First County Court and First Mill
Near Fort Wayne, Indiana
This patch of ground near Columbia City is where Whitley County, Indiana, first organized itself into a working community. In eighteen thirty-six a settler named Richard Baughan bought two hundred and forty acres here from the federal government. He was the county's first sheriff, and his home became its first courthouse.
The very first session of county court was held inside that house in eighteen thirty-nine, with a circuit judge presiding over three small civil cases. Two years later, in eighteen forty-one, Baughan built the county's first flour and saw mill on this site. The flour, by all accounts, came out poorly and the grinding soon stopped, but the saw mill kept cutting lumber for years, feeding the growth of the young settlement.
From a single pioneer's land claim, a courthouse, a mill, and eventually a whole county took shape on this spot.
