Indianapolis Psychiatric Pathology Building and America's Oldest Surviving Pathology Lab
3270 Kirkbride Way, Indianapolis, IN 46222
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Indiana Medical History Museum admission per adult; check museum website for current rates and seasonal program tickets.
Access
Limited Access
Restored 19th-century pathology building with original staircases; first floor most accessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1895 · National Register of Historic Places · Oldest Surviving US Pathology Laboratory · Indiana University School of Medicine Teaching Site · Central State Hospital · Adolf Scherrer Architecture
The Indiana Hospital for the Insane opened in 1848 on a 200-acre tract on the west side of Indianapolis. By the late 19th century the institution had grown into one of the largest state psychiatric facilities in the Midwest, encompassing a substantial Kirkbride main building, ward extensions, agricultural infrastructure, and supporting buildings on what was reorganized in the 1920s as Central State Hospital.
Under superintendent Dr. George F. Edenharter, who led the hospital from 1893 to 1923, the institution invested in psychiatric pathology research as an emerging scientific discipline. Edenharter commissioned architect Adolf Scherrer to design a dedicated pathological department building. The two-story brick structure, completed in 1895, was considered state-of-the-art for its time. The interior held a 150-seat teaching amphitheater, bacteriological and chemical research laboratories, original autopsy facilities, and the hospital's morgue.
The Old Pathology Building served the hospital's clinical-research function until the 1960s. The Indiana University School of Medicine, which absorbed the Purdue School of Medicine in 1908, lectured in the building until 1956. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 — at the time, the only surviving 19th-century pathology laboratory of its type in continuous use as a teaching facility.
The Indiana Medical History Museum was established in the building in 1969 and continues to operate there today, maintaining a collection of more than 15,000 artifacts spanning psychiatric pathology, anatomy, microbiology, and the history of 19th and 20th-century institutional medicine. The broader Central State Hospital closed in 1994 amid mounting concerns about conditions and the deinstitutionalization movement. Most of the historic hospital complex on the surrounding 160 acres has been demolished or redeveloped; the Old Pathology Building and a handful of remaining structures are what survive.
Sources
The Old Pathology Building's paranormal accounts are layered on a documented history that supplies more than enough material on its own. The 1895 building served as the hospital's pathology laboratory, autopsy facility, and morgue for nearly seven decades. Period institutional medicine — particularly psychiatric pathology research in an era before reliable diagnostics — generated a high volume of postmortem activity. The teaching amphitheater hosted demonstrations on cadavers obtained from hospital deaths.
Reports from museum staff and visitors cluster in three areas. The original morgue and adjacent dissection room generate the most consistent accounts: cold spots that persist regardless of HVAC settings, the smell of formalin and ether in spaces no longer used for preservation work, and brief auditory phenomena that resolve as nothing identifiable. The teaching amphitheater draws reports of figures observed in the seating area when the room is empty — sometimes described as students in period dress, more often as a single figure in a long white coat.
The broader Central State Hospital grounds — much of it now demolished or redeveloped — have been a focus of regional paranormal investigation since the 1990s closure. Reports from the closed Power House and Bakery buildings, prior to their demolition or restricted-access conversion, included phantom voices, equipment malfunction, and the impression of being watched from upper-floor windows. The Indiana Medical History Museum acknowledges visitor accounts without endorsing them as confirmed phenomena, and its interpretive material focuses primarily on the institution's documented medical and architectural history.
Tour the 1895 Old Pathology Building of the former Central State Hospital — the United States' oldest surviving pathology laboratory. Exhibits include the original 150-seat teaching amphitheater where Indiana University School of Medicine lectured into 1956, the bacteriological laboratory, the chemical research room, and the hospital's original morgue. The museum holds more than 15,000 medical artifacts.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Indianapolis, IN
Central State Hospital, originally the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, opened in November 1848 in Indianapolis with five patients. It operated for 146 years until closing in 1994 amid allegations of abuse and reduced funding. The 1896 Old Pathology Building survives as the home of the Indiana Medical History Museum and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tuscaloosa, AL
Bryce Hospital opened in 1861 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as the Alabama State Hospital for the Insane. Designed by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride in collaboration with architect Samuel Sloan, it served as the prototype for the Alabama Plan that shaped more than 100 psychiatric facilities across North America. The University of Alabama purchased the property in 2010 and opened the Bryce Hospital Museum in 2024.
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