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Terre Haute is the county seat of Vigo County and is located on the Wabash River.
The construction of Fort Harrison in 1811 marked the known beginning of a permanent population of European-Americans. A Wea Indian village already existed near the fort, and the orchards and meadows they kept a few miles south of the fort became the site of the present-day city. The village of Terre Haute, then a part of Knox County, Indiana, was platted in 1816.
Terre Haute became the county seat of newly formed Vigo County in 1818.
Early Terre Haute was a center of farming, milling and pork processing. However the business and industrial expansion of the city prior to 1860 developed largely thanks to transportation. The Wabash River, the building of the National Road (now US 40) and the Wabash and Erie Canal linked Terre Haute to the world and broadened the city's range of influence. The economy was based on iron and steel mills, hominy plants and, late in the 19th century, distilleries, breweries and bottle makers. Coal mines and coal operating companies developed to support the railroads, yet agriculture remained predominant, largely due to the role of corn in making alcoholic beverages and food items.
On the evening of Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, a major tornado struck Terre Haute at approximately 9:45 p.m. It demolished more than 300 homes, killed twenty-one people and injured 250. Damage to local businesses and industries was estimated at $1 million to $2 million (in 1913 dollars). Up to that time it was the deadliest tornado to hit Indiana. Heavy rains followed the tornado, causing the Wabash River to rise. By midday on Tuesday, March 25, West Terre Haute (Taylorville) was three-quarters submerged.
On Saturday June 16, 1923, and through to the following dawn, the largest Ku Klux Klan rally ever held in Indiana took place in Forest Park, five miles north of Terre Haute. A special train of eight coaches brought Klan members from Indianapolis, another came from Evansville and Vincennes, and another brought 1,000 Klansmen from Muncie. It was reported that Klansmen from throughout Indiana and many surrounding states attended, with an estimated crowd of 75,000. Proceeds from the rally were to build a $100,000 Klan home just north of Terre Haute. At 9:00 p.m. 5,000 robed Klansmen paraded through the city. On their return to the park six 30-foot tall crosses were burned. Fifteen hundred candidates were initiated into the Klan and 500 women joined the auxiliary.
Following the war, Terre Haute gained several new factories: Pfizer Chemical (1948), Allis-Chalmers (1951), Columbia Records (1954), and Anaconda Aluminum (1959). Yet, the face of downtown Terre Haute began to change in the late 1960s when Interstate 70 was built, passing through Vigo County about five miles south of the path of U.S. 40.
Most encouraging were the arrival of the Digital Audio Disc Corporation (DADC), a subsidiary of the global company, Sony, as the first American factory designed exclusively to make compact discs.
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