The Main Street Historic District developed circa 1844–1920 across just 9 acres and 37 contributing buildings, and the Courthouse Square district circa 1865–1960 over 70 acres — those blocks hold the town's oldest and largest trees on narrow lots with sidewalks on both sides. Danville does actively manage its right-of-way canopy through a standing Tree Advisory Committee, though the specific inventory and replanting-ratio requirements attributed to Chapter 97 could not be verified. That context matters for ash (green and white ash): emerald ash borer has been confirmed in all 92 indiana counties since 2017, so the question on a central indiana ash is almost never whether to save it — the untreated ones are already dead or dying and only trees on an active systemic treatment program are still viable. Removing an ash (green and white ash) around Danville runs roughly $400–$1,900, and in Danville Main Street Historic District and Danville Courthouse Square Historic District access is usually what decides where in that range you land.
What's actually growing in Danville
The Main Street Historic District developed circa 1844–1920 across just 9 acres and 37 contributing buildings, and the Courthouse Square district circa 1865–1960 over 70 acres — those blocks hold the town's oldest and largest trees on narrow lots with sidewalks on both sides. Danville does actively manage its right-of-way canopy through a standing Tree Advisory Committee, though the specific inventory and replanting-ratio requirements attributed to Chapter 97 could not be verified.
Danville's housing stock, and what it means for tree size
Middle-aged and trending newer: Census ACS figures reproduced in regional planning data show 66.7 percent of Danville's units predate 2000, 24.4 percent were built between 2000 and 2013, and 8.9 percent in 2014 or later, with the town's 2021 comprehensive plan counting over 4,100 housing units and more than 500 added since 2010. The result is a genuinely old core around the courthouse square with 1840s–1920s houses and century-old street trees, ringed by subdivisions whose trees are 10 to 25 years old.
What's specific to ash (green and white ash)
EAB reached all 92 Indiana counties by 2017 and state projections put eventual ash losses near 95%. Ash was heavily planted here — a 2008 Indiana DNR street tree study put white ash in Indianapolis's top five street species at about 4.9% — so neighborhoods platted from the 1970s through the 1990s still have standing dead ash on the tree lawn.
Hendricks County (county seat) County rules
No permit is required to remove a tree on private property in Danville. Beyond that, the town's Chapter 97 tree code could not be verified from a retrievable source: what danvillein.gov does confirm is that a three-member Tree Advisory Committee exists to encourage the planting, care and preservation of trees in the public right-of-way. Chapter 97 is reported to require written permission from that committee and the Staff Project Coordinator before removing, or trimming more than one-fifth of, any right-of-way tree, on a free 30-day permit — confirm that requirement with Town Hall before any work in the tree lawn.