Founded originally as Farmington Academy in the southwest part of town, in 1858 Joseph Baldwin opened the Indiana Normal. This was Indiana's first Normal school and the fifth in the United States.
Here at Chief Winamac's old village, about 900 Potawatomi Indians camped on their forced removal from Indiana to Kansas. A child and a man died here during the encampment. They also left behind 24 too sick to continue.