As we near the time of year when many think of ghosts, some say spirits haunt parts of Indianapolis.
Some stories about brushes with the paranormal are passed through word of mouth. Like westside teens recounting their experience hearing disembodied voices at the old Central State Hospital. Or customers at the Slippery Noodle downtown seeing the ghosts of former employees.
Others have been the subject of police investigations. A family in the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood reported being besieged by an unseen entity in the 1960s. They said it would bite them and violently throw items around their house.
There are many ghost stories like these all throughout the city. We’ve collected a few here, and some are a bit spooky. Do yourself a favor and don’t read them too close to bed time.
Poltergeist problems in the Circle City
Some Indianapolis hauntings are tales that are told among friends and family, while others have been front page material.
At 10:37 p.m. the night of March 11, 1962, Renate Beck and her mother Lina Gemmecke were sitting in the kitchen of their two-story North Delaware Street home on the north side.
When Gemmecke got up to boil an egg, Beck said she saw a coffee cup fly out of the sink and smash against the wall where she was sitting.
It was only the beginning of the terror to come.
Later that night, the two said they saw glass figurines, ash trays, vases, goblets and other glassware thrown and broken by some unseen force. Beck said she felt a sting on her arm and saw small puncture marks which, to her, looked like a bat bite. Her mother and her 11-year-old daughter, Linda, got the marks, too.
Beck called police, and the officer sent to investigate was hit in the back by a flying drinking glass as he walked upstairs. The patrolman left without solving the mystery, and the glass breaking continued. The family decided to spend the night at a hotel.
Police found that Beck had a library of more than 300 German books on topics like extra-sensory perception, ghosts and occultism. Could they have been behind the haunting?
The next day, the glass breaking got worse and the family called the police again. Another patrolman was sent and the glass breaking continued. A record player, pellet gun or a sonic boom were considered the cause, but those hypotheses were disproven.
The glass-tossing stopped, but a few weeks later a new development raised suspicions that the supposed poltergeist could have been a hoax.
Police were called to Beck’s home after her mother collapsed, potentially due to a diabetic coma. When an officer arrived, he climbed the stairs to speak to Beck. As he was coming back downstairs, the officer said he saw Gemmecke throw an ashtray, flip over a coffee table and turn over a chair.
Gemmecke was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. She eventually agreed to return to Germany and the charges were dropped. Beck moved out of the home the following year.
The house was put up for sale, and in 1965 trombonist Walter Moore bought it. He told the Indianapolis Star in 1981 that he thought it was haunted but couldn’t pass up a deal.
Moore said he never experienced paranormal occurrences. His family, though, heard mysterious footsteps and the sound of a baby crying. They also saw doors swinging open and cups rolling down the stairs.
It’s unclear whether those experiences continue today. Mirror Indy was unable to contact the current homeowners.
The Delaware Street poltergeist isn’t the only documented one in the city.
In 1971, a former Indianapolis boxer and newspaperman filed a complaint against government officials and unnamed poltergeists for late delivery of new license plates. It’s unclear what happened in that case, or whether the ghosts were able to find an attorney to represent them.
And in the late 1970s, a retired southside couple reported hearing a telephone ringing in their East Minnesota Street home from 1:30-5:30 a.m. every night for three years despite not having a phone. It’s unclear whether the cause was ever found.
A few frights at west side sites
With the old Central State Hospital and the Pogue’s Run tunnel within walking distance, looking for ghosts was part of growing up for many westsiders.
Central State Hospital treated people with mental illnesses from around the state for nearly 150 years. Patients there included mass murderer and suspected serial killer Steven Judy and kidnapper Tony Kiritsis.
The hospital closed in 1994 after stories of patient suicides and deaths after abuse and neglect from caretakers became well known. At least several hundred patients are buried near the Mount Jackson cemetery, just across South Tibbs Avenue.
For decades, teens would go onto the hospital grounds and into some of the dilapidated buildings to see what they might encounter.
People have reported hearing ghostly screams and voices, bodiless shadows and feeling like someone’s watching them.
Many of the old hospital buildings were demolished and replaced with houses and apartments. Some, like the old pathology lab, which is now the Indiana Medical History Museum, remain.
The old administration building is now an apartment complex with a pet-friendly coffee shop called Mansion Society. Customers say the hauntings continue.
Some have heard cats scratching to get in, but when they check nothing’s there. Dogs brought in sometimes begin staring at walls for the duration of their stay. The shop’s machines have stopped working when people talk about their past experiences on the hospital grounds.
Another weird fact adds to the creepiness of the old hospital grounds. In the late 1940s, cult leader Charles Manson lived at a home a few hundred feet from the hospital.
Westsiders have also volunteered for frights by entering the Pogue’s Run tunnel that ends at the White River.
Pogue’s Run is a stream that runs from the Devington neighborhood on the east side to the White River near Kentucky Avenue. It’s named after George Pogue, one of the city’s first settlers who disappeared in 1821 while looking for lost horses.
The stream flowed above ground until about 1911, when city officials decided to encase some of it in a storm sewer that stretched from the northeast part of downtown to the White River.
