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History

When Noble County was organized in northeastern Indiana in 1836, its population was approximately 2,000 men, women and children. After the official United States census of 1850, that figure rose to 7,984. Preliminary count for the 2000 census put the number at 46,275.

Noble County covers 420 square miles and is one county south of Michigan and one county west of Ohio. Eleven of its townships are six miles square in size, Washington is four and Albion two.

The county is named for James Noble, a Virginia native who moved to Brookville, Ind. in 1811. At the time Indiana became a state in 1816, he was elected United States senator by the state Legislature and died while in that office on Feb. 26, 1831, in Washington, D. C.

Miami and Potawatomi Indians were the county's earliest known inhabitants. Most of them were forcibly removed from the area in 1838 and relocated to reservations west of the Mississippi River.

Many of the county's earliest white settlers in (1830-1840) came to Perry's Prairie near Ligonier. This area was free of thick forest. The rich soil was ideal for farming. It remains a rich farming area today.

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