VINCENNES, a city of S.W. Indiana, U.S.A., on the Wabash river; the county seat of Knox county, the oldest settlement of the State. It is on federal highways 41 and 5o; has a municipal airport; and is served by the Baltimore and Ohio, the Big Four, the Chicago and Eastern Illinois, and the Pennsylvania railways. Pop. (1920) 17,160 (94% native white); 17.564 in 1930 by the Federal census. Vincennes is in a rich agricultural region, sur rounded by vast coalfields. Its manufactures include structural steel, pearl buttons (from mussel shells taken from the Wabash), glass, shoes, ploughs, fertilizer, ice-cream moulds, flour, and ketchup. A French trading post was established on the site of Vin cennes probably as early as 1702, and about 1731 a fortification was erected by Francois Margane, Sieur de Vincennes, around which a permanent settlement soon grew up. It remained under
French sovereignty until 1777, was occupied by the British and named Fort Sackville. On February 25, 1779, it was captured by George Rogers Clark, returning after his expedition to Kas kaskia. Vincennes was the capital of Indiana Territory from 1800-13. It was incorporated as a borough in 1839 and became a city in 1856. Buildings of historic interest still standing (1929) include: the house in which the first Territorial legislature met on July 9, 1805; the Governor's mansion, built by William Henry Harrison, the first governor of the territory; and Vincennes University, opened in 1806, now a junior college. The county court-house was built in 1873-4 as a memorial to the pioneers and soldiers of Knox county.