What’s it like in Montezuma, Indiana?

Small Town Breakdown No. 63: Montezuma, Indiana 

For this week’s small town breakdown we’re going from Winona Lake in Kosciusko County to Montezuma in Parke County. Montezuma is 1 hour and 30 minutes west of Indianapolis and 30 minutes north of Terre Haute.

What’s it like in Montezuma, Indiana?

Located along the Wabash River in Parke County, Montezuma, Indiana, is a tight-knit community that combines Hoosier hospitality with rich local history and natural beauty.

The History of Parke County and Montezuma, Indiana

Located in west-central Indiana, Parke County was organized in 1821 and formed out of Vigo County. Its entire western border is the winding Wabash River. Parke County was named after Benjamin Parke, who was the Indiana Territory’s attorney general from 1804-08, colonel in the Battle of Tippecanoe in the War of 1812, a U.S. federal judge in Indiana after it attained statehood in 1816, and the first president of the Indiana Historical Society from 1830-35, among other notable duties.

Parke County is known as the “Covered Bridge Capital of the World” with 31 historic covered bridges throughout the county. Its county seat is Rockville.

The town of Montezuma was settled in 1821 and formally established in 1823. Just a year later, it had 40 residents. The origin behind the town’s name is still unknown, but Aztec emperors Montezuma I and Montezuma II may have been chosen due to the many Native Americans in the area.

Montezuma acted as a popular shipping point during the early years of settlement, when the Wabash River was the great commercial highway of Parke County. In the late 1820s, Congress gave Indiana a grant encouraging the state to build the Wabash & Erie Canal to connect Fort Wayne to the Ohio River. At nearly 470 miles long and stretching from Toledo to Evansville, the Wabash & Erie Canal was the longest canal built in North America. Montezuma was the main port in Parke County, and remnants of the canal can be seen in Reeder Park.