Oakland City, IN

Oakland City was laid out in 1856, probably taking its name from the oak trees that marked the site. The town’s other defining feature arrived in 1885, when General Baptists founded what became Oakland City University. The campus grew from a single brick building into a university that still sits in town, giving Oakland City a college-centered identity in southwestern Indiana. The local map also carries the usual small-city pieces—main streets, older neighborhoods, and Gibson County roads—but the oak name and the university are the two details people use to place it. Oakland City is a town where a tree and a school became the shorthand.