Only One Indiana Town Among Best Places in the US for Familes

Fortune just recently released their 2023 list of the best places for families to live in the entire country and only one Indiana town made the cut. Do you think you know which one?

As someone who was born and raised here in Indiana, and plan to repeat that with my children, I can honestly say that I'm proud of my home. Granted, I know everyone's situation is different growing up, but I don't think that Indiana is a bad place to raise a family. Aside from the weather we have here sometimes, Indiana has a lot to offer families. However, it seems like outsiders disagree.

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Fortune has released its 2023 list of the best places for families to live in the United States. Surprisingly, only one Indiana town made this list, and it's not even a town that you would probably suspect. Now, before I get into that, I must first say that I believe that there are way more than two cities in Indiana that are great for families. I mean if it was good enough to be Lincoln's boyhood home, it is good enough for everyone else, right?

According to Fortune, they evaluated about 1,900 cities, towns, suburbs, exurbs, villages, and townships and each had about 20,000 residents or more. They looked at the following metrics to determine which towns are the 50 best for families: education, aging resources, general wellness, financial health, and livability. So, now that we got all of that out of the way, let's find out which Indiana town made the list.

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One Indiana Town Makes the List of Best Places for Families in 2023

Fortune says that the 41st best place for families in the United States is Lawrence, Indiana. This is, once again, the only Indiana town to make this list. Probably not what you were expecting, right? Honestly, Lawrence is a place that I have seen in passing while traveling to Indianapolis, but I have never really been to it. Lawrence is about 11 miles from downtown Indianapolis. The town plays host to a series of events—“A Lawrence Christmas” among them, featuring ice-skating, tree-lighting, and a holiday parade.

The town was once home to a now-decommissioned military base, Fort Benjamin Harrison. You can learn more about that, and the town of Lawrence by checking out the video below.

So, what do you think? Is this the best town in Indiana for families? Or do you feel like more Indiana towns should have been represented in Fortune's list?

See 11 Unique Attractions You'll Only Find in Indiana

From the World's Largest Ball of Paint to a pink elephant drinking a martini, the Hoosier State is filled with quirky little things worth a detour on your next road trip.

30 Bizarre (and Real) Indiana High School Mascots

According to High School.com, there are 682 high schools in Indiana. 555 of those are public schools, while the remaining 127 are private. A majority of those schools have chosen typical mascots to represent them, like eagles, tigers, lions, jets, patriots, and so on and so forth. But, these 30 schools decided to go, well, a different direction.

List Source: "List of High Schools in Indiana" Wikipedia

KEEP READING: 40 Real Indiana Towns with Quirky, Weird, and Funny Names

Outside the major cities, the Hoosier state is full of tiny little towns you've probably passed through on your way to one of those cities. Most of them are likely 100 to 150 years old, or older, and have been around far longer than the large metropolitan areas such as Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Evansville. Typically, they were started by early settlers who found their way to the state and decided to make it home. Eventually, others would join them, and a community was formed. Over time, as the surrounding areas grew, most of them were folded into those areas and governed by the nearest city or county's governing body officially making them "unincorporated," meaning they did not have their own formally organized municipal government.

A scroll through Wikipedia's long list of unincorporated communities in Indiana shows several of them have names that by today's standards would be considered weird, quirky, or just downright right funny. These are my 40 favorities.

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