Civil Municipal Magazine Aug 2023

93 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 8 Connersville, said Strong, “is a real community, much like other towns in Indiana. We are in the northern half of the Whitewater Valley. You could consider this area in the Whitewater Valley as the cradle of European civilization in this state. Around 1800, settlers first started leaving Fort Washington, which is now Cincinnati, migrating up this river. They started populating the river valley here with villages. John Conner, founder of this community, started here with a trading post between his own private enterprise and the Indian population, in 1809. In 1813, he actually plotted a town that started to grow as settlers moved west. It remained basically a rural, agricultural area till after the Civil War. And then around the turn of the century, between 1900 and 1910, the area became more industrialized. You would not know it now, but Connersville became one of the premier industrial centers in this entire region. It produced a lot of manufactured products, including automobiles, and that lasted till the 1980’s.” Five examples of these Connersville made FAYET TE COUNT Y, IND. ARCHITECTURE + INTERIORS | CIVIL ENGINEERING | CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES | INVESTIGATIVE | IT SOLUTIONS LAND SURVEYING | PLANNING + ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING | TRANSPORTATION | UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE www.structurepoint.com