The town of Forest was platted on September 1, 1874, by Henry Y. Morrison to serve as a station along the Frankfort and Kokomo Railroad (later the Clover Leaf Railroad). The town's name was given because the site was forested, and the first railroad tickets sold there were issued from an oak stump used as a ticket counter. The town gained a post office in 1877 with C. G. R. Sims as the first postmaster.
The residents of Forest supported the Temperance movement, as a county history describes:
A reckless man undertook to establish a saloon here in the spring of 1886, despite the protests of the citizens, but after his building had been blown up with dynamite he decided to seek another location.
Passages that mention Forest, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History and antiquities of Charnwood forest1842Read the page →
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Forest Law and Forest Rights were in force as early as the times of the Saxons : but the Saxon Princes were generally so equitable and so mild, that the afforestation of large untenanted wastes, and the laws enacted for their preservation, were hardly felt as a burden by the commonalty. Under the Norman Princes, all the then existing laws, and especially the Forest Law, assumed a harsher character.
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History and antiquities of Charnwood forest1842 · page 113Read the page →
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II This absence of villages, and the assignment of the Forest to the parishes of Barrow, Groby, \VTiitwick and Sheepshed, will have before occurred to the reader. The Forest was, doubtless, so assigned, soon after the Forest rights passed from the Crown to Lords of Manors, on the disafforestation of Charnwood by King Henry 111., 12.34.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Forest, 1874 to 1984
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps 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.
2007
