Prairie Creek (also Middletown) is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in southeastern Prairie Creek Township, Vigo County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. Its elevation is 528 feet (161 m), and it is located at (39.2750390, -87.4972443). Because the community has had multiple names, the

Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal gover ...

officially decided in favor of "Prairie Creek" in 1959. Although Prairie Creek is unincorporated, it has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, with the ZIP code of 47869. The community is part of the

Terre Haute Terre Haute ( ) is a city in Vigo County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 58,389 and its metropolitan area had a population of 168,716. Located along the Wabash River about e ...

Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

The town of Middletown was laid out August 24, 1831, by James D. Piety on the old

Vincennes Vincennes (; ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Vincennes is famous for its castle: the Château de Vincennes. It is next to but does not include the ...

Road. Early businesses included Daniel Ryerson's hotel and drug store, Jonas P. Lykins's store, Z. J. Hunt's hotel, and Hiram Hight's steam mill in 1847. Jacob Ernest built the first brick house, in 1849. The post office at Prairie Creek has been in operation since 1822.

Geography

Prairie Creek lies at the intersection of State Roads 63 and

246 __NOTOC__ Year 246 ( CCXLVI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 246th Year of the Common Era ( CE) and Anno Domini ( AD) designations, the 246th year of the 1st millennium, the 46th year of the 3rd century, and t ...

southwest of the city of

, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Vigo County.DeLorme. ''Indiana Atlas & Gazetteer''. 3rd ed. Yarmouth:

DeLorme DeLorme Publishing Company is a producer of personal satellite tracking, messaging, and navigation technology. The company's main product, ''inReach'', integrates GPS and satellite technologies. ''inReach'' provides the ability to send and rec ...

, 2004, p. 42. .

References

Unincorporated communities in Vigo County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana Terre Haute metropolitan area {{VigoCountyIN-geo-stub