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History · Spiceland

Spiceland’s post office opened in 1838, and 42% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1950 on, and the census since 1870.

1838first post office

0on the National Register

42%homes built before 1940

1old photo or paper

1famous people

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From Spiceland’s archive · credits on each photo

Quick answers

How Spiceland began

When was Spiceland founded?

1838

The Spiceland post office opened in 1838, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 370 in 18702020 census: 958188 years

Founding year: the first Spiceland post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Spiceland’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Spiceland’s homes were built before 1953.Deep rootsA post office since 1838: 188 years of Spiceland.

★ What stands out · Help out

Start Spiceland’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Spiceland’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos

00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s

0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.

Date a photo1 archive item has no date. Guess the decade.+2 Retake an old viewSpiceland-indiana-from-above: stand where they stood+15 Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

The story

How Spiceland came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Spiceland.

Read it all →

Spiceland was platted in 1850. The town was so named on account of spice bushes near the original town site. It was primarily an agricultural area for spices.

In February 2001 James Parker and Robert Tulloch, wanted in the 2001 Dartmouth College murders in New Hampshire, were arrested at a truck stop here. They had hitchhiked with truckers to this point and been tracked down by police after a driver's casual announcement on his CB radio that the pair were traveling west.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Spiceland, 1838 to 1950

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

19th century
1838Post officeThe Spiceland post office opens
1883Born hereWalt Miller is born here
20th century
1950On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey

From the old history books

What they wrote about Spiceland in 1906

Passages that mention Spiceland, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Indiana, in 1854. He grew up on his father's farm and besides assisting on the farm, he attended school at Cadiz and afterwards, in the Fall of 1863, became a student at. Spiceland Academy, then taught by the late Clarkson Davis, whose reputation as a teacher was not excelled by anyone in Eastern I… — **Hazzard's history of Henry county, Indiana, 1822-1906**1906Read the page →
Read the text
Indiana, in 1854. He grew up on his father's farm and besides assisting on the farm, he attended school at Cadiz and afterwards, in the Fall of 1863, became a student at. Spiceland Academy, then taught by the late Clarkson Davis, whose reputation as a teacher was not excelled by anyone in Eastern Indiana. After leaving the Spiceland school, young Terhune entered the drug store of Caleb W.
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.

By decade

Spiceland, decade by decade

Date unknown1 to date

Date?Spiceland-indiana-from-above

Today3 recent

2016Spiceland, Indiana

2008Classicarchtown

2008Classicarchtower

On the map

Spiceland on the map, 1950 to 1981

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Spiceland. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

1950Dunreith 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 Spiceland.

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 viewSpiceland-indiana-from-above

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Spiceland’s page.

Retake this view · +15

People over time

Spiceland, census by census

Grew from 370 people in 1870 to 958 in 2020.

16 censuses, 1870–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Spiceland’s Wikipedia page.

Questions about Spiceland’s history

What year was Spiceland founded?

The Spiceland post office opened in 1838, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →

Start a conversation

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 (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), 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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