Biohazard Cleanup Near South Hazleton Hazleton, IN

Hazleton is an incorporated town in White River Township, Gibson County, in far southwestern Indiana.

Hazleton is the second-oldest town in Gibson County after Patoka, and it was named in honor of Gervas Hazleton, believed to be the second settler to permanently locate in the county.

Gervas Hazleton first lived in a crude camp lit by large log fires that was a popular stopover for early migrants, and he later operated a ferry on the White River.

The town was platted in the mid-1850s by Lucius French for the Hazleton family, and T. S. Fuller erected its first frame building while John Breedlove built its first blacksmith shop.

Sitting on the south bank of the White River, Hazleton became a river port in the days of flatboats and keelboats, and the first steamboat of note to travel up the White River, the Cleopatria, passed in 1884.

On March 10, 1897, an Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad passenger train wrecked near Hazleton at 3 a.m., one of the worst railroad wrecks in southern Indiana history.

Hazleton had 194 residents in the 2020 census, down from 263 people in 108 households in 2010, making it the second-smallest community in Gibson County.

The whole town covers only about a third of a square mile, and its ZIP code is 47640.

Although it is a remote rural town, Hazleton is officially part of the Evansville metropolitan area.

Gervas Hazleton's remains are buried in the town's IOOF cemetery.