At first glance, Clinton County’s Parkview Home is nothing more than an architectural curiosity just northeast of Frankfort. Look a little closer, though, and the institution becomes something more: a survivor of fire, a product of evolving ideas about public care, and one of the last remaining threads in a statewide system that has all but vanished.
The Clinton County Home traces its origins to 1864, when the board of supervisors purchased Joseph Baum’s 303-acre farm just northeast of Frankfort, Indiana1. Not long after, a substantial brick building was erected for $20,000. An 1865 map shows a kiln sitting just across what’s now Burlington Avenue2, and I wonder if the bricks were fired there.
The original county home lasted for fifty-four years before it met a sudden and dramatic end in a devastating fire. Remarkably, all forty-five residents -referred to at the time as “inmates, as was the norm3”- were safely rescued. The blaze caused an estimated $35,000 in damage4. In the immediate aftermath, those displaced found temporary shelter in an unlikely place: the county jail, where they stayed until new accommodations could be arranged5.
The present county home was completed in 1919. Designed by Lafayette architects Nicol & Dietz6, the $100,000 building7 features an eclectic mix of architecture. Its symmetry is indicative of Beaux Arts, its hipped roofs and central dormers are reminiscent of Four Square, its rafter tails and eaves come straight from Arts and Crafts, and its front porch is decidedly Neoclassical8.
Like many old infirmaries, Clinton County’s was designed in a triplex model that featured a central superintendent’s residence and office flanked my wings for men and women9. From the air, the building looks a little like a trident, or an H if you cut-and pasted half of it.
In 1923, officials from neighboring Tipton County made a trip to the Clinton County Infirmary looking for inspiration as they planned their own facility. What they found was a place built for about forty-eight residents but one that, at times, stretched to accommodate as many as seventy-five people under its roof10.
By 1976, the infirmary -by then known as Parkview11– was home to eleven women and fifteen men12. Today, the home has a capacity of forty-four residents and averages thirty each year. Aside from the historic home, the property also features a cattle barn, corn crib, granary, hog house, shed, and a garage that was once the old cell block13. Whoops! I forgot to grab a photo of that part. Believe it or not, the greater land is still a working farm rented out by the county.
Today, the Clinton County Infirmary -Parkview Home- isn’t just an interesting piece of architecture or a well-preserved county building. It’s part of a long, complicated continuum: a place where people at the margins of society were given a measure of dignity when options were few. The terminology has changed and the systems have evolved, but the underlying need hasn’t entirely gone away. As of this writing, Parkview is one of only five Indiana infirmaries still operated by county government.
Sources Cited
1 History of Clinton County, Indiana (1886). Inter-State Publishing Company [Chicago]. Book.
2 Warner, A. & Higgins, J. (1865). Map of Boone & Clinton counties, Indiana. Cowles & Titus [Philadelphia]. Map.
3 Asylum Burns; Inmates Saved (1918, April 10). The Indianapolis Star. p. 3.
4 (See footnote 2).
5 (See footnote 2).
6 Local Architects Awarded Contract (1918, May 31). The Lafayette Weekly Courier. p. 7.
7 Visited Infirmary (1923, September 10). The Tipton Daily Tribune. p. 1.
8 National Register of Historic Places, Parkview Home of Clinton County, Frankfort, Clinton County, Indiana, National Register # 100003179.
9 (See footnote 8).
10 (See footnote 7).
11 District Meeting Is Marked Success (1932, April 24). The Indianapolis Star. p. 43.
12 Meagher, P. S. (1976, February 9). Community cooperation bolsters Parkview morale. The Lafayete Journal and Courier. p. 9.
13 Clinton County Parkview Home (n.d.). Clinton County [Frankfort]. Web. Retrieved March 19, 2026.
Awesome building, and very interesting that it still operates. Are the residents here by choice, by necessity, or something else?
I think by choice and necessity. Here’s an article that sort of sums it up: https://clintoncountydailynews.com/parkview-home-one-of-just-nine-county-homes-still-standing-in-indiana/