County Past
Home › Indiana › Wells County

Wells County, Indiana

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
5historic places
—earliest paper
1835formed
28,180pop. 2020
26cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 5 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1979. Most listings are in or near Bluffton.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Indiana is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Wells titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

3 of 5 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

5 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Bethel Methodist Episcopal ChurchBlufftonBuilding1984
Bluffton Commercial Historic DistrictBlufftonDistrict2020
Stewart-Studebaker HouseBlufftonBuilding1979
Villa North Historic DistrictBlufftonDistrict1985
Wells County CourthouseBlufftonBuilding1979

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Wells was formed in 1835 (1835-02-07) from ADAMS New Purchase.

WELLS created from ADAMS New Purchase.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Wells County population from 1840 to 2020 (Census historical series).

28k15k1,8221840188019201930196020002020
18401860188019001920194019501960198020002020
1,82210,84418,44223,44920,50919,09919,56421,22025,40127,60028,180

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

26 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 26 of 26 listed
NameLatLon
Batson Cemetery40.63382-85.36456
Bloxsom Cemetery40.57507-85.19302
El Honan Cemetery40.88811-85.10913
Elm Grove Cemetery40.74168-85.15354
Fairview Cemetery40.74363-85.1626
Gearnand Cemetery40.65238-85.14581
Grove Cemetery40.66686-85.20355
Horeb Cemetery40.82782-85.27637
Hoverstock Cemetery40.91352-85.28116
Jones Cemetery40.63911-85.37279
Linn Cemetery40.66998-85.10689
McFarren Cemetery40.67331-85.24757
Miller Cemetery40.61127-85.30682
Mossburg Cemetery40.72252-85.32751
Murray Cemetery40.80026-85.19531
Oak Lawn Cemetery40.8746-85.16532
Oakland Cemetery40.78559-85.08635
Old Bluffton Cemetery40.74559-85.1758
Prairie View Cemetery40.84726-85.10975
Saint Johns Cemetery40.70472-85.07027
Saint Johns Cemetery40.88401-85.26088
Snow Cemetery40.62119-85.31039
Sparks Cemetery40.78745-85.33472
Spider Hill Cemetery40.7706-85.31858
Stahl Cemetery40.64104-85.16021
Wright Cemetery40.60321-85.34691

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Wells County, Indiana

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.