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Indianapolis Walking Tour by Unseen Press
372 S Meridian St, Indianapolis, IN 46225
Research updated May 2026
Age
All ages on the walk; bar interior is 21+ before 8pm
Cost
$$
Per-person walking-tour ticket through Unseen Press's FareHarbor booking. Pricing varies by season.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved downtown sidewalks; route covers approximately 1 to 1.5 miles.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1850 · Union Station Historic District · Slippery Noodle Inn (Indiana's Oldest Bar) · Indianapolis Wholesale District National Register
Indianapolis's Wholesale District developed in the 1870s and 1880s as the freight-handling district along the rail lines feeding Union Station, the country's first union train station, opened in 1853 and rebuilt in its present Romanesque Revival form in 1888. The Slippery Noodle Inn at 372 South Meridian Street is the city's oldest continuously operated bar, opened in 1850 as the Tremont House and surviving Prohibition as a brothel and slaughterhouse. The Indiana Theatre, completed in 1927 in the Spanish Baroque style and now home to the Indiana Repertory Theatre, anchors the western edge of the district.
Unseen Press, the publishing imprint of Indianapolis writer Nicole Kobrowski, runs a walking-tour program covering Wholesale District history. The 1-to-1.5-mile route departs from outside the Slippery Noodle on South Street, working through the warehouse blocks toward Union Station and back. Tour material draws on Kobrowski's research into local newspapers and city directories, with documented stops at sites of 19th- and early-20th-century murders, gang activity, and the 1973 fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club analog Indianapolis hotel that killed several guests.
Unseen Press also operates the Nefarious Noblesville Ghost Walk in the county seat of Hamilton County, north of the city. Both tours run on a seasonal schedule with bookings handled through the company's FareHarbor portal.
Sources
The Slippery Noodle Inn's upper floors operated as a brothel from the 1860s through the early 20th century, and its basement housed a slaughterhouse documented in city health records. Bar staff over many years have reported a woman in 19th-century dress on the second-floor stairs and the smell of livestock from the basement when the kitchen is closed. The Indianapolis Star covered the bar's centennial reports during the 1990s.
Further along the route, tour material covers a documented 1890s murder at a Wholesale District warehouse and the gangland history of the early 20th century when the district housed Indianapolis's Italian-American freight community. Witness reports gathered by Unseen Press emphasize footsteps, doors closing in empty buildings, and EMF anomalies near specific warehouse facades.
Union Station, the western anchor of the route, has its own reported activity, with witnesses describing a porter figure in early-century uniform on the upper concourse and a child's voice in the former waiting room. The tour presents these accounts as folklore and witness testimony rather than confirmed activity, in keeping with Unseen Press's documentary approach.
Notable Entities
A guided 1- to 1.5-mile walking tour through downtown Indianapolis's historic Wholesale District, departing from outside the Slippery Noodle Inn. Stops cover the Indiana Theatre, Union Station, and the wholesale-era warehouses tied to documented stories of murder, gang violence, and a fatal hotel fire.
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