Quincy is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in northeastern Taylor Township, Owen County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. It lies just south of CR1150N, north of the town of Spencer, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Owen County. Its elevation is 738 feet (225 m), and it is located at (39.4536575, -86.7125050). Although Quincy is unincorporated, it has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, with the ZIP code of 47456.

History

Quincy had its start in the year 1853 with the building of the New Albany Railroad (a precursor to the

Monon Railroad The Monon Railroad , also known as the Chicago, Indianapolis, and Louisville Railway from 1897 to 1971, was an American railroad that operated almost entirely within the state of Indiana. The Monon was merged into the Louisville and Nashville R ...

) through that territory. Many of the workers on this railroad had built homes along Brush Creek, where the railroad crossed it. William L. Hart and his wife Lucy had the area around the Brush Creek trestle surveyed for a town, which was to be named Quincy. This plat was received at the Owen County Courthouse in Spencer on June 7, 1853. In 1854, the town's post office was established, where it has been still operating since. The settlement of Dunkirk on the western side of Jay County was platted as "Quincy" in 1853. However, when a post office was being established there, it was discovered that this town already had a post office with that name, so the Jay County settlement was renamed as Dunkirk. The town of Quincy was thriving when a fire was accidentally started on November 3, 1873. Most of the business district was destroyed, including three dry goods stores. Another fire occurred on May 9, 1930, which destroyed the same part of town. The buildings that were destroyed were the O.E. Stewart store, Dunkin general store, the Herbert store, the post office and two smaller buildings. This meant all five stores of Quincy were burned down. The Red Men and

Knights of Pythias The Knights of Pythias is a Fraternal and service organizations, fraternal organization and secret society founded in Washington, D.C., on . The Knights of Pythias was the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an Act of Co ...

lodges, which held their meetings in the upper floors of two of these buildings, lost everything. Three of the buildings destroyed were two stories tall. This and the burning of the Quincy school on February 2, 1953, signaled the end of the business district of the town. The population has ranged between 200 and 300 since the Civil War.

The Quincy Picnic

A historical marker placed at the site where the picnic was held says it started in 1870 and ended in 1972. It appears the first picnic at Quincy was held in 1870 as a joint venture of the Baptist and Methodist congregations of the town. Two hundred people turned out. By the 20th century, the Quincy Picnic was said to be one of the largest events of its kind in the state, if not the entire Midwest. Newspaper articles of the time touted crowd estimates that seem astounding: 1914: 10,000 1935: 13,000The Owen Leader – August 15, 1935

Notable people from Quincy

* Birch Evans Bayh, Sr., Indiana State University basketball coach and father of U.S. Senator Birch Evans Bayh II

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Owen County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana