Editing Hope, Indiana (section)

==Culture==
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The town of Hope has a strong sense of history, as reflected in its Yellow Trail Museum, its location as the site of the Haw Creek branch of the Bartholomew County Historical Society, its annual Heritage Days and Old-Fashioned Fourth of July, and a number of other traditional celebrations. The downtown Hope Historic District encompasses many nineteenth-century brick buildings and old houses, as well as one of Hope's original log cabins. Adjacent to the current school is the historic Simmons School, a one-room schoolhouse in use from 1879-1907, where events and reenactments are now held.

The town has an Art Guild, a non-profit foundation housed at 645 Harrison Street, which promotes local art and artists. The town has also joined in the movement to display "barn quilts," paintings of quilt squares on the sides of buildings, based originally on the hex squares, a type of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art traditionally painted to bring luck.

Hope has the only remaining Moravian church in the state of Indiana, and many of the traditional Moravian practices are also preserved, such as the display of the "putz," or elaborate Christmas scene in miniature, in the church at Christmastime, the tradition of hanging Moravian stars, and the making of Moravian sugar cakes, a type of sweet raised coffee cake widely sold at local festivals.

A more recent Mennonite presence in Hope has brought traditional Mennonite foods to local stores. Combined with the area's fresh produce and the Simmons Winery, an effort is being made to promote Hope as a center of good food traditions. A farmer's market currently runs on the town square on Friday late afternoons, from June to September. In addition a variety of fresh produce is sold from yards, farmstands, or trucks, in true rural style.

Hope is also the center of the annual Hope Ride, a bicycling event that raises funds for charity. The Hope Ride takes place each year in September, when hundreds of cyclists converge on Hope to ride short or long country loops that take in a variety of scenic features such as historic barns, churches, bridges, monuments, and a local winery.

Hope also has a dinner theater, the Actors Studio of Hope, which puts on several productions per year in the Willow Leaves venue on the town square.

[[Groundhog Day]] (February 2) is celebrated in Hope on the town square with local dignitaries in costume viewing the prediction of a local groundhog, currently Hope the Groundhog, or her brother Frank, from the local Utopia Wildlife Rehabilitators.

Hope's supporters and organizations such as Main Street of Hope have been vigorous in attracting business to the town, despite its small size. In addition to the usual amenities, town businesses include a pizza place, a Mexican restaurant, a cafe, an antique shop with a lunchroom, which also hosts the dinner theater, a salon, a funeral home, a dental office, a chiropractor, a library, two parks, a bank, a pharmacy, a hardware store and gas stations with convenience stores.

Author Philip Gulley's novel ''A Place Called Hope'' (Center Street/Hachette, 2014) is set in Hope, Indiana, and concerns a pastor who moves to Hope to take over a Quaker congregation. Although the town in the book is called Hope, Indiana, it does not greatly resemble the real Hope and there is no Quaker congregation in the real Hope.