The township frame, as its own series

1890–2020

Beside the town stands its township, and the township has a series of its own — longer in its swings, and ending in a decline the town did not share. The State of Indiana's official township table, republished from the census counts by the Indiana Business Research Center's STATS Indiana, gives Olive Township in full: 1890, 2,111; 1900, 1,998; 1910, 1,820; 1920, 1,836; 1930, 2,144; 1940, 2,427; 1950, 2,873; 1960, 3,406; 1970, 3,383; 1980, 3,418; 1990, 3,573; 2000, 3,914; 2010, 4,704; 2020, 4,364. Its eras invert the town's more than once. The farm township fell through the century's turn (2,111 to 1,820 by 1910, −13.8 percent) while the town held its plateau; it climbed steadily to 1960 (3,406) and then stood nearly still for thirty years (3,573 in 1990, +4.9 percent across three decades) while its children commuted; it rose hard to a 2010 peak of 4,704 (+31.7 percent across 1990–2010) — and then, in the last decade, it fell: 4,364 in 2020, −7.2 percent, a loss of 340 people in the same ten years when the town gained thirty. The arithmetic of the parts is printed as arithmetic: the township outside the town counted 2,843 in 2010 and 2,473 in 2020, so the decade's loss fell entirely on the township's open country. The town's share of its township has meanwhile doubled across the run — 28.8 percent in 1890 (607 of 2,111), 29.9 percent in 1900, 39.6 percent in 2010, 43.3 percent in 2020 (1,891 of 4,364) — the slow gravitational fact of the township's life: its people increasingly live inside its one town. Two disciplines close the article. The township's 57.5 square miles make its 2020 density 76.04 persons per square mile on the township reference record, a farm township's thinness against the town's density in the next articles. And the township's formation year — 1830 in its reference record, 6 May 1832 in Howard, the March term 1832 in the atlas — is a government-leg conflict that this section does not settle by citing a population table: the series prints from 1890, where the counting is clean, and the formation argument stands in the legs that own it.

Sources

1. STATS Indiana (Indiana Business Research Center, Indiana University), "Indiana Township Census Counts, 1890 to 2020" — the township series, read first-hand; the table's Elkhart County Olive Township row is a different township and is excluded by name.
2. Olive Township reference geography and record (USGS data; 2020 census) — the township's area, its 2020 count of 4,364, and its density.
3. U.S. Census Bureau, decennial censuses — the town's figures used in the share arithmetic.