An 1826 treaty with the Indians ceded all of the Northwest portion of Indiana to the government, and established what is now Howard and Tipton Counties as the "Miami Reserve." From 1823 until 1838, the lands within the Reserve were purchased from the Indians, at which point the remaining residents of the Reserve were "escorted" to their new homes west of the Mississippi.

Tipton County was formed in 1844. It was organized and named after General John Tipton by an Act of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana on January 15, 1844, five years after Tipton's death. In 1847, the name of the county seat also became Tipton in his honor. Samuel King donated 100 acres of his property to the County for purposes of establishing a county seat. Pioneers discovered that the area was a harsh place to live, with lands covered in dense forest canopy and malarial swamps offering only sparse amounts of land near creek banks fit for farming. Efforts to clear woodlands and build roads was

History of Tipton County

Pioneers entering Tipton County during the early 1800's found that Indians from the Miami, Delaware and Pottowatomie tribes used the swampy prairies and hardwood forests of the area as a shared hunting ground. Although the Indians may well have resented the entry of white settlers into the area, there is no record of any battle between settlers and Native Americans having ever taken place on the soil of Tipton County.

The current Tipton County Courthouse, dedicated in October, 1894, was designed by well-known Indianapolis architect Adolph Sherrer, who also was the supervising architect for the new State Capitol building. Two previous courthouses served the county. The first was a 24x20 two-story log structure built in 1845 was used until it burned in 1857. County government and the courts convened in area churches and a nearby annex which had been built only six months prior to the fire. The second courthouse, a three-story brick structure built on the same site as the present structure, was completed in 1860. It served the county until 1892, when the brickwork was sold to pay for construction of the current courthouse.

The base of the current courthouse measures 92' by 125', standing 66' at the cornice of the main building. The clock tower towers above the surrounding buildings, rising majestically 206 feet from cornerstone to flagpole. The four-story structure contains 45 rooms, and cost $183,411.30 to complete. The Tipton County Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tipton County was the last county in Indiana to be settled due to its swampy nature. Early settlers moving through the state used to joke about buying Tipton County land by the gallon instead of by the acre. The county is so level that water refuses to leave unless coaxed by artificial drainage, which has now been generally accomplished. Geographically, it sits on a low plateau serving as a divider between the watersheds of the Wabash and the White Rivers. The first recognizable valuable resource in the county was the hardwood timber. The fertile soil and the abundance of water had grown immense trees. Large amounts of timber were wasted in clearing the land, but the mills that processed the wood for construction of buildings were contracted to provide the wood for the Indiana State Capitol Building and the Union Railroad Station in Indianapolis.