The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Government · Two Plats, Three Petitions, and a Five-Member Council
Every roster in this section is stated as of November 11, 2026, the date of verification; officeholders chosen on November 3, 2026, who take their seats on January 1, 2027, are printed as transitions with the date they take office, never as the holders of November 2026. Where the record gives two versions of a fact, both print.
The frame: an incorporated town under Indiana town law
THE FRAME, AS OF NOVEMBER 11, 2026
Walkerton governs itself from a single building: the Municipal Building at 301 Michigan Street, which holds the town council's chamber, the clerk-treasurer's office, and the Walkerton Town Court, with the police department…
Incorporation: two plats, three petitions, one town — June 8, 1877
WEST TROY PLATTED DECEMBER 14, 1854 · WALKERTON PLATTED JUNE 20, 1856 · INCORPORATED JUNE 8, 1877
Walkerton began as two towns on adjoining ground and became one government on the third attempt. Timothy Edward Howard's county history of 1907, read first-hand for this section, lays out the plats: West Troy was platted December…
The council: five seats, four wards and the town at large
WARD ORDINANCE DECEMBER 1982 · RESTATED BY ORDINANCE 2002-08, SEPTEMBER 3, 2002 · THE PRESIDENCY ANCHORED 2015–2019 BY THE STATE AUDIT
Walkerton's council is a five-member body, and its shape is written in the town code. Section 11.01 of the Walkerton Town Code fixes five members, elected — as Indiana Code 36-5-2-5 permits — both by ward and at large by the…
The current seats, as of November 11, 2026
VERIFIED AGAINST THE TOWN'S OWN GOVERNMENT PAGE, CRAWLED OCTOBER 2, 2026, AND THE CLERK'S 2026 ELECTION RECORD
The council that sits in November 2026 is in the third year of its term, and one of its seats is already decided against its holder. The town's government page lists the five members: Gene Reese, President; Jeffrey Fansler, Vice…
The clerk-treasurer: Terri Buckmaster, in office since 2012
THE STATE AUDIT'S LINE FROM JANUARY 1, 2012 · THE CURRENT HOLDER ON THE TOWN'S OWN PAGE
The clerk-treasurer's office is the one seat in Walkerton's government whose line the State's paper carries unbroken into the present term. The State Board of Accounts' 2015 supplemental compliance report names the…
The 2026 elections: a president unseated in May, a ballot restored by a judge in September
PRIMARY MAY 5, 2026 · GENERAL NOVEMBER 3, 2026 · FIGURES FROM THE CLERK'S OFFICIAL PRECINCT SUMMARY
Walkerton's town elections ran on the even-year cycle in 2026, and the cycle rewrote the council. Four Republicans filed for the town's seats by February 6, 2026: Gene Reese, Robert Payne, Timothy Lindewald, and Rick Coffman. On…
Police: a town department in the Municipal Building, Chief Matthew Schalliol
THE DEPARTMENT AS OF NOVEMBER 11, 2026 · THE CHIEF'S LINE ANCHORED 2005–2026
Walkerton keeps its own police department, officed in the Municipal Building with its entrance on Illinois Street, and dispatched around the clock at 574-586-3511 — the same number that takes the town's fire, ambulance, and…
Fire: the Walkerton Lincoln Fire Protection Territory, since July 1, 2010
TERRITORY ESTABLISHED BY RESOLUTION 2010-1 · TOWN CODE § 30.078 · THE TOWN AS PROVIDER UNIT
The territory test comes back positive, and in the town's own code: Walkerton is not served by a town fire department alone, nor by a township department — since 2010 it has been the provider unit of a fire protection territory.…
The town court: an active court, two named judges, and a public admonition
301 MICHIGAN STREET · THE JUDGES OF RECORD, 1995–2019 · THE CURRENT JUDGE A NAMED GAP
Walkerton keeps one of Indiana's remaining town courts, and it is active: the Indiana Judicial Branch lists the Walkerton Town Court at 301 Michigan Street, phone 574-586-2340, and the county prosecutor's office publishes a…
Town hall, departments, and the municipal utilities
MUNICIPAL WATER AND ELECTRIC SINCE BEFORE 1907 · THE ADMINISTRATOR'S NAME A NAMED GAP
Walkerton was a utility town before it was much else: Howard's 1907 history already records the town owning and operating its own water works and its own electric light plant, and the municipal frame has held — the town still…
Lincoln Township and the county seats
LINCOLN TOWNSHIP FORMED JUNE 7, 1866 · THE 2026–2027 TRANSITIONS AS OF NOVEMBER 11, 2026
The township around the town is older than the town's government and quieter: Lincoln Township was formed out of Liberty Township by the county board's order of June 7, 1866, and Howard records its boundaries unchanged from that…
Government: Open Questions
EACH GAP WITH ITS SETTLING SOURCE · AS OF NOVEMBER 11, 2026
The gaps are part of the record, and they are printed where a reader will look for the fact: GAP-WKGOV-1 — the November 3, 2026 result for Walkerton Town Council Ward 2, Christy Donlon (D) against Rick Coffman (R); settled by the…
The council-president line: the anchors dug, the line standing
GOV-2 / PEO-3 MIXED · THE STATE BOARD OF ACCOUNTS' SCHEDULES
The checklist asks for the council's presidents from 1877 to the present; the record this section reached supplies the modern anchors and names the archive that holds the rest. The anchors, at audit strength: Karol S. Jackson…
The ward structure, from the town's own code
GOV-2 SUPPORTING · THE CODIFIED ORDINANCES
The body the presidents preside over is fixed in the town's codified ordinances: a council of five, elected by ward and at large. Section 11.01 of the Walkerton code (2005 Code §§ 12.01–12.08; ordinance lineage from December 1982, amended by Ordinance 2002-08 of September 3, 2002) provides that the Town Council consists of five members; that members are elected both by ward and at large by the voters of the whole town under IC 36-5-2-5; and that the town is divided into wards for council elections, with the fifth seat at large — "All of the Town falling within the Town limits."
