Garrett Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

From the record

“The Garrett Historic District is a national historic district located at Garrett, Indiana. It is roughly the area bound by Railroad Street on the North, Britton Street on the East, Hamsher Street on the West and Warfield Street on the South with Randolph Street extending to 3rd Ave. to the South.”
Wikipedia article Garrett Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 29 National Register listings published here for DeKalb County · listed in 1983 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by Railroad, Britton, Warfield and Hamsher Sts., and 3rd Ave., Garrett, 46738
When was it listed? May 1983
Category. district
Also known as. Keyser Township MRA
Township. Keyser township
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 83000121 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

2,823 words

The chapter on Keyser Township in History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914 names Garrett. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Keyser owes its organization to the construction of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, which led up to the founding of the town of Garrett on the line between Richland and Butler townships. To avoid having the new town in two townships, the board of commissioners formed a new township at their June term, 1876, when it was "ordered, directed and decreed by the board that the territory bounded by a line commencing at the northeast cor- ner of section 25, township 34 north, range 12 east, and running from thence west on the north line of sections 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30, to the west Hne of said township of Richland ; thence south to the west line of said township 33 north, range 12 east, to the southwest corner of section 7 in Butler township; thence east on the south line of sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, to the east line of said township; thence north along the east line of said township to the place of beginning, shall be known by the name and style of Keyser township."

Passage source: History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914.

The town of Garrett was laid out by Beverly L. Randolph, son of James L. Randolph, chief engineer for the Baltimore & Ohio. The original plat of Garrett was recorded at Auburn on April 9, 1875, and named Garrett in honor of John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. The first lot was sold on the 13th day of April, 1875, to Nathan Tarney, which was lot No. I in Block No. 18, although previous to this date O. C. Clark had contracted for lots on the southwest comer of King and Randolph streets, where Reyher's dry goods store and Hershberger's grocery stores are situated. O. C. Clark built the first house in Garrett in April, 1875, now owned and occupied by the Reyher drug store. The building was first occupied in 1875 by the Lancaster brothers as a dry goods store. The first postoffice Avas also in this building, on the second floor, and A. W. Pratt was the first postmaster. He appointed T. G. Baylor assistant to hand out the mail, as he was engaged in engineering the construction of the Baltimore & Ohio shops.

Passage source: History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Keyser Township - 2,823 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

6 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Garrett Historic District between 2002 and 2004, burning about 7 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 July 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
27 April 2004	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
16 April 2003	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
11 March 2002	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
16 February 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
12 November 2004	Recreation and ceremony	4.0 acres	Indiana State Fire Marshal's Office	not named

Every fire recorded in DeKalb County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Garrett Historic District: 5 producers, 2 past producers, 1 prospect. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Auburn Sand Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Fedrick Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Prospect
Hixon Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Indian Springs Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Lampe Sand Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Scott Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Sheets Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Steward Property	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Storms near this property

13 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Garrett, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1999 and 2021: 10 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	$10,000	Numerous trees and power lines were blown down.
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	$5,000	Mobile home blown off foundation. Roof damage to some homes.
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	$2,000	Several power lines and tree limbs were blown down.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	The public reported a tree down in the roadway.
May 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	A trained spotter reported a one to two foot diameter tree branch as well as a sign were blown down near the intersection of County Road 15 and Highway 8.
July 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	A large sycamore tree was snapped off about 25 feet off the ground. Large branches in the area were also blown down.
May 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	Law enforcement reported trees down in Garrett.
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	Law enforcement reported trees down south of Garrett.
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	Several trees down.
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Garrett	-	Several trees blown down.
May 2018	Hail	Garrett	-	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Garrett	-	no account filed
June 2000	Hail	Garrett	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in DeKalb County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Mountz House	0.3 miles	1979
Garrett Community Mausoleum	0.4 miles	2014
Samuel Bevier House	0.8 miles	1983
Henry Peters House	0.9 miles	1983
John Wilderson House	0.9 miles	1983
Keyser Township School 8	1.0 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83000121 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
DeKalb County	All 29 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.