The Old Northside is Indianapolis's most-intact 19th-century residential neighborhood, developed primarily between 1865 and 1895 as the home of the city's industrial and political leadership. Vice President Thomas Marshall, novelist Booth Tarkington, and President Benjamin Harrison all lived in the district during its peak. The neighborhood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 after a sustained restoration effort led by Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana — the predecessor to today's Indiana Landmarks.
Indiana Landmarks operates from the Central Avenue Methodist Church, an 1891 Italian Renaissance Revival building it restored as the Indiana Landmarks Center, opening in 2011. The Center's Grand Hall, the former sanctuary, is the staging point for the Spooky Tour. The 1865 Morris-Butler House, two blocks south, is the second principal stop and the only interior visit on the route; it is the oldest surviving Italianate mansion in the neighborhood and operated as Indiana Landmarks' first historic house museum after its 1969 acquisition.
Tours depart every fifteen minutes beginning at 4 pm with the last group leaving at 6:45 pm; the route covers just over one mile and runs about two hours. Pricing is $23 general public, $20 for Indiana Landmarks members, $17 for children age 6 to 11, and free for children five and under.
Sources
- https://www.indianalandmarks.org/event/old-northside-spooky-tour/
- https://www.visitindy.com/blog/post/spine-chilling-indy-ghost-tours/
Phantom footstepsDoors opening/closingPhantom smellsCold spotsResidual haunting
Dr. Helene Knabe was an Indianapolis pathologist and one of the first women to graduate from the Medical College of Indiana. On the morning of October 24, 1911, she was found murdered in her apartment at the Delaware Flats; the case was never officially solved. The tour visits the relevant blocks and presents the case using period newspaper accounts.
The Cockroach Row story centers on a tenement that stood in the neighborhood during the late 19th century, occupied by laborer Jolly Werner among many others. The narrative comes from contemporary social-reform writing on Indianapolis's poorest housing stock and is paired with reports from the modern residents of the surviving buildings on the same block.
The Morris-Butler House is the tour's only interior stop, and the source of its longest-running paranormal accounts. Indiana Landmarks staff have over the decades reported phantom footsteps on the second floor, doors that open and close on their own, and the smell of pipe tobacco in rooms that have not been occupied. The Athenaeum — a German-American social hall a few blocks east, completed in 1894 — is referenced for similar staff reports tied to its theater and Rathskeller. The tour closes with cider, seasonal sweets, and organ music in the Grand Hall of the Indiana Landmarks Center.
Notable Entities
Dr. Helene Knabe (historical)