Principal sources: Town of Walkerton codified ordinances, § 11.01 WARDS (American Legal Publishing code library, read November 2026).
Lincoln Township: erection and first officers, 1866–1880
GOV SUPPORTING DUG · CHAPMAN (1880)
Under the town stands the township, and Chapman prints its birth certificate: Lincoln Township was detached from Liberty Township in June 1866, on petition, and named for the martyred president the year after his death. Wm. A.…
The founding-era fight, if any: the incorporation course carries no money, no draft, and no violence
ITEM 2 · THE 1873–77 DOCKET READ AS A FIGHT RECORD — THE TEST AND ITS RESULT
The checklist's founding-fight item looks for the era's characteristic contests — the town-site money fight, the draft fight, the courthouse fight — and for Walkerton the search begins where Government's spine already stands: the…
The covenant test: run as a test — and closed as a named gap, its settler the deed books
ITEM 4 · THE EXCLUSION TEST REQUIRES A DEED-LEVEL READ THIS SEAT DID NOT PERFORM
The checklist's hardest item asks whether the town's plats and deeds carried exclusion covenants — the racial and religious restrictions the twentieth century wrote into American ground — and it is an item this build answers with…
The beloved building, and the city-hall question: no demolition fight, no refused referendum, documented
ITEMS 6–7 · TESTED AGAINST THE MINUTES AND THE PRESS RECORD AS REACHED
Two of the checklist's fight classes presuppose a contested building — the beloved structure fought over, the city hall the voters refused — and for Walkerton both tests return negatives at the record's strength. The beloved…
The money fights, by class: the defalcation is a crime-file fact; the classic classes test blank
ITEM 8 · EACH CLASS NAMED AND TESTED; THE ONE BANKED OFFICIAL-FINDING CASE PRINTED AT ITS SIZE
The checklist enumerates the money fights a town can have — and the run reports Walkerton's by class, because the class with a member and the classes without one are equally the finding. Pay-to-play contracting: no allegation…
The textbook-fee suits: none against this corporation stands in the court record searched
ITEM 9 · INDIANA'S TEXTBOOK LITIGATION IS REAL — ITS DEFENDANTS ARE OTHER CORPORATIONS
Indiana's textbook-fee fights are a genuine chapter of the state's school law — parents suing corporations over rental fees, the cases climbing to the state supreme court across the decades — and the test for this ground is…
The closing negatives: the name never fought, and the fights the record does not carry
ITEM 10 · THE RECORD'S OWN CLOSE, RUN AS ORDERED
The checklist closes the leg with two questions — was the name ever fought, and which of the era's stock fights does this town's record simply not carry — and Walkerton's answers are of a piece with this section. The name…
The bucket and volunteer era: no company named in any record read — and the instruments now fixed
ITEM 1 · MIXED — THE ERA'S FRAME STANDS; THE COMPANIES REMAIN A NAMED GAP, ITS SETTLER SHARPENED
Every Indiana town of Walkerton's vintage organized fire protection the same way — bucket brigades, then a volunteer company with a charter, a hand engine or a hose cart, and a rivalry — and the branch's first test asks for this…
The department before the territory: organizing date unfound, the stations roster at its true size
ITEM 2 · THE MODERN END EXACT AND BANKED; THE EARLY COURSE A NAMED GAP WITH THE SANBORN SETTLER
No organizing date for a paid or municipal department before 2010 stands in any record reached: no ordinance, minute, or directory line reached names the year the town's volunteers became a department, the chiefs who preceded the…
The great fires, from the firemen's side: the two fires the record keeps, and what their department-side telling waits on
ITEM 3 · THE VICTIMS' SIDE BANKED WHOLE; THE DEPARTMENT'S SIDE A NAMED GAP WITH ITS SETTLER
Walkerton's fire history, as banked, is told entirely from the losing side — what burned, whose it was, what it cost — and the branch's test asks for one fire told by the men who fought it; the two fires the record keeps frame…
The fallen named: the fire-service roll tested against the memorial record
ITEM 4 · TESTED NOVEMBER 2026 — NO WALKERTON NAME ON THE ROLLS REACHED
Crime & Public Safety prints the police test whole — no Walkerton officer appears on the Officer Down Memorial Page or the Indiana memorial rolls as searched. For the fire service, the instruments are the state's own: the Indiana…
Police and ambulance in the same file: the succession the record lost, the service the territory built
ITEM 5 · THE LOSS PRINTED, NOT FILLED; BOTH DEPARTMENTS AS THEY STAND, DATED
The branch closes by joining the two uniforms: the police course, whose early succession the record has lost and says so, and the ambulance course, which runs from no service at all to an EMS division carrying most of the…