City Profile
Pawnee by the numbers — a mid-sized Indiana city with a big-city festival calendar and a wildlife situation all its own.
- Population
- 66,218
- 2010 census, enhanced by the 2014 Eagleton merger
- Founded
- 1817
- de-incorporated 1818; re-incorporated 1819
- Median household income
- $46,900
- estimated
- Distance from Indianapolis
- ~90 mi
- south-central Indiana
- Parkland
- 400+ acres
- across four major parks
- Raccoon population
- Stable
- per the 2026 Task Force report; the raccoons declined to be counted
Economy
Sweetums Corporation is Pawnee’s largest employer, operating its flagship confectionery works and corporate campus here since 1922. Other significant employers include the Wamapoke Cultural Center & Casino, St. Joseph Regional Medical Annex, and the municipal government.
The hospitality sector has grown 14% since the opening of Pawnee Commons, a figure the Chamber of Commerce attributes to “waffles, largely.”
Sister cities
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and HerzegovinaActive
- Krakow, PolandActive
- Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the CongoActive
- Boraqua, VenezuelaVisit pending (fifth reschedule)
- Pyongyang, North KoreaSuspended