Darwin was the Clark County seat from 1823 to 1838. The County Courthouse stood one block south from 1819 to 1823. Before Darwin became the county seat, Aurora, once located two miles north, held that role. Two blocks east stood the Darwin Steamboat Landing on the Wabash River, and the Darwin Ferry, established in 1818, still operates just south of the landing. River traffic once made Darwin the leading distributing point for towns as far as sixty miles away.