By Chris Adam

Whether a fan of spooky legends or terrifying tales, this tour of some of Indiana’s haunted places has something for everyone

Are you a fan of fright and haunted places? Do you like to check out locations with spine-tingling tales?

If so, you don’t need to travel far. Indiana is home to many spooky locations with terrifying tales of their histories. Some of these places may be right in your backyard.

This road trip features slightly scary to truly frightening places and legends across Indiana, from Fort Wayne to Evansville, with stops in between. Along the way, you can discover mansions, cemeteries, and other locations with sometimes ghastly folklore. Let’s go!

STOP 1: THE BELL MANSION, FORT WAYNE

Want to explore the unexplained? Then, visit the Bell Mansion in Fort Wayne.

It’s just one of many spooky mansions in Indiana. The Bell Mansion was a funeral home for over 90 years, where between 400,000 and 500,000 bodies were embalmed.

Paranormal tours and other events help maintain the 14,000-square-foot, 131-year-old mansion. People who work in or have visited the mansion have experienced everything from full-body apparitions to footsteps with no one else in the building, music playing with no radio, lights being turned on, doors shutting on their own, and disembodied voices. The team at Bell Mansion has been told their spirits are super friendly and tricksters. Multiple paranormal teams who don’t know each other tell similar stories or have similar experiences.

The Bell Mansion offers ghost tours, and the historic event center can also be used for weddings and parties. Many volunteers work together to preserve it.

STOP 2: AVON HAUNTED BRIDGE, AVON

It’s time to make a stop at an Indiana bridge that’s said to be haunted. There are several legends about why ghosts could occupy the Avon Haunted Bridge.

According to Visit Indiana, one story that has circulated for years is that of a drunken rail worker who slipped during construction and was buried alive in the wet cement. The tale is that when a train goes over the bridge, people claim to still hear his moaning.

Another story about the bridge is that a young mother was walking the tracks to take her sick baby to the doctor. She slipped and fell from the bridge, killing both her and her baby. At night, the sounds of the mother screaming for her infant can be heard. The last common legend is of four workers falling to their deaths into White Lick Creek. People claim to still hear thuds and splashes in the creek.

STOP 3: INDIANA STATE SANATORIUM, ROCKVILLE

The Indiana State Sanatorium in Rockville has been called the Midwest’s premier location for paranormal investigation and urban exploration.

The Sanatorium was the state’s main tuberculosis hospital from 1908 to 1968. In 1976, it re-opened as a health care center. The site was a nursing home and private mental hospital until 2011, when it suddenly closed, leaving behind hundreds of beds and hospital equipment.

Today, the Sanatorium includes the historic tuberculosis hospital, nursing home, mental hospital and supporting buildings, with thousands of feet of steam tunnels.

If you want to explore this location for yourself, there are tours and paranormal investigation opportunities. You can also book the Sanatorium for special events.

STOP 4: EDNA COLLINS COVERED BRIDGE, PUTNAM COUNTY

The next stop on our road trip is another bridge — the Edna Collins Covered Bridge. According to Putnam County Historian Larry Tippin, this is the county’s shortest and most recently constructed covered bridge. Here’s the story, according to Tippin:

Some have claimed the bridge is haunted, either by Edna Collins or another young girl who was said to have drowned in Little Walnut Creek below the bridge. Folklore suggests that this little girl’s parents would drop her off to swim at the bridge and run errands. Upon returning, they would honk their horn three times, and the child, accompanied by the family dog, would come to the parents’ car. One day, the parents returned to the bridge and honked. The family dog came running, but the child did not, and the parents found her drowned in shallow water.

Some stories add that the mother of the drowned child was so distraught she hung herself on the steps of a nearby church. The legend includes the warning that if a person parks by the bridge and honks three times, handprints will appear on the car windows.

Tippin adds that this legend appears to be based on factual events, but not at the Edna Collins Covered Bridge and not with the people noted.

STOP 5: 100 STEPS CEMETERY, CLAY COUNTY

Is the most haunted cemetery in Indiana near Brazil? Some say so.

The next stop on the haunted road trip is a cemetery in Clay County, known by a few names. Whether you call it the 100 Steps Cemetery, Carpenter Cemetery, or Cloverland Cemetery, it’s a magnet for folklore enthusiasts and ghost hunters.

According to Author Chris Flook, the cemetery was established during the American Civil War and is still active. Visitors must ascend 100 steps to reach the summit.

According to Flook, a couple of ghostly legends surround this cemetery. The first is that at midnight, under a moonless sky, visitors should count 100 total steps when they reach the summit. Then, they should walk back down and count again — they might count a different number (perhaps caused by a supernatural sleight-of-hand).

The second legend is much spookier. In this one, the visitor looks down the hill from the summit and sees a caretaker who will reveal how the visitor will die. The vision was wrong if the visitor counted the same number of steps while going back down. If there is a different number, the visitor will die in the manner revealed by the phantom caretaker.

Here are two other notes about this haunted location: the cemetery was attacked by at least one body snatcher in 1892, and it’s only open from sunrise to sunset.

STOP 6: THE BENJAMIN SCHENCK MANSION, VEVAY

This road trip includes another haunted mansion — this time in southern Indiana.

The Benjamin Schenck Mansion in Vevay is said to be one of the most haunted places in all of Indiana.

According to legend, the Schenck Mansion was built on the ruins of an older structure lost in a fire that consumed it and a couple trapped inside.

There have also been stories about guests at the Schenck Mansion feeling the presence of “non-living guests” and single men being woken up by ghostly kisses. There have also been reports of flickering lights and unsourced sounds.

The Schenck Mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. In 2020, it was sold to tattoo artist and television personality Kat Von D.

STOP 7: WILLARD LIBRARY, EVANSVILLE

You may have heard about the Willard Library, as it’s gained a lot of attention from ghost hunters.

Willard Library in Evansville was built as a tribute by Willard Carpenter, who never saw its completion due to his death in 1883. Opened in 1885, the gothic-revival library was left to the Board of Trustees, bypassing his family. His daughter, Louise, unsuccessfully sued for property rights and later moved to New England, where she died in 1908.

In 1937, the first sighting of the Grey Lady Ghost occurred in the library’s basement.

A maintenance man saw a young woman in a Victorian-era dress disappear while stocking the furnace with coal. The Grey Lady Ghost has since made her presence known through the scent of perfume, distant crying, and books falling off shelves. Several sightings have also been captured on the library’s 24/7 ghost cams, which were installed in the early 2000s.

These haunted road trip stops are just the tip of the iceberg regarding scary places in Indiana. There are hundreds of locations across the state that have the potential to give you a fright. The opportunity to experience paranormal activity could be closer than you think.

Stops on the haunted Hoosier road trip