Early man and many Indian tribes roamed this part of the Wabash Valley before the thriving trading post of Keth-tip-pe-can-nunk was established in the eighteenth century. Known to many as “Tippecanoe”, the village thrived until 1791, when it was razed in an attempt to scatter the Indians and open the land to the new white settlers.
Seventeen years later a new Indian village was established on or near the old Keth-tip-pe-can-nunk site at the Wabash/Tippecanoe River junction. Known as “Prophet’s Town”, this village was destined to become the capitol of a great Indian confederacy — their equivalent to Washington, D.C.
The town was founded in May, 1808, when two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (the Prophet), left their native Ohio after being permitted to settle on these Potawatomi and Kickapoo-held lands.