[2] On February 7, 1835, the Indiana State Legislature passed an omnibus bill[3] that authorized the creation of thirteen counties in northeast Indiana on previously unorganized land (including the recent Wabash New Purchase).

[5] It was named for General Johann de Kalb, a Continental Army officer from Bavaria, who was killed at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina.

[6][7] The first settlers in the future DeKalb County were from New England, settling what was then known as the Northwest Territory.[where?

][citation needed] These people were "Yankee" migrants, descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the colonial era.

[8] In the 1870s immigrants from Ireland and Germany began arriving in DeKalb County, in large numbers.

[12] Its highest point (1,060 feet/320 meters ASL) is a small rise in the NW portion of the county, 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Fairfield Center.

The commissioners also function as the county drainage board, exercising control over the construction and maintenance of legal drains.

Each officer is elected to a four-year term of four years and oversees a different part of county government.

[17] DeKalb County is part of Indiana's 3rd congressional district and in 2008 was represented by Mark Souder in the United States Congress.