Fountain County Landlord Guide: The Wabash River Valley, WPA Courthouse Murals, and Indiana’s Quiet Agricultural West
Fountain County is one of those Indiana counties that rewards attention disproportionate to its size. With a population of 16,500 and a county seat of 2,700, it registers as a minor player by Indiana’s standards — smaller than a single neighborhood in Indianapolis. But it has accumulated a remarkable set of assets and distinctions over two centuries: a courthouse whose interior walls are blanketed with 2,500 square feet of New Deal-era murals painted by some of Indiana’s most accomplished artists; a western border defined by one of the most historically significant rivers in the American Midwest; Portland Arch Nature Preserve, one of Indiana’s hidden geological gems; and a community character shaped by generations of farm families who have worked the same Wabash valley land since the 1820s. The rental market reflects this character — thin, predominantly owner-occupied, quietly stable, and oriented around the needs of an agricultural economy and its service sector workforce.
The Fountain County Courthouse Murals
The Fountain County Courthouse at 301 4th Street in Covington is the administrative and judicial center of the county and one of its most architecturally significant structures. Built in 1936–1937 as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression, the courthouse served as a canvas for an extraordinary public art project: the painting of 2,500 square feet of interior wall murals by Eugene Francis Savage, a Yale School of Fine Arts professor who was among the most prominent American muralists of his era, and a team of artists who worked from 1937 to 1940 to complete the project.
The murals depict scenes from the settlement of western Indiana — Native American life, early European exploration, canal construction, frontier farming, and the emergence of Indiana communities from wilderness. They are among the finest examples of New Deal-era public art in Indiana and rival the murals in much larger government buildings in Indiana’s larger cities. The courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as are several other Covington structures including the Carnegie Library and the Covington Courthouse Square Historic District.
Covington and the Wabash River
Covington sits along the Wabash River at the point where US Route 136 crosses into Illinois, giving the city a natural gateway character. The Wabash is one of Indiana’s defining geographic features — it forms the state’s western border with Illinois for much of its lower reaches — and has shaped the history of every community along its banks. The river was the route of the Wabash and Erie Canal, completed through Fountain County in 1846, which connected the county to Cincinnati and the Ohio River trading system and created the commercial infrastructure that supported Covington’s early growth. Canal traffic through the county continued until 1875, when the railroads had fully supplanted water-borne freight.
Today the Wabash serves recreational rather than commercial functions — fishing, boating, and riverfront walking along the Covington City Park. But it also brings periodic flood risk to riverside properties. The river has a documented history of significant flood events that have affected Covington and Attica, and properties in the river floodplain require appropriate disclosure under IC 32-31-1-21 and should carry flood insurance if indicated by FEMA flood zone mapping.
Attica and the Northern County
Attica, in the northeastern part of Fountain County, is the county’s second-largest community with approximately 3,200 residents. Like Covington, it sits along the Wabash River and developed along the canal and rail transportation corridors of the 19th century. Attica has its own historic commercial character and is approximately 30 miles southwest of Lafayette, placing it within commuting range of Purdue University and the Tippecanoe County employment base for workers who prefer rural living at lower housing costs.
The Attica City Court handles minor ordinance and traffic matters within Attica. Evictions and civil matters are filed at the county level in Fountain Circuit Court in Covington regardless of whether the property is in Attica or elsewhere in the county.
Portland Arch Nature Preserve
Portland Arch Nature Preserve, managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources near Fountain, is one of Indiana’s geological curiosities — a natural sandstone arch carved by Bear Creek over millennia, set in a deeply incised creek valley with exposed bedrock, overhanging cliffs, and old-growth forest. The preserve is designated a State Nature Preserve for its unusual geology and plant communities, and it attracts hikers, photographers, and naturalists who want to see an Indiana landscape that looks nothing like the flat agricultural terrain most of the state is known for.
For the rental market, Portland Arch is a quality-of-life amenity that gives Fountain County a recreational identity beyond agriculture. It attracts visitors from Tippecanoe County and the broader Wabash Valley region and contributes to the county’s appeal for people who actively choose rural Indiana living for access to natural spaces.
The Rental Market: Thin but Consistent
Fountain County’s rental market is one of Indiana’s thinnest by total unit count. The county is overwhelmingly owner-occupied — agricultural counties with stable family farm ownership patterns tend to have very low renter shares — and the total pool of rental housing in Covington and Attica is modest. For landlords, this thinness has two implications. First, well-maintained rental properties experience very low vacancy because the alternatives for renters are few. Second, the tenant pool is drawn from a narrow income band — service workers, healthcare employees at the county’s medical facilities, county government workers, and agricultural employees who rent rather than own.
Rents in Fountain County are among Indiana’s most affordable, reflecting the county’s rural wage structure and limited new construction. This affordability makes Fountain County attractive to renters priced out of Lafayette or Crawfordsville who are willing to commute. Interstate 74 passes just south of Covington, providing connection to Crawfordsville and Indianapolis to the east and access to Illinois markets to the west — meaning the county’s geographic position is better than its population size might suggest for commuter-dependent housing demand.
Fountain Circuit Court
All Fountain County evictions are filed in Fountain Circuit Court at 301 4th Street, Covington, IN 47932. The court can be reached at (765) 793-2192. Standard court hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm. Fountain County has a single Circuit Court that handles all civil and criminal matters including evictions. The small county docket means cases typically move without significant delay. An uncontested eviction from properly served 10-day notice through Writ of Assistance typically resolves in 30 to 60 days. The eviction process follows Indiana’s standard IC 32-31 framework with no grace period for nonpayment — the 10-day notice clock begins running from service.
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