Hope, IN

Hope's town square tells the story in one glance. The Bartholomew County town was founded in 1830 by Moravian settlers from North Carolina, first called Goshen, and renamed Hope in 1834 when another Indiana town already had that name. The 2020 census counted 2,099 residents. The square grew around a church, general store, post office, and the road network that tied this farming community to Columbus, about fifteen minutes southwest.

ATTRSchaub, J. T. -- Photographer / Public domain

The Yellow Trail Museum occupies the old Weinland hardware building on the square, and a log cabin found on a nearby farm was moved into town and rebuilt in the 1970s. Hope's historic district keeps nineteenth-century brick buildings, old houses, and one-room-school history in the daily street plan. The Hope Star-Journal traces its community newspaper back to 1912, while Hope Heritage Days fills the square each September with a festival that draws far beyond the town's regular population. Indiana's only remaining Moravian church carries traditions that show up in Christmas customs, stars, and sugar cakes. Hope is a small place where the town square still doubles as museum, newspaper address, festival ground, and neighborhood meeting point.