When Boone County was created in 1869, Harrison became the county seat.  Originally called Crooked Creek, the name was changed when Captain Henry W. Fick asked civil engineer M. LaRue Harrison, both former Union soldiers, to survey the town.  Fick was Harrison’s postmaster and developed many business interests in the pro-Union, pro-Republican town.

A few years later folks petitioned to move the county seat to Bellefonte, a long-established community that had supported the Confederacy.  Worried about losing business in Harrison, Fick found like-minded former Confederates to help him campaign. It was a close vote, but the seat stayed in Harrison.  Residents’ fears of violence from the losing side came to nothing.