The town of Ogden, Indiana, sprung up around alignments of the old Central Railroad and the National Road. Laid out by Hiram Crum during the winter of 1828, the settlement was originally named Middletown in reference to its position roughly halfway between Richmond and Indianapolis. Another Middletown -also in Henry County- had already been platted, so Crum’s town was renamed to honor an engineer who helped construct the National Road through the area. In 1871, a two-story brick schoolhouse was built to serve the roughly 300 people¹ who lived there. It became Spiceland Township’s District 4 schoolhouse.