Jennings County (pop. 28,525) is north of Scott County. It’s the only Jennings County in the U.S.
The county was named for Jonathan Jennings (1784-1834), the first governor of Indiana.
Jennings County has the smallest county seat in Indiana – the town of Vernon, population 318.
Jennings County Courthouse (1859)
Vernon was named for Mount Vernon, Virginia.
The largest city in Jennings County is North Vernon (pop. 6,728), just northwest of Vernon.
Park Theatre Civic Center, North Vernon
Author Jessamyn West (1902-1984) was born in North Vernon. Her family moved to Southern California when she was six.
Hannah Milhous Nixon (1885-1967), mother of President Richard Nixon, was born near the unincorporated community of Butlerville.
Dick and Hannah
Richard Nixon and Jessamyn West were second cousins. (Her mother was a Milhous.) Both were raised as Quakers, and both graduated from Whittier College in California.
The Muscatatuck Urban Training Center is in Jennings County. The site was originally the Indiana Farm Colony for Feeble Minded Youth.
Civilian first-responders are trained there.
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