Kirklin, IN

Kirklin is a Clinton County town in central Indiana, where the 2020 census counted 710 residents. Nathan Kirk, the first settler in eastern Clinton County, laid out the town in the early 1830s along the Michigan Road. The original plat held seven blocks on each side of the road; an 1836 addition extended the grid east, west, and south. Kirklin grew at a crossroads where the Michigan Road met the New Castle-Lafayette road, with Kirk's tavern and a sawmill on nearby Sugar Creek adding the first working pieces.

ATTRKen Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0

The town's form still follows that early road plan. Main Street carries the Michigan Road line through a compact center, while Kirklin Township surrounds the town with farm country and county roads. Indiana State Road 38 passes through the township, connecting the area east and west. Kirklin's name preserves its founder, and the seven-block plat gives the town a small, legible center instead of a scattered pattern. It is a place built from a pioneer road, a tavern, a sawmill, and the later neighborhoods that filled out the original grid.