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Category Archives: Indiana

Century of Progress Homes

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Along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the Indiana Dunes National Park is a collection of five extraordinary houses. They were built for the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago that was titled The Century of Progress. Millions of people came to the fair to marvel at the futuristic homes.The houses were named the Florida Tropical, Rostone, Armco-Ferro, Cypress House and the House of Tomorrow, and showcased modern construction materials and techniques.
After the fair, Developer Robert Bartlett purchased the homes. He transported four of them by rolling them onto a barge using telephone poles. The Cypress house was dismantled and shipped by truck. He moved the houses to his Beverly Shores resort community. He hoped that the homes would garner attention to his development and boost sales. Unfortunately, the Great Depression hampered the sale of his homes. In 1966, the National Park Service took over the area that included Beverly Shores, and it became part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Homeowners became lessees; with little incentive to maintain the houses, they fell into a state of disrepair. The homes were eventually leased to Indiana Landmarks, which, in turn, did long term subleases to people willing to renovate them back to their former glory.
Four of the houses have been restored with the House of Tomorrow being the final home to be completed. It is a unique octagon-shaped house with large windows. The first level was designed as an airplane hangar, thinking in the future everyone would have their own aircraft to fly for daily errands and commute to work.

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The Stump and the Bull

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Highland Park is located to the south of downtown Kokomo, Indiana. There you will find a visitors center with rooms on either side surrounded with windows. They are not there for people to look out of but rather for people to peer through to view what is inside. The building holds two of Indiana’s largest treasures. One is a large sycamore stump. The tree stood a few miles west of Kokomo and is said to be over one hundred feet tall and over 1500 years old. The enormous tree came down in a storm in the early 1900s. Enthralled by the size of the stump, in 1916, Jacob Bergman, commissioner of Kokomo’s city park, paid a farmer to haul the massive stump to the park with his tractor. The stump was 57 feet around, 18 feet wide and 12 feet tall, and Bergman had plans to cut a doorway in it and build a staircase in the hollow stump to a viewing platform on top. His plans never materialized ,and the stump sat outside for years. In 1938, the National Youth Administration built an open air shelter around the stump. In 1989, it was enclosed as part of a new pavilion with another of Kokomo’s prized possessions.

Old Ben, the World’s Largest Steer, was large from the time it was born in 1902. Weighing almost 125 pounds at birth, he grew to weigh about 4500 pounds, well above the average weight for most steers, which is about 1200 pounds. The owners, who lived about ten miles north of Kokomo, had several offers to purchase him for circuses and sideshows, but they kept him for themselves. They traveled to many Indiana fairs and showed him to the public in his own private tent. At his death in 1910, he was 16 feet long from nose to tail. After his death, Old Ben was stuffed and mounted on a base with wheels. He was either donated or sold to the city of Kokomo. They kept him in storage and put him on display at times for the public to marvel at how large he is. After the building was completed in 1989, he was put on permanent display opposite the sycamore stump.

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The Roads Hotel

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The town of Atlanta is located between Indianapolis and Kokomo. An old wooden two-story building sits on Main Street. Flanked by two large trees, it was built in 1893, and ran as a hotel by Newton Roads and his family. The town was a popular stop for trains traveling the nearby tracks. Many guests have stayed in the hotel, including outlaws such as Al Capone and John Dillinger. During Prohibition, it operated as a speakeasy and brothel. The Roads Hotel has also seen its share of tragedy. Newton’s son Everett was diagnosed with tuberculosis at age nineteen, and he was confined to isolation in the hotel until he died. Newton and his wife Clara also died in the hotel. A few guests have died in the old hotel, including some who committed suicide while staying there.

Because of its turbulent history, it is considered one of the most haunted places in Indiana. Visitors have claimed to see apparitions of men, women and children. They have witnessed strange occurrences such as disembodied voices, hearing footsteps, lights turning on and off, and doors opening and closing on their own. The old hotel is decorated to look as if it did a century ago, and the owners welcome people to experience it for themselves.

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The Haunted Infirmary

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South of Winchester along US-27 is a large brick building. Above the front door carved in stone are the words RANDOLPH CO. INFIRMARY. It was built in 1899 and served the citizens of Randolph County for over a century. The property started as the county poor farm in 1851, taking care of the mentally and physically disabled, elderly and orphans. The large 5000 square foot building that stands today cared for many people over the decades.

It has also seen its share of tragedy. It is believed that over two hundred people have died in the facility, many from tuberculosis and some to suicide and possibly murder. It is said that one man died after being pushed out a second story window. The infirmary contained up to 350 acres for farming and livestock, and it also has a cemetery with unmarked graves for the people who died under its care. In the 1990s, it was used as a nursing home; it closed in 2008. The current owner, Dann Allen, purchased the historic old asylum in 2016 to save it from demolition. It is currently being used as a paranormal attraction for visitors to explore paranormal activity.

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The House of Happy Little Trees

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Bob Ross is known for painting “happy little trees” in his landscape paintings of mountains on his television series The Joy Of Painting, which aired on PBS. What most people don’t know is that many of his paintings were created in an historic mansion in Indiana. His first season was recorded in 1983 at a PBS station in Virginia. Afterwards, he traveled the country giving classes in various cities. One of those cities was Muncie, Indiana. The local PBS station WIPB was so mesmerized by his skill and calm demeanor that they offered him the chance to record his TV show in their studio. It was not your typical studio. It was the former home of Lucius L. Ball, who came to Muncie with his brothers to produce mason jars.

The home eventually became the studio of PBS affiliate WIPB. Bob Ross lived in Florida but came up to Muncie to record his TV show. Black cloth backdrops were hung in a room on the first floor. He set up his easel and painted while a cameraman recorded it. When he cleaned his brush by dipping it in turpentine and then dried it by “beating the devil out of it” on his easel’s leg, it splattered everywhere in the small room. That is why he joked and laughed many times while cleaning his brush.

