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County books as read in Pass R-2; Polk Indiana Gazetteer 1916–17, read first-hand
Before 1916 the corridor ground held farms, and its one trade stood off the road. The townsite section was Menzo Webster's farm from 1834; the township's single industry, the Sheffield and then Siders flouring mill, stood on the section's river side on its creek, and Stephen Ulery's carding mill worked the same stream where it crossed the Niles road north of Notre Dame — the one point where the county histories fix the old road's course in this ground. That economy is the deep-history pass's, carried whole in the before-the-city file. Of trade on the road itself before incorporation the record reached says nothing, and the state's standard directory confirms the silence at its own strength: the Polk Indiana Gazetteer for 1916–17, the incorporation era, prints no Roseland entry at all — its alphabetical run passes from Rosedale (Parke County) to Roselawn (Newton County, a different place, printed as a trap in the businesses file) to Rosewood and Ross. The town's commerce begins with the town.