Perrysville, Indiana

related topics
{household, population, female}
{land, century, early}
{line, north, south}
{build, building, house}
{town, population, incorporate}




Perrysville was platted and surveyed in 1825 by James Blair on a bluff on the west side of the Wabash River. It became a local center for shipping products to New Orleans on flatboats via the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, and it was also able to receive heavy equipment and manufactured items on steamboats. Prior to the advent of the railroad in the second half of the nineteenth century, the town's location on the river made for a thriving community; it is reputed to have been the largest town between Chicago and Terre Haute at the height of its success. The arrival of the Wabash and Erie Canal enhanced its importance even further; a sidecut with locks allowed boats to be towed across the river to the town. Various roads intersected here, including a plank toll road from Danville, Illinois to the west, and stagecoach traffic became frequent. However, when the railroads did arrive, and failed to pass through the town, it spelled the eventual end of the vital river traffic, and of the importance of the town of Perrysville.[3]

The Town is named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie.*[4]


Perrysville is located at 40°3′8″N 87°26′7″W﻿ / ﻿40.05222°N 87.43528°W﻿ / 40.05222; -87.43528 (40.052188, -87.435178)[5] on the western banks of the Wabash River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.2 square miles (0.6 km²), all of it land.


As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 502 people, 198 households, and 139 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,995.4 people per square mile (775.3/km²). There were 208 housing units at an average density of 826.8/sq mi (321.2/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 99.40% White, and 0.60% from two or more races.

Full article ▸

related documents
North Hudson, New York
Westernport, Maryland
Nutter Fort, West Virginia
Greenwood, New York
Sweden, Maine
Moncks Corner, South Carolina
Plainfield, Massachusetts
Hopkinton, New Hampshire
Buckfield, Maine
Harrington, Maine
East Kingston, New Hampshire
Woodstock, New Hampshire
Mill Shoals, Illinois
Iberville Parish, Louisiana
Clarkson, New York
Phippsburg, Maine
Oneida Castle, New York
Friday Harbor, Washington
Port Deposit, Maryland
Walpole, New Hampshire
Fulton, Schoharie County, New York
Unity, New Hampshire
Uintah, Utah
Beekman, New York
New York Mills, New York
Elizabethtown, New York
West Lafayette, Ohio
Stark, New Hampshire
Newry, Maine
Gilsum, New Hampshire