Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1901
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | 2680 | 87 | ||||||
| 1910 | 3369 | 33 | ||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | 5395 | 9 | ||||||
| 1950 | 5735 | 9 | ||||||
| 1960 | 6609 | 13 | ||||||
| 1970 | 7933 | 6 | ||||||
| 1980 | 8704 | 8 | ||||||
| 1990 | 8088 | 7 | ||||||
| 2000 | 7845 | 21 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Violent ExpulsionPolice or Other Official Action
- Private Bad Behavior
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
On January 29, 1901, the _Chattanooga Daily Times__ published an article about the violent expulsions of blacks from their homes in the article:
“Anti-Negro Crusade; Indiana River Towns Are Taking Drastic Measures; To Rid Themselves of the Obnoxious; Scores Indicted for Selling Their Votes %u2014 In Many Places No Negroes Are Allowed to Live”
“Cities and towns along the Ohio river have begun a crusade against the Negroes. The entire trouble dates back to the lynching of the Negroes at Rockport and Boonville for the murder of the white barber, Simmons, at Rockport one night late last month. The board of safety of this city has ordered the police to arrest all strange Negroes and bring them before the city police judge. If they can not give reason for being here they will be sentenced to the rock pile. The object of this order is to rid the town of an obnoxious class of Negroes. It is estimated that there are 2,000 colored men inthis city who absolutely refuse to work. The[y] spend their time in the colored saloons and low dives of the city and live the best way they can. On election day they are in the market and the man who bids the highest is the man who lands them.”
139 blacks in Rockport were indicted “for selling their votes on election day.” …
“Other towns in Indiana along the river are taking steps to drive the worst elements of Negroes away. In some towns no Negro is permitted to live. Vigilance committees have been appointed at Grand View, Enterprise, Tell City, and Leavenworth. Since the recent trouble at Newburg many of the colored people have left that town.”
According to an Indiana resident who interviewed a 90 year old resident of Tell City, the woman remembers that, “laws were passed where no black person could be in town after sunset.”
An email on 9/2/13 stated that an elderly citizen (in her 90s) of Tell City talked about a black high school that existed when she was little. This woman said, “it wasn’t around long because I remember around the time it ended that laws were passed where no black person could be in town after sunset.”