Austin, IN

Austin is a Scott County city of 4,064 people at the 2020 census, built around a railroad station and the timber country of southern Indiana. The Jeffersonville Railroad reached the site around 1852, the first station followed about a year later, and the town was platted in 1853. A post office opened in 1854. Early businesses included saw and stave mills, and the town's name carried a connection to Austin, Texas through settlers who had served in the Mexican-American War. The railroad gave Austin a starting point; the woods supplied the first work.

The bigger industrial chapter began in 1899, when J.S. Morgan opened a cannery that became a national canned-food supplier and eventually Morgan Foods. During World War II, a branch of the Camp Austin prisoner-of-war camp operated at the Morgan plant and held as many as 1,500 German and Italian prisoners. Today Morgan Foods remains part of the city's working map, alongside the Austin Train Depot and Caboose, city offices, the sewer utility, schools, and the U.S. 31 corridor. Austin's local story is unusually concentrated: railroad, timber, canned food, wartime history, and a modern factory all meet in one small Scott County city.