Located in New Albany at State & Main Streets, the Scribner House is the oldest surviving building of any kind in New Albany. It was built in 1814 by Joel Scribner, one of the city's founders, and was the first frame house built in the brand new river town.
The Scribner House has served as the home of New Albany's first Chamber of Commerce, as it were, when Joel Scribner and his brothers early advertised their new town in newspapers as far away as Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. One ad began "The town, just laid out with spacious streets, public square, market, etc., is situated on the banks of the Ohio River at the crossing place from Louisville to Vincennes, about two miles below the Falls, in the Indiana Territory, affords a beautiful and commodious harbor." Then, as now, the advertising paid off, because within only a few years of its founding, New Albany was the largest city in the state from 1850s-1870s.