Resources

Updated 02/23/2019

Here are a few great resources for doing research on the history of the Wildcat Creek area. This is not an exhaustive list, but only what I've used in my research thus far. Feel free to submit suggestions for anything I'm missing.

NOTE:
I will never charge for anything on this website, but some of those I link to do, so I will flag those links like so:
[$] = this source requires payment for some features
[$$] = this source requires payment for all features

Guides

Clinton County Books Available Online

This is a quick guide I put together for older county histories and atlases pertaining to Clinton County which are available online, with some notes on possible confusion between different versions.

Historic House Research Guide - IndianaLandmarks.org

Still need to read through this in detail, but it looks useful.

Historical Societies

[$$] Carroll County Historical Society and Museum

This is a truly exceptional resource for anything pertaining to Carroll County, with some material pertaining to surrounding counties as well. Their photo collection alone is well worth a membership, and I love that they have digitized so much and made it available. They also have all kinds of genealogical databases, indexes, etc., which can be searched through their website, and of course the museum in Delphi.

[$] Monon Railroad Historical Technical Society

Great information on anything pertaining to the Monon Railroad, including a large collection of images, only some of which are viewable online. Others can be purchased on disc. I first came across them through their Bygone Places Along The Monon section, a truly wonderful contribution to small-town history. Their page on Rossville and Cambria is of especial interest to me--it was coming across that some years ago that made me realize such small-scale, local history was even possible.

Clinton County Historical Society

Their archives are not currently available due to an in-process resorting of the material, but the museum is open, and they post stuff on their Facebook page pretty often.

Tippecanoe County Historical Association

Wide-ranging archives containing collections pertaining to just about anything you could think of in Lafayette and the surrounding areas.

Libraries

Frankfort Community Public Library

Their Clinton County Court Archives are a phenomenal resource I can't recommend enough, and they also gave a great obituary database which provides an index to their extensive microfilm newspaper collection. Unfortunately, none of the various newspaper digitization projects currently at work in Indiana have touched the Clinton County newspapers--I guess we are too small to be high on the priority list--but I am thankful to have such a wide range available on microfilm here. Not just Frankfort papers, but Mulberry and others too!

Tippecanoe County Public Library

They have an entire room--The Swezey Room--dedicated to Indiana history, and a Family Memory Center where you can digitize large documents, film, tapes, negatives, etc.

Indiana State Library

What don't they have? I have yet to make a trip down to visit but intend to soon--they have a lot online, but much more that isn't. Check out their lists of county histories with links to those that have been digitized as well as their map collection. What I would really like is a chance to burrow through their rare books and manuscripts collection. They have a diary kept by a doctor in Rossville in the 1800s that I'd love to look at.

Purdue University Archives and Special Collections

Obviously, anything having to do with Purdue is likely available here, but they also have material on West Lafayette and the surrounding areas. The Humanities library, where the archives are located, also has a wide range of general history books, including local county histories.

Newspapers

Carroll County Newspapers - Carroll County Libraries

Like many newspaper sites, this one is pretty buggy in my experience, which can be frustrating, but it makes up for it by being a fantastic resource. I really hope to see this level of digitization in Clinton County some day.

Hoosier State Chronicles - Indiana State Library

A great program I hope will get to digitizing Clinton County's papers soon. Search papers from all over Indiana or by county, including Tippecanoe, Cass, Boone, etc.

[$] Lafayette Journal and Courier Archives

Searchable archives going back to 1920. Behind a paywall, but you can make clippings that become available to the general public.

Chronicling America Indiana Collection - Library of Congress

This doesn't actually have any newspapers from our area, but I include it for completion's sake.

Misc.

Patent Platter

A web application I created for automatically generating maps of the original land patent owners in the area.

The Indiana Album

An organization devoted to digitizing old photos in Indiana with a great collection you can search online. They do charge for high resolution access and print rights, but their online images are free to share with attribution. (My current header image on the main website is from their collection.)

Interactive Indiana Geological Survey Map

An invaluable resource packed with data--everything from census population statistics to crop information. It is especially useful for figuring out what township and section a given town or property is in (though the Bureau of Land Management has a simpler interface for that).

Historic Indiana Plat Books

A collection of old digitized plat books at IUPUI.

Sanborn Fire Maps - Library of Congress Collection

These are detailed maps made by the Sanborn company in the late 1800s for use in fire insurance. Of particular interest to me are those of towns in Clinton County, Tippecanoe County, and Carroll County.

Early Indiana Trails and Surveys

A fascinating book on the early surveying of Indiana with great information for doing your own research.

Field Notes for Public Land Survey Township Plats 1789 - 1946

These are the notes written by the original surveyors of the area as the divided the land into townships and sections, mostly around 1820-1823 in our area. (See "Early Indiana Trail Surveys," listed above, for help making sense of this stuff.) The index used to indicate what volumes contain can be confusing and misleading, especially since the website's volume titles (such as "Indiana: Volume E-14 - E-16") do not match the volume numbers actually in those files. (That one, for instance, actually starts with E-11 and ends with E-13. It only took me four hours of pulling my hair out to figure out what was going on.) If you don't know the township identifier of the area you're looking for (such as T 22N R 2W for the township containing Mulberry), use the Indiana Map from the Indiana Geological Survey, make sure the PLSS Townships and PLSS Sections layers are active, and get it from there.

INGenWeb - Genealogy Websites

In the Clinton County and other sections, you can find all kinds of pictures, book references, transcriptions, etc. More aimed toward genealogy of course, but some good general historical information as well.

MapWarper.net

A great tool for warping and geocoding historical maps to overlay them on current satellite imagery in Google Earth, pinpoint exact locations of historic sites, etc.