The Randolph County town of Buena Vista was first recorded in 1851. Its first store was established three years later and, by 1882, the community was home to two stores, a smithy, a saw mill, a tile factory, a wagon shop, a church, a post office, fifteen houses, and seventy-five people1. The post office was known as Cerro Gordo2.
In 1865, the Buena Vista schoolhouse -West River Township’s District 2 building- sat on land owned by Robert Sumner Starbuck on the east side of what’s now South County Road 500-West just south of Farquiner Ditch3. The schoolhouse closed in 1906, and Buena Vista dried up shortly afterwards.
After the schoolhouse was sold in 1908, it was moved about a mile south to the Clyde Hunt farm so it could be used as a barn4. It was hard to track down, but I found it! It still stands there today.
Sources Cited
1 Tucker, E. (1882). History of Randolph County, Indiana. book. Chicago, IL; A.L. Kingman.
2 Greene, D. (1965, January 30). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.
3 Warner, C.S (1865). 1865 Wall-Map of Randolph County. C.A.O. McClellan & C.S. Warner. Waterloo, Indiana. map.
4 Hinshaw, G. (2008). A History of Education in Randolph County, Indiana. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
