Clay City, IN

Clay City is a town in Harrison Township, in the Terre Haute metropolitan area, with 878 residents in the 2020 census. It began as Markland, a settlement platted in 1873 when the railroad reached the site, then briefly carried the name Huntersville in honor of Congressman Morton C. Hunter. The railroad era set the pattern for a town supported by farms, sawmills, mining, brick and flour production, schools, and pottery. Before World War I, its mix of industry, education, inventiveness, and organized baseball earned it the nickname "the Athens of the Wabash Valley."

ATTRHammersoft / CC BY-SA 4.0

Clay City's current institutions include K–12 schools, a medical center, pottery, sawmills, and farming. K–12 schools and the medical center are among the largest employers, while the town also has a newspaper, two banks, a pharmacy, grocery stores, restaurants, senior housing, and a conference center. Those services sit alongside the industrial and agricultural base, preserving the broad mix that made Clay City a regional trade and school center in the first place.