Putnam County Museum

Museum History:  In the late 1990s the Putnam County Historical Society sought a permanent home for the collection, preservation and protection of artifacts and stories relating to Putnam County and its people. Public meetings were held in concert with Main Street Greencastle, the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and interested community members.

In 2002, the Putnam County Board of Commissioners helped secure a location. Volunteers formed a board of directors, elected officers, wrote policies, procedures, and by-laws. With the Putnam County Community Foundation's grant of $20,000 and $10,000 in community contributions, the Museum hired its first director in January 2003.

The Museum's first home was two rooms in the old Jones School, now the Putnam County Courthouse Annex.

In 2006 the Museum made a major move to its present location on North Jackson Street. Once again, the community stepped up with extraordinary support. It provided financial assistance as well as volunteer labor. In-kind donations provided much of the skilled labor and materials necessary to convert the large, empty space to an attractive and functional museum.

Over the last several years, the Museum has continued to expand its collection and provide diverse and quality exhibits. As an increasingly vital part of its community, the Museum also provides group meeting space and educational programs for adults and children. It strives to be a cultural hub dedicated to preserving and honoring the past while promoting activities that bridge generations to the present.

About Putnam County: Located in west-central Indiana, Putnam County was established in 1822. Its rural midwestern character has been largely preserved. Typical of the region, the county's landscape includes vast fields, woodland, flat prairie, rolling hills, and farms of crops and livestock. Numerous covered and iron bridges and a half dozen crossroad villages are reminders of the county's agrarian roots. About one third of the county's population of 38,000 lives in the county seat, Greencastle, with a downtown anchored by the 1903 courthouse at the center of an intact commercial square.

Greencastle is home to several historic landmarks: DePauw University, founded in 1837 as Indiana Asbury University; Central National Bank, victim of John Dillinger's biggest heist in 1933, and the site of Eli Lilly's first pharmacy (1861). Greencastle is also where William H. Herndon wrote the first ever biography of Abraham Lincoln, Herndon's Lincoln, in 1887.