Language Translation
  Close Menu

Scott County Home

Location: 1050 S. Main Street, Scottsburg. (Scott County, Indiana)

Installed: 2002 Indiana Historical Bureau, Preservation Alliance, Inc., and Scott County Community Foundation

ID# : 72.2002.2

Text

Side one:

Indiana law in 1831 authorized counties to establish institutions to support and accommodate the poor, carrying out 1816 Constitution provision. First Scott County home built 1861 north of Lexington; closed 1879. County home moved here to frame house on 180 acres. Residents of such asylums could farm and help support the facilities.

Side two:

This brick structure replaced the frame house in 1892. Over time, acreage was reduced. Structure ceased to function as county home 1973. Scott County public services and government offices located here until 1995. Listed in National Register of Historic Places 2000. Property named home of Scott County Heritage Center and Museum 2001.

Keywords

Government Institutions, Buildings and Architecture

Annotated Text

Indiana law in 1831 authorized counties to establish institutions to support and accommodate the poor, carrying out 1816 Constitution provision.(1) First Scott County home built 1861 north of Lexington; closed 1879.(2) County home moved here to frame house on 180 acres.(3) Residents of such asylums could farm and help support the facilities.(4)

This brick structure replaced the frame house in 1892. Over time, acreage was reduced. Structure ceased to function as county home 1973.(5) Scott County public services and government offices located here until 1995.(6) Listed in National Register of Historic Places 2000.(7) Property named home of Scott County Heritage Center and Museum 2001.(8)

Notes:

(1) Indiana Revised Laws, 1831, pp. 386-87; Charles Kettleborough, Constitution Making in Indiana (Indianapolis, 1971, reprint of 1916), 1:114.

(2) Commissioners' Minutes, Scott County Auditor's Office, Scottsburg, December 1860; Mary Wilson and Nancy Asher, Lexington (n.p., n.d.), 229.

(3) Mary Wilson and Nancy Asher, Lexington, (n.p., [1976]) 229; Board of State Charities of Indiana, County Poor Asylums, First Annual Report of the Board of State Charities of Indiana (September 11, 1890), p. 50.

(4) Board of State Charities of Indiana, 3-7; Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850-1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 576.

(5) Commissioners' Court Records, Scott County Courthouse, March 10, 1892, p. 86-87; photograph of stone listing construction date; National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (1999), Section 8, pp. 5-6; Commissioners' Minutes, November 1, 1973; land area now approximately 4 acres, National Register Form (1999), Section 7, p. 1.

(6) Commissioners' Minutes, November 1, 1973, July 1, 1974; National Register Form (1999), Section 8, p. 6

(7) National Register Form; Historic Indiana 2003-2004 (Indianapolis, 2004), 45.

(8) Brochure; e-mail, Melinda Lowry to Alan Conant, IHB, November 8, 2001.