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Lafayette, Indiana. - Our History as a City & a Community!
Lafayette, Indiana:
- Founded: 1825
- Population: 67,174 - 2011 census
- Township: Fairfield & Wea
- Long / Lat: 40°24'38" N / 86°52'29" W
- Elevation: 550' at courthouse level
- Land Mass: Roughly 20.1 Square miles
- Incorporated: 1953
- Founder: William Digby
 
General LaFayette William Digby
The Native Americans were the first to discover the beauty of this Wabash Valley... the Wea, Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Wyandot, Winnebago, and Delaware were some of the tribes that settled here. The Lafayette area was first inhabited specifically by a tribe of Miami Indians known as the Ouiatenon or "Weas', which is where the Fort & the Wea Valey get their names. The French arrived in the area the early 1700s believed to have been 1717. Once here the French quickly began to capitalize on the trade route of the Wabash Rive into the area andestablished a trading post at Ouiatenon which later became known as Fort Ouiatenon.
Tecumseh (Tecumseh was a Shawnee tribal leader that sided with the British and battled against the Americans that were trying to invade His land.) and his brother, the Prophet, arrived to try and preserve the Native American way of life in the Valley region. They established the headquarters for their confederation at Prophetstown and this led to the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Five years after that famous battle Indiana became an independant state and the settlers arrived here on the banks of the Wabash river.
One of these early settlers was William Digby. He was a young man, just starting in life... he made his living as a riverman and he knew that this was about as far upriver as the new steamboats were capable of traveling. So, 1824 William Digby went to land sale hosted on Christmas Eve in present day Crawfordsville and bought the land here in the Wabash valley to establish a town. He platted it in May of 1825 and named it after the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the Revolutionary War ho aided General Washington (Statue in the Fountain on Court Square is of LaFayette)... The City of Lafayette was born! The following year Lafayette became the county seat of the newly formed Tippecanoe County.
In its earliest days, Lafayette was THE shipping center on the Wabash River. In 1838, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, the first United States Patent Commissioner, published a booklet titled Valley of the Upper Wabash, Indiana, with Hints on Its Agricultural Advantages to promote settlement of the region. By 1845, Ellsworth had purchased 93,000 acres of farmland in and around Lafayette and moved here from Connecticut to supervise land sales. By 1847 Ellsworth was distributing broadsides looking for farmers to purchase his farmland. He became president of the Tippecanoe County Agricultural Society in April 1851 – despite some local resentment over what was called "the Yale Crowd" – but he was defeated in election the same year when he ran for the Indiana House of Representatives. Lafayette's Ellsworth Street and Ellsworth Historic District are named for this early real estate developer.
The Wabash and Erie Canal in the 1840s further cemented Lafayette's regional prominence, which was also heightened by the arrival of the railroads in the 1850s. The Monon Railroad connected Lafayette with other sections of Indiana. Lafayette for some time was competing with Attica Indiana for settlement prospects, however becasue Attica was unwilling to conform to the development of the railroad and Lafayette was willing to conform, Lafayette became an area that was easier to settle upon because of the ease of importing supplies to the area.
Lafayette was the site of the first official air mail delivery in the United States, which took place on August 17, 1859, when John Wise piloted a balloon starting on the Lafayette courthouse grounds. Wise hoped to reach New York; however, weather conditions forced the balloon down near Crawfordsville, Indiana, and the mail reached its final destination by train. In 1959, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 7¢ airmail stamp commemorating the centennial of the event.
Early law enforcement in Lafayette was mostly non-existent and the city quickly earned the reputation of a rough and tumble river port. Arrests for gambling and fighting were common. In 1853, the town of Lafayette was re-incorporated under the laws of the second Indiana Constitution and an elected position of Town Marshall was created. Thomas Jefferson Chissom was the first Town Marshall and served two terms in that office prior to being elected as County Sheriff. During Chissom's term as County Sheriff three men convicted of murder were hanged on the court- house square following the much publicized trial. Today's Police Department can trace its beginning to a small police force established early in 1854 while Chissom was the City Marshall.
Bob Kriebel, local historian, describes early law enforcement in Lafayette as a motley mix of elected law officers, and private merchant police with occasional aid from various local militia groups. Kriebel says, "In 1832 fear about the Black Hawk War on the Illinois frontier caused about 300 men from Lafayette and surrounding area to organize and call themselves the Lafayette Guards. A War of 1812 veteran who still owned a musket drilled them in some primitive way or other. An early volunteer leader of this movement, a genuine civic booster, was the merchant Thomas T. Benbridge. Later Benbridge helped organize a small merchant police team of a few men who patrolled the downtown business district overnight. There followed a little later a more formal City Watch, and then a Town Marshall, followed by the paid city police force. The county sheriff and Fairfield township constable were also present as peacekeepers."
Written documents pertaining to law enforcement in Lafayette prior to 1853 are non existent with the exception of sparse information that can be gleaned from local newspapers of the era. From that year forward a reasonable record of information is contained within the minutes of the Lafayette City Council and within the ordinances of the city. No official city records exist prior to 1853. Among the first business the City Council conducted in 1854 was the establishment of a paid "city watch" or police department. While it is impossible to determine precisely what sort of police protection the city had prior to May 1854, it seems implied within the record that the previous town government did have some sort of police presence. The department was at first operated under the direction of the City Marshall and the first Police Chief, Alfred Cook, was not appointed until 1867.
In 1893 the police department was once again reorganized under a new statute setting up a Metropolitan Board of Police Commissioners to run the department. This removed the administration of the department from the direct control of the Mayor and City Council. A police Superintendent was appointed by the Commissioners and paid $1000 per year. In addition there were two Captains (one for the day shift and one for the night shift), two mounted patrolmen and sixteen patrolmen (foot patrol). Captains earned $60 per month while the mounted patrolmen earned $70 per month to compensate them for supplying, feeding and housing their own mounts.
The police department has seen tremendous changes during the past century. In 1938 the total salary budget for a department of 35 officers and 1 civilian clerk was $65,490. By 2001 the salary budget for LPD had grown to over five million dollars. During the past 30 years the area served by our department has grown from about 7 square miles to more than 14 square miles. The police department now occupies its fourth home since the 1890's and currently serves approximatel 20 square miles.
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