Fountain (originally named Portland) 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 Shawnee Township, Fountain County,

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 ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The Wabash and Erie Canal formerly passed through the community.

History

Portland was laid out in April 1828 by surveyor William Miller, Barnard Preble and Major Whitlocke. Keep's store, an early trading point at Portland, supplied goods to people along a lengthy stretch of the Wabash River. Sandford C. Cox in ''Personal Recollections of Early Settlements'' writes that "powder, lead, salt, iron, whiskey and leather were the staples of the trade in those days, and were exchanged for the productions of the country, such as beeswax, tallow, feathers, ginseng, furs, deer-skins, wild hops, etc." Portland grew to include 11 stores, a hotel, six physicians, various craftsmen and a "considerable population." The post office Fountain once contained was called Portland from 1828 until 1868. The post office operated under the new name of Fountain from 1868 until it was discontinued in 1905.

Geography

Fountain is located on the southeastern banks of the

Wabash River The Wabash River () is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana, and a significant part of Illinois, in the United ...

, at an elevation of approximately 560 feet. To the south is Bear Creek, which joins the Wabash on the western edge of town, and the wooded Portland Arch Nature Preserve.

References

Unincorporated communities in Fountain County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana {{FountainCountyIN-geo-stub