The census line

Decennial census returns as reached; instruments labelled

The decennial series, with each return's instrument stated and nothing merged: 1930, 777; 1940, 782; 1950, 984; 1960, 971; 1970, 895; 1980, 832; 1990, 706 — a town that peaked at mid-century and shrank slowly for forty years. The 1920 return, the town's first as an incorporated place, was not reached and stands as a named gap (the 1920 Census state volume's Indiana places table is its settler).

The 2000 census is printed in conflict, whole. The reference record's own historical table prints 1,809 for 2000 — a 156 percent jump printed against 706 in 1990 and 630 in 2010 — while the same record's text of the 2000 census states "there were 645 people (corrected count), 311 households, and 171 families residing in the town." The aggregators split along the same seam (one carries 1,809; another carries 644, a likely transcription variant of 645, not silently reconciled here). On internal evidence the tabulated 1,809 count carries a dormitory-age profile (two-thirds of the counted population aged 18–24, median age 21) irreconcilable with the town's series on either side, and the "corrected count" language shows a correction was made — and the explanation is now carried in this build: the county’s own 2002 Comprehensive Plan states the jump as "the erroneous inclusion of part of the University of Notre Dame’s married housing units in the Town," reported to the Census Bureau (rl-frm-landuse); the town’s own Census Questionnaire Resolution determination remains unfound, and the two counts stand unmerged. Against the corrected 645, the town's real modern course is near-stasis — 706, 645, 630 in 2010 (read from the 2010 Summary File 1 frame and independently carried in the town code's own population line) — then genuine growth to 854 in 2020, a rise no carrier reached explains either. The County Question Resolution file for the 2000 count and the Boundary and Annexation Survey records are the settlers for both questions, named in the note.