Milan, IN

Milan is a Ripley County town in southeastern Indiana, about an hour west of Cincinnati, with farms and low wooded stretches running out from its streets. The 2020 census counted 1,823 residents. The first settlers arrived in the 1820s and early 1830s, Stephen Selwyn Harding opened the first store, and a post office followed in 1837. The community was known as Harding's Store before taking the name Milan in 1842, probably in a nod to the Italian city and the German and Swiss settlers who worked with grapes and wine. A later railroad-era town was laid out in 1854, giving the older crossroads a newer shape.

ATTRChris Flook / CC BY-SA 4.0

The basketball story is the part outsiders usually know first. In 1954, Milan High School beat much larger Muncie Central 32–30 for the state basketball title, and the victory became the real-life seed for the 1986 film Hoosiers. The Milan '54 Hoosiers Museum now occupies the former State Bank building on West Carr Street, keeping the team, the town, and the movie's cultural afterlife in one place. Milan Community Schools still run elementary, middle, and high schools, so the basketball story remains tied to an actual school town, not a movie set. The old store, the rail line, the school, and the museum all belong to the same southeast Indiana map.