Avoca, IN

Avoca is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Marshall Township, in northwestern Lawrence County. Indiana State Road 37 follows the community’s eastern edge, putting Bedford about six miles south and Bloomington about nineteen miles north. The White River runs through the broader local landscape, and the surrounding roads lead quickly from the small settlement into the wooded and farmed country of southern Indiana.

Avoca was platted in 1819 and is thought to have taken its name from Ireland’s River Avoca, familiar to readers through a Thomas Moore poem. The community’s most distinctive piece of recent history is the former Avoca State Fish Hatchery. The property began as a grist mill, became a state hatchery after Indiana purchased it in 1919, and held ponds that stocked the state’s waters for decades. The hatchery closed in 2013; local plans have since treated the grounds as a park and recreation property. That mix of old mill, fish ponds, and highway access gives Avoca a strong sense of place.