Indiana’s real urbex story is Gary, and Gary is changing fast. Three of the city’s landmark ruins now have owners with demolition or redevelopment plans, so what is left to see there has a deadline on it. Elsewhere the state has one genuinely legal ruin, inside a state park.
Rose Island, Charlestown State Park
Standing, interpreted and legal. The 1920s amusement park ruins sit on a 118-acre peninsula inside Charlestown State Park: pay the vehicle gate fee, go in daylight, stay on marked trails. You cross on the 1882 Portersville Bridge, moved here in 2011. Trail 7 is a strenuous climb out, and there is exposed rebar and an open pool basin. Removing artifacts is prohibited. Site details.
City Methodist Church, Gary
Sealed, and on borrowed time. The Gary Redevelopment Commission owns it, and a plan announced in December 2024 would raze most of the nine-storey complex and keep only the sanctuary shell as a ruins garden. It is fenced and boarded, and trespassing is enforced. The old list counted this building twice, the second time as United Methodist Church. Church details.
Palace Theater, Gary
Sealed, and partly coming down. Black and White Investments of Indianapolis bought it for $2,500 in June 2024 through a city process. The auditorium is to be demolished and the Broadway retail block kept, inside an $85 million scheme for up to 250 mixed-income apartments targeting 2027. It is an active development site. Theater history.
Union Station, Gary
Sealed, but with a future. It closed to passengers in 1971, not the 1950s. The Decay Devils preservation nonprofit bought it from the city in 2018, got it on the National Register in 2019, and broke ground in August 2023 on an $8 million conversion. Legal access is through the owner’s events, volunteer days and tours. Decay Devils.
Empire Quarry, Bloomington
Standing, private and posted. This is the cut that supplied 18,630 tons of limestone for the Empire State Building, not the Washington Monument, which is marble and granite. Signs have warned of live ammunition in use since 2017. The walls are sheer, the water depth is hard to judge, and cliff divers keep getting hurt. Quarry details.
Central State Hospital, Indianapolis
Mostly redeveloped. The campus is now the Central Greens neighbourhood with public streets, and the Indiana Medical History Museum runs ticketed tours in the 1895 Old Pathology Building. The 1886 powerhouse is still derelict, fenced and city-owned after a 2016 fire and a 2023 partial collapse. Hospital history.
One to cross off: Muscatatuck is an active Indiana National Guard training centre with live pyrotechnics and controlled burns, and entering a military installation is a federal offence.
For the full Indiana list with the date each site was last checked, see Abandoned Places Near Me: Indiana.