A Neighborhood with Deep Avon Roots
Hickory Mill may look like a modern suburban neighborhood, but its story is closely tied to the much older history of Avon. Long before houses lined streets such as Buhrstone Lane, Wilmot Lane, Porter Drive, and Penstock Court, this part of Washington Township was rural country—open farmland, wooded stretches, country roads, and scattered family homesteads.
Avon’s settlement history reaches back to the early 1800s. Hendricks County was established in 1824, and the community that eventually became Avon passed through several names, including Hampton, White Lick, Smootsdell, and New Philadelphia. The name “Avon” became associated with the area after the railroad arrived in the late nineteenth century. Although the Town of Avon was not incorporated until 1995, the community’s agricultural, commercial, and transportation history is much older.
That contrast—old rural landscape beneath newer residential development—is one of the things that gives Hickory Mill its particular character.
How Hickory Mill Got Its Name
The name “Hickory Mill” invites an obvious question: Was there once a mill in the neighborhood?
The honest answer is that publicly available local records do not identify a documented historic mill at the exact location of the Hickory Mill subdivision. Avon did have early milling activity, however. Oral histories recall a flour mill somewhere in the broader community, where farmers brought grain to be processed. Local historical accounts also describe Avon’s early economy as including sawmills, a sorghum mill, sugar maple camps, wagon shops, blacksmith shops, and other small agricultural businesses.
So Hickory Mill’s name appears to be best understood as a modern neighborhood name inspired by Avon’s rural past rather than as a direct reference to a surviving mill building. “Hickory” evokes the native hardwoods and wooded countryside that once shaped the area, while “Mill” connects the neighborhood to the machinery, farm work, and small industries that supported early settlements.
In that sense, the name works much like many Avon place names. It preserves a feeling of the landscape that development gradually replaced: trees, creeks, farm lanes, and working land.
From Country Roads to Residential Streets
Hickory Mill emerged during the period when Avon was changing from a rural township community into one of Hendricks County’s fastest-growing suburbs. The neighborhood is located near Avon Avenue and the U.S. 36 corridor, with convenient access to major roads and nearby schools. Real-estate records identify early sections as “Hickory Mill Sec. 1,” while the Town of Avon’s street records list numerous roads within the Hickory Mill area.
The neighborhood’s streets include:
- Buhrstone Lane
- Wilmot Lane
- Porter Drive
- Penstock Court
- Production Drive
- North and South Raceway Road
- Portions of streets that connect with nearby subdivisions
The street names reflect the development’s planned, residential character, but the layout also tells a larger story. Roads that were once bordered by fields and wooded parcels became connections between homes, schools, shopping areas, and neighboring communities.
Hickory Mill was already established around the time Avon became an incorporated town in 1995. Town records specifically note that the neighborhood was zoned R-2 when Avon incorporated and that its development plan—but not a later town rezoning—had been approved. This makes Hickory Mill an interesting example of a neighborhood that bridged two eras: county-led growth before incorporation and municipal planning after Avon became a town.
Schools and Everyday Landmarks
For many families, Hickory Mill’s most important landmarks are not historic structures but the institutions that shape daily life. The neighborhood is located near Hickory Elementary School and Cedar Elementary School, both recognizable parts of Avon’s growing educational landscape. A nearby property listing even describes the Hickory Mill entrance as being across from the Hickory and Cedar elementary schools.
School assignments have changed over time as Avon’s population and attendance boundaries have evolved. Recent Avon Schools documents list Hickory Mill among the subdivisions connected with River Birch Elementary and Pine Tree Elementary, illustrating how the neighborhood has remained part of a shifting, expanding public-school system.
The neighborhood also benefits from its proximity to the broader network of Avon parks and recreation areas. Town Hall Park—now known as Blue Heron Park—is located along U.S. 36 and includes the Avon Town Hall and police station. Washington Township Park, the White Lick Trail, and the town’s sports facilities are also within a short drive. These parks provide the kind of shared outdoor spaces that help transform a subdivision into a community.
Avon’s Transportation Story Nearby
One cannot tell Hickory Mill’s story without mentioning the roads and rail lines that helped shape Avon. U.S. 36 remains the community’s major east-west route, while Avon Avenue—formerly associated with State Road 267—serves as one of the town’s principal north-south connections.
The railroad is another important part of Avon’s heritage. In the early twentieth century, the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern traction line connected Avon with surrounding communities and Indianapolis. The railroad helped encourage commerce, industry, and population growth, just as modern highways later encouraged suburban development. The historic Avon Haunted Bridge, built in 1906 for the Big Four railroad, remains one of the area’s best-known landmarks and a reminder that Avon’s transportation history predates today’s busy roadways.
For Hickory Mill residents, those historic transportation routes have become practical advantages: easier commutes, access to shopping and services, and a direct connection to the larger Indianapolis metropolitan area.
How Hickory Mill Has Evolved
Over the decades, Hickory Mill has matured from a newer subdivision into an established neighborhood. Trees have grown taller, landscaping has filled in, and the earliest homes have taken on the settled appearance that comes with time. Families who moved in when the neighborhood was new have watched children grow up, graduate from Avon schools, and sometimes return to the area as adults.
The surrounding town has changed just as dramatically. Fields and isolated country properties have given way to additional neighborhoods, retail centers, medical facilities, sports complexes, and new schools. Avon’s population growth has brought more traffic and development, but it has also brought expanded parks, trails, community programs, and public services.
Through all that change, Hickory Mill has retained the qualities people tend to value most: familiar streets, mature yards, nearby schools, and a sense of neighborhood identity. It is not an old village in the traditional historic-district sense, and it does not contain a preserved nineteenth-century mill. Its heritage is instead found in the landscape it replaced and in the community it helped build.
That may be the most fitting legacy of Hickory Mill. The neighborhood carries Avon’s rural past in its name while reflecting the town’s modern future in its homes, schools, roads, and families. For longtime residents, the special feeling comes from knowing that everyday life here—walking down Buhrstone Lane, heading toward the schools, or driving out toward U.S. 36—is part of a much longer local story.