Indiana
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?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1900
- Still Sundown?
- Probably Not, Although Still Very Few Black People
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | 1463 | 1460 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 1393 | 1386 | 1 | |||||
| 2000 | 1735 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 25 | 1 | ||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Violent Expulsion
- Threat of Violence
- Reputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
On Ohio River, county seat of Switzerland County. Was Under Ground Rail Road site, now sundown. Vevay had blacks until about 1900 when a white man named Hine was murdered. In One Drop of Blood (NY: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000), Scott L. Malcomson writes:
“Local whites believed that a black person, or ‘the blacks’ generally, was responsible. Vevay’s black population tried to flee. Some succeeded; others were hunted down and killed.” (p. 514)
Vevay had a sign: “”Nigger, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On You In This Town,” at the town line up until the Truman administration, if not later.” (p. 516)