Indiana
Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Strongly Democratic
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1860
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | 2836 | 0 | ||||||
| 1930 | 3194 | 0 | ||||||
| 1940 | 3194 | 0 | ||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 4546 | 0 | ||||||
| 1970 | 5041 | 0 | 9 | |||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 5619 | 15 | 0 | |||||
| 2000 | 6172 | 2 | 15 | 13 | 26 | |||
| 2010 | 6319 | 28 | 35 | 16 | ||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Violent ExpulsionReputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
An Indiana lawyer remembers seeing sundown town signs himself.
The town legend goes like this:
%u201CA black family lived in a house in Washington Co. but near the Orange Co. line. The house was mysteriously burned while family was out. Black people were not permitted to stop in town (Salem), but were escorted by police to county line. There are still no blacks in Washington County.%u201D
According to the Washington County Historical Society, the Quakers brought blacks with them when they settled here in 1809 to 1811. They lived here peacefully until 1860. Then Horace Heffren and the Knights of the Golden Circle ran them out of the county. The Quaker minutes said there were no blacks living here after 1864, most leaving in 1863.”