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?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 613 | 0 | ||||||
| 1970 | 569 | 0 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 471 | 467 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | ||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
A former Whitestown resident writes,
“When we lived in Whitestown, I was working in an insurance office when a couple of black ladies came in to apply for a job and everybody got uptight until someone said, “That’s what the [EEOC] sign is for,” meaning that they complied by putting up the sign, not by hiring. And of course Indiana is where Ryan White was treated so badly, not that such things didn’t happen a lot of places.”
There is also an oral tradition that a black family moved into a home near the rr and the house was damaged irreparably shortly thereafter.
According to an African American who grew up near Whitestown, people in their fifties (asked in year 2011) “vividly recall signs declaring the town to be off limits to people of color into the 1970s.” Sometimes the signs were professionally made, while other times they were thrown together, but the overall message was clear.