Terre Haute, city, seat of Vigo County, western Indiana, on the Wabash River; incorporated 1853. It is a commercial, manufacturing, and transportation center situated in an agricultural and coal-mining area. Products include transportation equipment, chemicals, metal and plastic items, printed materials, and processed food. In the area are Indiana State University (1865), Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (1874), Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (1840), and a junior college. Points of interest include the birthplace of the novelist Theodore Dreiser and his brother, the composer Paul Dresser, who wrote the state song, “On the Banks of the Wabash”; the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley; and the home of the labor leader Eugene V. Debs. Terre Haute, French for “high land,” developed near Fort Harrison (built in 1811) and was platted in 1816. Population 61,125 (1980); 57,483 (1990); 59,614 (2000).
