Redkey, IN

Redkey is a Jay County town in eastern Indiana, with 1,100 residents in the 2020 census. The area began as the Wade Settlement in 1836, later carried the brief name Mount Vernon, and became Redkey after Rev. James Redkey laid out an addition in anticipation of the railroad. The town incorporated in 1883, and the tracks helped turn a rural settlement into a market and shipping point.

ATTRNyttend / Public domain

Redkey’s central business district still carries that railroad-era town shape. The Redkey Historic District includes buildings from about 1888 through 1935, including the City Building, Brown-Ellis Block, former bank, Masonic and IOOF buildings, and the Methodist church. Redkey High School once supplied a second civic center; it consolidated into Jay County High School in 1975, while local yearbooks and athletic memories keep that chapter close. Today the park, fire department, town hall, and water and sewer departments sit within the same small grid. Redkey is a place where the Wade family, a preacher, a railroad, and a preserved main street still show up in the daily map.