Newport is a town in Vermillion Township, Vermillion County, in the U.S. state of Indiana.^[4] The population was 515 at the 2010 census. The town is the county seat of Vermillion County.^[5]

A post office has been in operation at Newport since 1820.^[6] Newport was platted in 1828.^[7]

The Vermillion County Courthouse and Vermillion County Jail and Sheriff's Residence are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[8] Although the plutonium production plants at Hanford would eventually use graphite as a "moderator" to slow and control the fission process, Manhattan Project officials also pursued heavy water as an alternative option. A feasibility report conducted by the DuPont Company in November 1942 also rated heavy water as an acceptable cooling system, second best only to helium.

This information was brought to the attention of Harold Urey, a Manhattan Project scientist who had won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. Urey imagined a nuclear chain-reactor pile built as a “homogeneous” system with heavy water as both the moderator and cooler. It could function with a simple pump device, a much simpler design than the complex helium-cooled graphite pile. Urey believed such a pile could be built with only 10 tons of heavy water.

The Manhattan Project soon contracted DuPont to build heavy water plants at three sites where ordnance works were already under construction: the Morgantown Ordnance Works near Morgantown, West Virginia; at the Wabash River Ordnance Works, near Newport, Indiana; and at the Alabama Ordnance Works, near Sylacauga, Alabama. For security reasons, the plants had to be administered directly by Manhattan Project officials while the Ordnance Department was, according to Colonel James Marshall, “not to be involved in the design or knowledge of use of the product.” The three plants would collectively produce three tons of heavy water per month.

Construction at the Wabash River Ordnance Works started on January 23, 1943 and was fully completed on December 13, 1943. [6]

Newport is located at the confluence of the Little Vermilion and Wabash rivers along Indiana State Road 63, about halfway between the county's north and south borders.

According to the 2010 census, Newport has a total area of 0.87 square miles (2.25 km²), all land.^[9]

The town has a lending library, the Vermillion County Public Library.^[12]

Each fall, specifically the first weekend in October, Newport is host to the Newport Antique Auto Hill Climb, a racing event in which antique vehicles ascend the town's 1800-foot-long, 140-foot-tall hill. The popular event also features a car show, parade, and pageant.^[13] The Newport Antique Auto Hill Climb is an international event that attracts crowds of one hundred thousand plus to Newport. Automobiles, trucks and motorcycles from the Steam, Brass, Vintage, Antique, and Classic Car eras make timed runs from a standing start, up a steep hill to a finish line 1,800 feet away. It is an Indiana auto event third in size only to two annual Indianapolis Motor Speedway events, the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400.^[13]

Newport, Indiana is listed as the place that Grace Anne Phillips was born and grew up in the movie "Grace is Gone" Starring and Produced by John Cusak

• Newport Chemical Depot