Howard County, Indiana

Howard County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

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Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Tilghman A. Howard, Indiana statesman (originally Richardville County, named for Miami Chief, Richardville)

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History

Howard County was formally organized May 1, 1844 as Richardville County. As this county nearly all within the old Miami Reserve, it was named after the Miami Chief and successor of Little Turtle, however, the sentiment did not prevail for any length of time and on December 28, 1846, the Legislature passed its first and only act changing the name of a county. Its first name honored Jean Baptiste Richardville, a chief of the Miami. Richardville's name was Pe-che-wa, which translates to Wildcat, hence Wildcat Creek.

In 1846, the name was changed to Howard County, in honor of Gen. Tilghman Howard, U.S. Representative from Indiana, who died in 1844.

In June 1985 a school in the county known as Western School Corporation became famous for refusing to allow Ryan White (December 6, 1971 - April 8, 1990) to attend classes. White was a severe hemophiliac, becoming infected with HIV when receiving a tainted batch of blood products as part of his hemophilia treatment. At the time state law required sufferers of communicable diseases to seek a health certificate from the country health commission in order to attend school, and AIDS was considered a communicable disease covered by this law. Unsubstantiated rumors spread of antagonistic and unhealthful actions Ryan White may have taken, raising concerns about possible transmission of AIDS. This was before it was understood how difficult HIV transmission is through casual contact, only that infection was a virtual death sentence. Western School Corporation board members had taken an oath of office requiring them to uphold all state laws, so they banned White from school. State health officials visited the school and agreed that state law required this decision, although state health commissioner Woodrow Myers called for the school to allow White to attend anyway. Lengthy legal and publicity campaigns followed. Many news stories portraying the school as closed minded, backward, bigoted, etc. were published, including reports of school board proceedings that were published before the meetings even took place, naturally totally erroneous in their details. Eventually court rulings set aside state law preventing AIDS sufferers from receiving county health certificates. This satisfied the school board's objections, however over 117 parents and 50 teachers signed a petition encouraging school leaders to ban White from the school, and private legal proceedings ensued, which failed, and White finally began to attend school. Ultimately there was a movie produced. Some protestors persisted in demonstrations, but Ryan White's time as a student at Western proved uneventful.

Howard County is divided into 11 Civil Townships as follows: Center, Clay, Ervin, Harrison, Honey Creek, Howard, Jackson, Liberty, Monroe, Taylor and Union.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 294 square miles (761 km²), of which 293 square miles (759 km²) is land and 1 square mile (2 km²) (0.29%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

North: Miami County
East: Grant County
Southeast: Tipton County
Southwest: Clinton County
Northwest: Carroll County; Cass County

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County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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