Heritage and Culture

If you want to know about Daviess County heritage and culture, it’s good to begin at the Daviess County Visitors Bureau, housed in a historic train depot that reflects the county’s dynamic heritage as a rail center.

In fact, you can see our heritage and culture in the architecture all across the county—in the graceful lines of St. Peter’s Church, built by one of the oldest Catholic dioceses in Indiana; in the stately presence of the Washington Carnegie Library, built at the turn of the 20th century; in the spare mortise-and-peg construction of the Gasthof Amish Village, where meticulously made crafts and quilts, the handiwork of skills passed from generation to generation, can be admired and collected.

You can feel it in the efforts of community volunteers working to preserve and rehabilitate the structures of Curran House and Celtic Hall, formerly St. Patrick’s Church, now part of the Corning Irish Heritage Center. You can hear it in the strains of Celtic music that fill the air at the center’s annual Irish picnic or in the cheers at games of the Chuck Harmon Little League, named in honor of the Daviess County native and trailblazer, the first African American to play for the Cincinnati Reds. You can taste it in melt-in-your-mouth Amish baked goods, in hearty taco de lenguas, in frosty cold root beers and footlong coneys.

Daviess County is a deeply and dynamically American county, which is to say a melting pot of cultures— Amish, Irish, Hispanic, Haitian. The county was formed in 1818 and many of its early citizens were German and Irish immigrants; today the county continues to welcome immigrants, even as it preserves its heritage in the historic architecture of 13 properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in traditions like the Old Settler’s Festival, one of the oldest festivals in Indiana.

When the Old Settler’s Festival debuted 135 years ago, the horse and buggy was the primary means of transportation; today the horse and buggy still has a place on our roads, fine horses are still prized, and abundant crops are our pride. We’ve taken care of the land and preserved it in naturally appealing recreational choices. 

We invite you to see, feel, and savor all of our heritage and cultures. Daviess County, in all its delicious diversity, is here for you.