The story
Read it all →How Plainville came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Plainville.
Plainville was laid out in 1855. It was likely named from the flatness of the land.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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History · Plainville
38% of Plainville’s homes were built before 1940
Below: old-book passages.
0on the National Register
38%homes built before 1940
What stands out about Plainville’s past
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Start Plainville’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Plainville’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Plainville, 1886–1915
Passages that mention Plainville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Knox and Daviess County, Indiana1886 · page 708Read the page →
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apolis, through Daviess County has given the village of Plainville, in Steele Township, ten miles as the crow flies north of Washington, quite a business boom, and a number of new buildings were erected in the fall of 1885. Plainville is on the line of the old Wabash & Erie Canal, and was quite an important business point twenty-eight years ago, with a number of stores and a good flouring-mill. It went down, however, like hundreds of other towns, with the ill-fated canal that cost so many millions
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.![because of the lack of transportation facilities. The ci'mstruction fif the W'abasli & Erie canal through the township ga\'e lio|ies of im]iro\cinent, Ijut the hopes were blasted when the canal went dry. Several vx-ars later the railroad came and relieved the situation. Plainville, a pretty little …](https://images.townratings.com/story/4596/bk-6d5b2523719771e8-l.jpg)
History of Daviess County, Indiana1915Read the page →
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because of the lack of transportation facilities. The ci'mstruction fif the W'abasli & Erie canal through the township ga\'e lio|ies of im]iro\cinent, Ijut the hopes were blasted when the canal went dry. Several vx-ars later the railroad came and relieved the situation. Plainville, a pretty little village in the township, is an important station on the railroad and a convenient shi])ping point for the abundant produce (jf the farms in the vicinity.
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History of Knox and Daviess County, Indiana1886 · page 600Read the page →
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of the county in improving on the early condition of things, and now, in common with Elmore, has a valuable line of railway, and has also a flourishing village and railway station by the name of Plainville, about ten miles north of Washington. SLAVERY IN INDIANA. It has been stated above that most of the early settlers in Daviess County came from the Southern States, and as was but natural many of them brought along their slaves. Eli Hawkins,
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.
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Sources
Where this page comes from
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 (1), 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.