West Lafayette, Indiana
city in Indiana, USA
West Lafayette ( LA(H)F-ee-ET) is a city in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States. The population was 44,595 at the 2020 census. West Lafayette sits across the Wabash River from its sister city, Lafayette, and is a college town, home to Purdue University. It is the most densely populated city in Indiana, located 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Indianapolis and 113 miles (182 km) southeast of Chicago.
History
Augustus Wylie laid out a town in 1836 in the Wabash River floodplain south of the present Levee. Due to regular flooding of the site, Wylie's town was never built. The present city was formed in 1888 by the merger of the adjacent suburban towns of Chauncey, Oakwood, and Kingston, located on a bluff across the Wabash River from Lafayette, Indiana. The three towns had been small suburban villages which were directly adjacent to one another. Kingston was laid out in 1855 by Jesse B. Lutz. Chauncey was platted in 1860 by the Chauncey family of Philadelphia, wealthy land speculators.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “West Lafayette, Indiana” as city in Indiana, USA. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as city in Indiana, USA. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q166481. VIAF identifies the subject as 127836496. The Library of Congress control number is n80028193. Authority coordinates are 40.442, -86.912. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1836, 1888 and 1855.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “West Lafayette, Indiana”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow West Lafayette, Indiana primary sources, West Lafayette, Indiana archive and West research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “West Lafayette, Indiana”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “West Lafayette, Indiana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.