Winchester

Small Town Breakdown

From iconic summer attractions like Hummel Drive-In Theatre and the speedway to dining at Mrs. Wick’s Restaurant or touring Wick’s Pies, Winchester is a small town in Indiana that has been winning for over two centuries.

Fast Facts

📍LOCATION: East Central Indiana

• Winchester is located near the center of Randolph County.

• U.S. Route 27 runs north-south through town, leading north to Randolph and south to Lynn; it intersects with Indiana State Road 32.

• Indiana State Road 32 runs east-west through town, leading west to Farmland and east to Union City.

• 1 hour and 30 minutes northeast of Indianapolis

• 1 hour and 25 minutes south of Fort Wayne

• 30 minutes east of Muncie

👥 POPULATION & RANKING

• 4,800 residents (as of 2024)

• Ranks as Indiana’s 138th-largest city

• Largest of nine incorporated towns/cities in Randolph County; Union City is second with 3,435 residents.

📏 LAND AREA

• 3.34 square miles

📅 FOUNDED

• Randolph County was authorized by the Indiana General Assembly in 1818 and named after Randolph County, N.C., where prominent settler Benjamin Cox and many other Quaker settlers came from.

• Winchester was named the county seat that same year when five of the settlers donated land.

• It was named for Winchester, Va.

• Randolph County was an important part of the Underground Railroad and was home to three distinct settlements of free African-Americans.

• In the 1880s and 90s, oil and natural gas were discovered in the county, and Winchester became dominated by the glass industry.

🏥 MAIN INDUSTRIES: Manufacturing, Healthcare

• TOA Winchester manufactures Tier II stamped, welded and assembled automotive parts. It has over over 220 associates, making it one of the largest employers in Randolph County.

• Wick’s Pies is a major producer of pies and pie shells, too. Learn more about it below the Indiana map.

• Ascension St. Vincent Randolph is in Winchester and delivers primary care and specialty care, including women’s health, urgent care and emergency services. They also offer minimally invasive procedures, in-patient care, imaging, lab tests and rehabilitation services.

Mrs. Wick’s Restaurant and Pies

Mrs. Wick’s Restaurant opened in the mid-1980s in honor of Duane “Wick” Wickersham’s supportive wife, Ruby. Today, the full-service bakery and cafe is open Tuesday through Saturday, making 36 varieties of pie each day and serving breakfast all day. You can also take home legendary Mrs. Wick’s pot pies, pie shells or unbaked frozen pies.

The entire Wick’s Pies operation goes back to Duane’s opening of The Rainbow Restaurant in downtown Winchester in the mid-1940s. There, he used his grandmother’s recipes to sell pies, and they were such a hit that he was producing and selling 300 pies per day after just four years. Then in 1961, he purchased a building in town that today is home to the production of 10,000 pies and over 30,000 pie shells in an 8-hour shift. Mr. Wickersham was a highly successful entrepreneur, to say the least.

More Eats

In addition to Mrs. Wick’s, Winchester is full of great places to grab a bite.

At Northblock Coffee Co., sip your favorite seasonal morning beverage and enjoy muffins or donut holes in a relaxing atmosphere. Visitors give them 4.9 stars on Google. 

For pizza lovers, Our Pizza House was established in 1960 and has been a local favorite ever since. Breadsticks and ‘zas are menu staples, and its 21 varieties of super sub sandwiches are sneaky good, too. There’s also Chicago’s Pizza Winchester, one of 24 Chicago’s Pizza locations across central and southern Indiana. Founded in 1979, Chicago’s Pizza has elite breadsticks, deep-dish pizza and a salad bar.

If you like Mexican food, there are a couple spots in town to hit up. Go with street tacos, fajitas or a chimichanga from Cuervo’s Tacos, which was established in 2020 and has 4.8 stars on Google. Then there’s the family-owned El Carreton Mexican Restaurant with over 1,200 Google reviews, many which love the service and atmosphere plus menu favorites like fajitas and enchiladas.

Amazing Joe’s Steakhouse is another a-maz-ing dinner spot. It’s one of three Amazing Joe’s locations, with the others in Muncie and Columbus, Ind. The ribeye is a favorite.

For dessert in Winchester, there are two places to check out.

First up is Bogie’s Ice Cream, a friendly summer neighbor that’s been around since 1987. Open seasonally from the first Monday in March through Labor Day, Bogie’s has drive-thru and walk-up services for a menu that includes everything from ice cream cones to the best milkshakes in Randolph County.

House of Flavors is the other local option to grab ice cream. It has 50 flavors of hand-dipped ice cream, monster size sundaes, burgers, a massive tenderloin sandwich and more on its menu.

Outdoor Entertainment

Winchester Speedway is known as the “World’s Fastest Half Mile” – a half-mile paved oval racetrack that seats 5,000 spectators. Starting in May and ending in mid-October with the Winchester 400 Weekend, the track hosts USAC Silver Crown cars, Thunder Roadsters, Monster Truck throwdowns and the ASA STARS National Series.

Sticking with sports, Winchester Golf Club features three 9-hole courses called Beeson, Pony and Willow. Beeson has more bunkers to navigate, while Pony and Willow are filled with water hazards.

For an iconic spot to catch a flick on Friday and Saturday nights from the first weekend in May into mid-September, head to Hummel Drive-In Theatre. Located three miles east of Winchester, Hummel has a playground for kids, concessions and two screens that show two movies apiece, with the first showtimes starting at 8 p.m. Adult tickets are $10, children are $5 and kids 4 and under get in free.

EF3 Tornado

On March 14, 2024, Winchester was hit by an EF3 tornado resulting in one fatality, dozens injured, 22 homes destroyed and over 100 others damaged. The local Taco Bell and other structures were leveled. Just over 19 months removed since the tragedy, the community has rebuilt much of what was lost.

Winchester Wins

• The Randolph County square grounds downtown feature a 73-foot-tall Soldiers & Sailors Monument – the second-tallest such monument in Indiana – honoring Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War. There is also a World War I “Doughboy” statue that commemorates World War I soldiers from Randolph County who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and a tank memorial to commemorate World War II and the Korean War.

• Winchester Community High School is home of the Golden Falcons. They do not have any IHSAA team state championships in school history, but “The Force of Winchester” has won eight Indiana State School Music Association marching band titles. It won Class B championships in 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980 along with Class C championships in 1986 and 1987, and took home runner-up finishes in 1973, 1976, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1996, 1997 and 1998. The marching band also won Central Indiana Track Show Association titles in 1997, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016 under the tutelage of Douglas Fletcher.

• One notable Hoosier from Winchester is James P. Goodrich, who was Indiana’s 29th governor from 1917-21. His term generally focused on the state’s contributions to World War I.

• Payton Sparks played college basketball at Ball State and Indiana, and he absolutely posterized Get Indiana video editor Robert Porter in high school back in 2021. Watch until the end of the video below for visual evidence.

The next time you’re driving through Randolph County, wind into Winchester to see a community thriving on small-town vibes.

Check out Nate’s breakdown of Winchester ⬇️