In Miss Ann Conklin’s recollections of Sidney in the early years after it was platted, "[a building] was owned by a man named Beatty, whose principal occupation seems to have been the selling of the roughly distilled whiskey made in the vicinity. Such as it was, it was eagerly drank by the Indians, of whom there were then plenty, on their way to and from the office of the agent, Johnston, at Piqua. One hundred, or more, on their ponies, in all their savage trappings, was no unusual sight in Sidney in those days."

Another Sidney newspaper column [undated] written by Blanche Gearhart on the ‘Early History of Sidney’ stated that "an old fort stood on Main street near the present site of the Catholic church. Twenty-five or thirty men were stationed there as protection against the Indians. There were two tribes of Indians near Sidney, the Delawares and the Potawataines. The Delawares were friendly to the whites but the Potawataines were war-like."

According to the ‘Memoirs of the Miami Valley’, "Up until the final removal of the Shawnee in 1831-1832, the Indians were in almost constant visitation at Sidney. The wares in the stores attracted them, and the white population was a continuous source of mild curiosity. They brought their native products to market, to exchange for those of the white man. They also traded much of their native good quality for the white man’s firewater.

Altogether, they were not troublesome in the same degree with many of the settlers, whose peccadilloes are recorded in the criminal court archives,—although their trading propensity required constant watchfulness on the part of the villagers. The curiosity of the Indians for the whites included a fascination for their babies, whom they coveted as novelties..."

In a "Sidney Daily News" article penned for the Bicentennial Edition by Clarence Raterman, based on the number of bones and arrowheads discovered, ‘it is evident that Shelby County was home to a number of Indians’. Some findings he cited include: