was passed on December 30, 1825, setting an effective date of April 1, 1826. The county's boundaries have remained unchanged since that time.<ref>Clifton 1913, pp. 57–59.</ref> 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]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gannett, Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ |title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States |publisher=US Government Printing Office |year=1905 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n129 130]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Goodrich |first=De Witt Clinton |url=https://archive.org/details/anillustratedhi02tuttgoog |title=An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana |last2=Tuttle |first2=Charles Richard |publisher=Richard S. Peale & Co. |year=1875 |location=Indianapolis |page=[https://archive.org/details/anillustratedhi02tuttgoog/page/n569 557]}}</ref>

[[Image:Fountain County, Indiana map from 1876 atlas.jpg|thumb|left|280px|Map of Fountain County from an 1876 atlas]]
The first Fountain County courthouse was a two-story frame building constructed in Covington in 1827; Abraham Griffith submitted the winning bid of $335.{{#tag:ref|A $335 capital expense in 1827 would be roughly equivalent to $200,000 in 2009.<ref name="Williamson">Williamson, Samuel H. (April 2010).  ''Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to present''. [http://www.measuringworth.com MeasuringWorth].</ref>|group="n"}} In 1829, plans were made for a larger courthouse building, 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.{{#tag:ref|A $33,500 capital expense in 1857 would be roughly equivalent to $10,900,000 in 2009.<ref name="Williamson" />|group="n"}} 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 (architect)|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.{{#tag:ref|A $54,624 capital expense in 1861 would be roughly equivalent to $17,600,000 in 2009.<ref name="Williamson" />|group="n"}}<ref>Clifton 1913, pp. 64–67.</ref> The current courthouse was built in 1936–37 at a cost of $246,734;{{#tag:ref|A $246,734 capital expense in 1936 would be roughly equivalent to $17,300,000 in 2009.<ref name="Williamson" />|group="n"}} it replaced the previous building which had been declared unsafe. The 1937 building was constructed by the Jacobson Brothers of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]]; the architects were Louis R. Johnson and Walter Scholar of [[Lafayette, Indiana|Lafayette]]. The courthouse walls display murals painted by [[Eugene Francis Savage (painter)|Eugene Francis Savage]] and others from 1937 to 1940, covering {{convert|2500|sqft|m2|0}} of wall space and depicting the settlement of western Indiana.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Counts |first=Will |title=The 92 Magnificent Indiana Courthouses |last2=Jon Dilts |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-253-33638-5 |location=Bloomington IN |pages=52, 53}}</ref>

Digging 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 was moving through the county via the canal. Completion of the county's first railroad line in the 1850s heralded an end to the canal's usefulness, and in 1875 the last canal boat passed through Covington.<ref>Clifton 1913, pp. 130–131.</ref>

The first railway line 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. 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 traffic started in 1871. It passed through Covington, Veedersburg and Hillsboro.<ref>Clifton 1913, pp. 131–132.</ref>