He recorded fifteen seasons in the mansion until they moved to a new state of the art studio on the campus of Ball University. Bob Ross died in 1995 from Lymphoma, but his TV show continues on in syndication and on the internet. The mansion is still used as offices for WIPB, but they have recently opened it up to visitors to see Ross’s original studio.

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The Log Cabin Chapel

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Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College is located a few miles northwest of Terre Haute. It is the oldest college in Indiana. In 1839, the first bishop of the Diocese of Vincennes in Indiana requested help from his home country of France. He asked for a congregation to assist in teaching the early pioneers of Indiana. Mother Theodore Guerin was asked to take on the challenge. Reluctant at first, she agreed to lead five other Sisters of Providence to Indiana.

After two months of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and traveling into the heart of America, they made it to the forests of Indiana. The six sisters founded an academy in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods for the education of young women. In 1846, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College was granted the first charter for the higher education of women in the state of Indiana. It was the first women’s college to offer journalism courses and a degree in secondary education for women.

The beautiful campus is home to several historic and religious structures and buildings. Nestled among the trees and green lawns is a log cabin. It is a replica of a cabin the sisters used as a chapel when they first completed their long journey to Indiana. Logs to construct the replica were donated from a cabin in southern Indiana owned by David and Faye Masterson of Owensville. Construction of the log chapel was done by inmates of the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute.

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The Haunted Infirmary

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South of Winchester, Indiana along US-27 is a large brick building. Above the front door carved in stone are the words RANDOLPH CO. INFIRMARY. It was built in 1899 and served the citizens of Randolph County for over a century. The property started as the county poor farm in 1851, taking care of the mentally and physically disabled, elderly and orphans. The large 5000 square foot building that stands today cared for many people over the decades.

It has also seen its share of tragedy. It is believed that over two hundred people have died in the facility, many from tuberculosis and some to suicide and possibly murder. It is said that one man died after being pushed out a second story window. The infirmary contained up to 350 acres for farming and livestock, and it also has a cemetery with unmarked graves for the people who died under its care.

In the 1990s, it was used as a nursing home; it closed in 2008. The current owner, Dan Allen, purchased the historic old asylum in 2016 to save it from demolition. It is currently being used as a paranormal attraction for visitors to explore paranormal activity.

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A Tombstone for a Town

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Elkinsville Road winds its way deep into the Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana. Near the end of the road you will find an old barn and a stone marker for “The Town That Was”. It stands like a tombstone for the town of Elkinsville. The town was founded in 1860 by William Elkin. The rural farming village survived in the beautiful remote wilderness for about a century. It never grew into a large city, but it did have several houses along with a church, school, blacksmith and a post office. As the population of Bloomington grew, it was necessary to have a large source of drinking water.

In the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to dam the Salt Creek and create Lake Monroe water reservoir. They determined that the town of Elkinsville would be in the floodplain and be underwater. In 1964, the government, using eminent domain, acquired the private property belonging to the citizens and businesses of Elkinsville. Most of the houses and buildings were moved or demolished before the reservoir was created.

When Lake Monroe was created and the water stopped rising, the land where the town of Elkinsville remained above water. The elevation of the town had been miscalculated, and it was not necessary to disband the town, but by then it was too late, and the town had already been removed from the Indiana forest. In 2003, the former residents raised enough funds to erect a stone to remember the town. On it is a poem: “That day we moved, we’ll never forget, as goodbyes were said and the sun set. Never again in these hills we’ll roam, but in our hearts this is always home.”

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Ball Mansion

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The Ball Mansion sits on a hill in the Ninth Street Hill Neighborhood Historic District in Lafayette, Indiana. The two-story brick mansion was built in 1868 by Cyrus Ball.  He was a local businessman and layer that was elected one of the three associate Judges for the district in 1840. He was also the collector of tolls for the Wabash and Erie Canal. Ball died in 1893 but this magnificent house still stands with the three story tower looking over the city where he lived and worked. The house is a private residence but it is impressive to see from the road.

If you love exploring the Hoosier State or reading about its interesting places, I hope you will take a look at my Lost In Indiana book available on Amazon HERE

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Whispers Estate

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North of downtown Mitchell, Indiana on a block of modest homes is a rather unassuming two-story house. It has a wrought iron fence and a pair of stone angel statues in front of it. Looking at it from the outside, you would assume it was just another ordinary Midwestern home. Inside, the owner claims strange paranormal events happen, making it one of the most haunted locations in the Hoosier State. Known as the Whispers Estate, it was built in 1894. Dr. John Gibbons purchased the home in 1899 and used the lower floor as his office, where he saw patients. Dr. Gibbons and his wife had adopted several orphaned children and were well respected in the community. Their ten-year-old daughter Rachel was severely burned by a fire she started in the parlor. Two days later, she died in her upstairs bedroom.

The Gibbon’s ten-month-old daughter Elizabeth died in the home from a mysterious illness. Dr. Gibbon’s wife Jessie died of pneumonia in the same bedroom that Elizabeth passed away in. The house, having seen its share of tragedy over the decades, is said to be cursed by some of its former residents. Some people have claimed to see the spirit of a little girl roaming the house, possibly that of Rachel. They also have heard the sounds of heavy breathing and coughing in the master bedroom where Jessie died from pneumonia. They say the door knob on the closet door jiggles on its own and the door mysteriously opens. The home is known as Whispers Estate because guests have heard strange voices whispering in their ears.

 

If you love reading about strange an unique places in Indiana, I hope you will take a look at my Lost In Indiana book available on Amazon HERE

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