Vincennes
"Vincennes was French before it was American, and it never quite let either identity go."
Indiana's oldest town, founded by French fur traders on a bend of the Wabash River decades before the state existed, with a fort, a cathedral, and a memorial rotunda that still argue for its overlooked place in American history. Lia and I came for an afternoon and stayed for the sunset over the river.
Vincennes surprised us before we’d parked the car — a granite rotunda rose up out of the riverside park like something transplanted from Washington, columns and all, and neither of us had expected a Roman temple on the banks of the Wabash. This is the oldest continuously settled town in Indiana, founded around 1732 as a French fur-trading post decades before the American Revolution, and it has spent the centuries since collecting layers of French, British, and American history that most visitors drive past without knowing they’re there. Lia, who kept translating the French street names under her breath, felt oddly at home.
The George Rogers Clark Memorial
The rotunda belongs to George Rogers Clark, whose ragged Kentucky militia marched through freezing floodwater in 1779 to retake Fort Sackville from the British in a siege that helped secure the Northwest Territory for the fledgling United States. Inside, murals wrap the circular wall telling the campaign in oil paint, and the whole structure sits almost exactly where the fort once stood, the Wabash sliding by close enough to hear. We climbed the steps at golden hour and watched the light hit the columns orange, the river beyond turning the same color.
Old Cathedral and French Vincennes
A few blocks from the memorial, the Basilica of St. Francis Xavier — locals just call it the Old Cathedral — traces its parish back to the original French settlers, its adjoining library holding some of the oldest religious records in the Midwest. Rue de l’Eglise, the narrow street beside it, keeps its French name in defiance of two centuries of English-speaking neighbors. We wandered the small cathedral cemetery, reading dates that stretched back further than most of what we’d seen elsewhere in Indiana, then found a diner on Main Street serving fried biscuits that had nothing French about them at all.
Getting There
Vincennes has no commercial airport of its own; the closest major hub is Evansville Regional Airport (EVV), about an hour south, or Indianapolis International (IND), roughly two and a half hours north. From Evansville, US-41 north to US-50 west runs directly into town. A car is essential — Vincennes sits well off any rail line, and this stretch of southwestern Indiana rewards a slow drive through farmland anyway.
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More of Indiana