Founding year: Wikipedia. First post office: 1864.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Fairmount Township’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Fairmount Township is more historic than 80% of U.S. towns, #231 of 593 in Indiana. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
A−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Fairmount Township’s overall grade.
Indiana towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Indiana town has 7.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Fairmount Township’s 119 sits above most of its state (83% of Indiana towns have fewer) while its 47 historic buildings outnumber those of 84% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.2 points). Two sources give 1850.
Founding year: Wikipedia (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Fairmount Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The Fairmount area was settled in the 1830s mostly by Quakers from North Carolina. The town was laid out in 1850 and named for Fairmount Park in Philadelphia; it was formally incorporated in 1870.
After a large deposit of natural gas was found in 1887, Fairmount became part of the Indiana Gas Boom and a center of the glass industry for the rest of the 19th century. Shortly after the depletion of the gas in 1900 the automobile industry set up factories in the nearby large cities, and Fairmount became a bedroom community, restoring some of its lost prosperity.
Passages that mention Fairmount Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The making of a township, being an account of the early settlement and subsequent development of Fairmount Township, Grant County, Indiana, 1829 to 1917, based upon data secured by personal interviews, from numerous communications and various other reliab1917 · page 149Read the page →
Read the text
The Underground Railroad. 149 The Underground Railroad had one of its best officered organizations in Fairmount Township. All the way from Cincinnati there were stations where the slave was befriended. As far back as 1833 there was a station at the farm just opposite the Friends meeting house at Back Creek. It was occupied by Charles Baldwin and family, he having several stalwart sons who were ready, day or night, to give their lives, if need be, for the cause of abolition. I will relate one incident.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The making of a township, being an account of the early settlement and subsequent development of Fairmount Township, Grant County, Indiana, 1829 to 1917, based upon data secured by personal interviews, from numerous communications and various other reliab1917 · page 112Read the page →
Read the text
The west half of Fairmount Township was settled by Friends, mostly from Xorth Carolina. The east half of the Township was settled by good, sturdy people who were not Quakers.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Fairmount Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1960Gas City sheet · 1:24,000
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Fairmount Township.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewFairmount-indiana-from-above
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Fairmount Township’s page.
In 1850, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. Fairmount Township’s post office opened in 1864, and the census of 1870 counted 337 people here.
How does Fairmount Township rank for history?
Fairmount Township is more historic than 80% of U.S. towns, #231 of 593 in Indiana. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Fairmount Township?
29% of Fairmount Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.2 points), against a typical 14% for an Indiana town; the median home was built in 1961.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (9), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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