One of the items in the Fort Branch Public Library’s local history collection is a handwritten account from Albert Strain (1844-1932), son of Rev. Thomas M. Strain and Mary LaGrange Strain, describing early Fort Branch.
(Photo from the first page of four written by Albert Strain describing early Fort Branch.)
A transcribed excerpt from page one: “I was a boy of eight years old when my eyes first greeted the location where Fort Branch, now a beautiful city, exists. My father, previously a Baptist Minister, owned a farm upon which we lived southwest of Princeton, at which early date, 1851, very fiew lands in Gibson County were cultivated. Father seen his opportunity—when the building of the Evansville & Terre Haute Rail Road was planned—and under construction as far out as the land owned by Aron Legrange, now Fort Branch, he sold his farm & bought 7 acres, all the then cleared land of Legrange east of the Rail Road line. When this Road had reached this point father built the first store with a platform reaching to the Rail road, opposite to where the lumber yard now stands. This platform was called Strain’s Station by the Rail road company. A Post Office was later established. The government gave it the name of Lagrange—on account of several other offices having this name—a committee presented the name of the Everflowing Branch upon whose bluff just East of where George Simmonds residence now stands. The early settlers builded a Fort to protect themselves from Indians, & ever after this little brooklet was known as Fort Branch, hence the change and Legrange went into Washington & came out Fort Branch.”