Read time: 5 min.

Most of Indiana’s surviving county homes still look the part: they’re imposing brick structures where institutional origins are obvious at a glance. Crawford County’s is a different story: standing far back from Curby Road, the old poor farm appears to be an ordinary bungalow! It was tricky to track down, but the unassuming house has a real story to tell.

Crawford County was formed in 1818. Twenty years later, officials purchased land owned by a guy named Thomason¹ who offered it up as a permanent home for the poor. The land sat east of what’s now the Carefree area near I-64’s intersection with State Road 66². In 1841, E.E., Thomas, and N. Morgan built a home there for $360. It’s unclear to me whether this was that original building, but in 1860 the house was a double log home that wasn’t faring well. It featured broken window panes which residents sealed with rags, carpet scraps, and old clothes³.

A separate building for “the crazy people⁴,” measuring 14×20 feet, was erected in 1882⁵. Just five years later, officials decided to relocate the poor farm somewhere closer to the center of the county in 1887. To that end, they bought James Froman’s farm in Jennings Township for $5,500⁶. Interestingly, officials sold the old property back to Froman for $1000⁷!

A new county home was built on the 238.5-acre property in 1888⁸. That year, seventeen people -known as inmates, then- called the place home. More were on the way, so the main building was enlarged in the late 1890s⁹. I don’t know if what remains of the home represents the front¹⁰ or back¹¹ -the north or south sides- of the structure. Sources disagree. What I do know, however, is that the property grew to feature a wash house, a three-portal barn, a silo, a garage, and another brick outbuilding¹². Most of those structures are still visible from the road.

Unfortunately, thirty-five years took their toll on the operation. In 1923, an  inspection rated the building as a “disgrace,” reporting that “this grand jury knows as a body that the residence building is totally beyond repair and should be replaced at once by a good substantial building to house both superintendent and inmates as the present one is not or can not be made or kept in a sanitary condition.” Its nine residents, the report continued, would be in dire straits during a cold spell. “Their conditions are indeed bad in regard to proper housing as it is very unsanitary and should we have a severe winter they are liable to freeze to death¹³.”

I’ve not found any indication that conditions were ever improved, but the Crawford County Poor Farm was shuttered in 1946 after its remaining two or three residents were sent to the infirmary at Floyd County¹⁴. Officials’ first attempt at selling the property didn’t meet the bids they expected¹⁵, but the Laswell family bought it in 1947 to convert the place to a residence¹⁶. Today, 2,940-square-foot¹⁷ home is about half of its original size. Whether it was the front or rear that was removed, the salvaged materials were used to erect a pair of houses elsewhere¹⁸.

Today, what remains of the old Crawford County Home is unique among its Hoosier peers. For starters, the same family that purchased it nearly eighty years ago still owns it¹⁹! Next is that, unless you knew about its provenance already, you’d never guess that the bungalow was ever used for any institutional purpose. Finally, since it sits about two hundred feet back from the road between two rows of mature trees, it’s hard to use an iPhone camera without trespassing.

After nearly sixty years of housing some of Crawford County’s most vulnerable residents and eighty as an ordinary family home, I’m glad the old Crawford County Infirmary survives. There’s no sign out front to explain its history, and nothing about its appearance hints at the lives once lived inside. Tracking it down was tough! Still, that’s what makes places like this so fascinating to me. Many times, the most unassuming houses have the most extraordinary pasts.

Sources Cited
1 Pleasant, H.H. (1926). A History of Crawford County, Indiana. The Arthur H. Clark Company [Glendale]. Book.
2 Cable, L. (2007, February 28). Gone, but not forgotten. The Corydon Clarion News. p. 15.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Hassett, K. (2013, May). The County Home In Indiana: A Forgotten Response to Poverty and Disability. Ball State University [Muncie]. Thesis. Web. Retrieved November 9, 2026.
6 (See footnote 1).
7 (See footnote 2).
8 (See footnote 5).
9 (See footnote 2).
10 (See footnote 5).
11 (See footnote 2).
12 (See footnote 5).
13 Crawford County Poor Farm Rated As Being Disgrace (1923, October 16). The Indianapolis Star. p. 5.
14 Crawford Poor Farm Is Sold At Auction (1947, December 17). The Evansville Courier and Press. p. 4.
15 (See footnote 14).
16 (See footnote 5).
17 Parcel 13-11-09-202-001.000-003 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Crawford County [English]. Web. Retrieved November 9, 2026.
18 (See footnote 5).
19 (See footnote 17).