The Gibson County Courthouse is located at 101 North Main Street, Princeton, IN 47670. PhoneL Phone: 812-385-4885.
TOWNS
Gibson County [†], Indiana of which the town of Princeton is the seat, was organized in 1813, along with several other southwestern Indiana counties which were originally part of the older Knox County. It was named after General John Gibson, a Revolutionary War hero and Secretary of the Indiana Territory from 1800 to 1816. Princeton, in Patoka Township, was chosen as the county seat as early as 1814 and the land for the town surveyed in the same year. It was named after William Prince, one of four county commissioners at the time, who won the honor through casting lots.
Part of the county had been surveyed as early as 1794 and 1802, with the lands thus platted given to veterans of the Indiana Wars. The first settlers may have arrived as early as 1789, locating around the Patoka River in the north central part of the county. Rivers formed the earliest transportation links, and the first road connected ferries on the White River and the Patoka. 3 Settlement of the area in the first half of the nineteenth century was gradual, but began to accelerate with the advent of the railroads in the 1850s. As with many towns in the midwest, the growth of such links, spurred agricultural and commercial expansion. It was this later era of development, which would create the climate of economic expansion, out of which would emerge the Welborn-Ross home and other similar structures in Princeton. The town of Princeton was influenced by several railroad lines which ran through it and enjoyed the benefits of railroad shops, built between 1891-1894, which by 1914 employed 350 people.
Adapted from: CamiUe R. Fife, Thomas W. Salmnn II, Wellborn-Ross Home, nomination document, 1995, National Register of Historic Places, Washigton, D.C.