About Southern Indiana

Jasper and Dubois County

In 2005, Jasper was ranked in the top ten best places to live in the U.S. by Relo­cate Amer­ica, a national realty relo­ca­tion firm, which con­sults and helps clients find desir­able places across the coun­try to live. Jasper was pre­vi­ously ranked in the top 25 in Nor­man Crampton’s 1992 book 100 Best Small Towns in Amer­ica. Jasper also boasts the only munic­i­pally sup­ported Arts Coun­cil in the state of Indi­ana and one of a few nation­wide; it is part of city gov­ern­ment and is sup­ported by the city for its cit­i­zens in the same vein as its park board or its street depart­ment. The City of Jasper and the Jasper Com­mu­nity Arts Com­mis­sion have won the Governor’s Arts Award twice, once in 1987 and again in 2007, and it is the only group to have gar­nered this award twice.

Dubois County cour­t­house in Jasper, Indi­ana. by W9NED

Holy Fam­ily Catholic Church fea­tures the nation’s sec­ond largest Dall-de-Verre (faceted glass) win­dow and the longest unsup­ported roof beam at 130 ft, 6½ inches.

The present church is the prod­uct of the almost sin­gle­handed effort exerted by the fourth pas­tor, Father Fidelis Maute, O.S.B. Father Fidelis served as archi­tect, con­trac­tor, fore­man, laborer, fund raiser, and pas­tor to the new church. All the build­ing mate­ri­als and labor for the build­ing were pro­vided by the parish­ioners. The foun­da­tion was begun in 1867 and the cor­ner­stone blessed and laid in 1868 by the first mis­sion­ary to Jasper, Bishop de St. Palais. The church was com­pleted and blessed in 1880 and con­se­crated in 1888. The cost of the orig­i­nal con­struc­tion was $80,000.

Saint Joseph Church by W9NED

Hunt­ing­burg is the only town such named in the U.S.; named by Colonel Jacob Geiger because it was His favorite hunt­ing grounds. Also Hunt­ing­burg has been the home for the film­ing of three movies: A League of Their Own, Soul of the Game and Hard Rain.

Dubois County was formed on Decem­ber 20, 1818. It is named for Tou­s­saint Dubois, a French­man who fought in the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War, the Bat­tle of Tippeca­noe and the War of 1812. DuBois was a mer­chant who lived mainly in Vin­cennes. He drowned in 1816 while cross­ing the Lit­tle Wabash River near Lawrenceville, Illinois.

Dubois County switched to the Cen­tral Time Zone on April 2, 2006, and returned to the East­ern Time Zone on Novem­ber 4, 2007; both changes were controversial.

The orig­i­nal county seat was Portersville. In 1830 the county seat was moved south to Jasper.

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