Biohazard Cleanup Near South Clinton Clinton, IN

Clinton is the largest city in Vermillion County, Indiana — the county seat is the much smaller town of Newport — and it sits on the Wabash River in the southern part of the county, within the Terre Haute metropolitan area.

Clinton was established in 1829 and named for DeWitt Clinton, the governor of New York from 1817 to 1823, yet its post office has been in operation since 1823, six years before the town itself was founded.

Many of Clinton's original settlers were Italian immigrants who came to work the local coal mines, and unusually, most of them came from northern Italy, in contrast to the majority of Italian immigrants to America in that era, who hailed from the south.

Vermillion County naturalization records show Italians accounted for 1,178 of the nearly 3,550 new citizens recorded between 1856 and 1952, the largest immigrant group in the county.

Clinton's coal-boom population peaked at 10,962 in the 1920 census, and the 2020 census counted 4,831 people and 2,061 households.

Clinton's Little Italy Festival, begun in 1966 and held every Labor Day weekend, celebrates the town's Italian and coal-mining heritage, draws more than 75,000 visitors a year, and features the largest Italian-theme parade in the Midwest, plus grape stomping and a grapevine-roofed wine garden.

The festival earned Clinton its official nickname, "Little Italy Festival Town," and the Bull's Head Fountain at its Immigrant Plaza was cast in Turin, Italy.

The Clinton Paving and Building Brick Company, established in 1893, was producing about 40,000 bricks per day at its peak.

The Clinton Downtown Historic District and the Hill Crest Community Center are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Clinton-area students attend South Vermillion High School, which was known as Clinton High School before the current school was built in 1977.