St. Meinrad, IN

St. Meinrad is a Spencer County CDP along the Anderson River, best known for the Benedictine monastery that gave the community its name. Saint Meinrad Archabbey was founded in 1854 by monks from Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland to serve German-speaking Catholics and train priests. The town itself was laid out in 1861, and its post office dates to 1862. I-64 passes nearby, but the place feels organized around the abbey's sandstone buildings, seminary, school, and bells rather than a highway exit. St. Meinrad sits in the part of Indiana where a small settlement and a religious institution have grown into the same map.