Several workers died during the storm sewer’s construction, which finished in 1916.
Many westsiders have entered the dark tunnel on dares or to get a quick thrill. Most just see rats and standing water. Other tunnel visitors have reported seeing the ghosts of men dressed in clothes from last century.
A downtown bar’s haunted history
The Slippery Noodle Inn, at 372 S. Meridian St., is an Indianapolis bar and music venue with a storied history.
According to the inn’s official history, it was founded in 1850 as a bar called the Tremont House that served as a hub on the Underground Railroad.
Later, the bar served as a brothel and as a hangout for Indianapolis-born gangster John Dillinger and his crew, and, after his death, the notorious Brady Gang. The gangsters used a building attached to the inn for target practice. Some of the bullets are still embedded in the lower east wall.
People have said they’ve seen a ghost wearing a cowboy hat. He’s supposedly the spirit of a man killed at the bar in 1953 after he and another bordello patron got into a knife fight.
Others have seen the ghosts of Underground Railroad escapees, a former caretaker named “George” and prostitutes employed by the bordello.
Something supernatural on the race track
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is home to the “greatest spectacle in racing” and a few stories about specters.
According to racing lore, racing legend Dale Earnhardt experienced a paranormal event on the track in 1995 after winning the Brickyard 500.
Earhardt took a lap around the track on a motorcycle, and what happened depends on who you ask.
One version of the story has Earnhardt seeing a ghost on the track, which spooked “The Intimidator” into finishing his lap as quickly as possible. Another has a spirit taking over his motorcycle, taking him from 40 miles per hour to 100, and scaring him so much he left the track immediately after.
NASCAR driver and Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Tony Stewart said he experienced a “Field of Dreams” situation in 1999.
After returning from a race in Charlotte, North Carolina late one night, Stewart was allowed to stay on the infield after hours. No one but him was allowed to be at the Speedway, but still at around 1 a.m. he says he heard the place come alive as if a race was going on.
Another IMS ghost story involves an autograph from a ghost.
In 1994, as the story goes, a father brought his 8-year-old son to that year’s Indianapolis 500 and lost track of him. The boy came back with a signed program. The father checked out the program and saw that it had been signed by racer Eddie Sachs, who had died in a crash at the Indianapolis 500 in 1964. The man showed his son a photo of Sachs, and the boy confirmed it was him.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s ghost experiences also go beyond the track to Marian University.
The Catholic college’s undergraduate admissions office at 3200 Cold Spring Road is the Wheeler-Stokely Mansion. The home was built in 1911 for IMS co-founder Frank Wheeler.
Wheeler committed suicide in the mansion in 1921, and people began seeing apparitions there soon after. That includes a man believed to be Wheeler walking a dog and a woman jumping into a ghost carriage. People have also reported cold chills and being pushed off the trail while walking.
Statehouse specters
Some state buildings downtown are known to be hotbeds of supernatural activity.
The Indiana Statehouse, which was built in 1888, reportedly has spirits haunting its halls.
A state police officer told the Indianapolis Star other officers have seen the ghosts of a long haired woman in 19th century clothing. They also saw a mailworker from around the same time period who died in the building. There also are stories about doors opening on their own and other paranormal oddities, like a black orb that follows people on the 3rd and 4th floors.
It has an odd link with other haunted places, too.
The Statehouse’s architect, Edwin May, also designed several buildings at the former Central State Hospital, perhaps most noteworthy the women’s building known as the “Seven Steeples.” Many of them were demolished in the 1970s.
May had a stroke at age 55 which left him paralyzed and unable to finish work on the Statehouse. He later died after mistakenly drinking a bottle of ammonia.
May’s successor on the Statehouse project, his chief draftsman Adolf Scherrer, also had a career-ending stroke, although it happened several decades after the Statehouse was built. Scherrer designed the Old Pathology Building at Central State Hospital, now the Indiana Medical History Museum.
Ghosts love a good show
Some of the city’s performing arts venues are believed to be hotspots for ghosts looking for the limelight.
The Indiana Theatre building, home to the Indiana Repertory Theatre since 1980, is one of those spots.
The building at 140 W. Washington St. was constructed in 1927 as a movie theater. People have claimed to see ghosts in the building. Those include a woman dressed in white clothes from the 1930s, a man wearing a tuxedo in the upper balcony of the theater and the reflections of actors from the past in dressing room mirrors.
The ghost of former director Tom Haas has also been seen at the theater. Haas died of injuries he sustained after being hit by a car while jogging in 1991.
The Rivoli Theatre at 155 E. 10th St. was also built in 1927. Like the Indiana Theatre, it has been a hotspot for the supernatural in past decades.
The theater is currently closed, but is being renovated. Former owners have claimed to have seen ghosts in the audience waiting for a show when they opened up for a day. Patrons have seen a figure running down the aisle and disappearing into a wall. Others say they saw faucets in the women’s restrooms turn themselves on, ghostly reflections in the mirror and sounds in empty stalls.
The Madam Walker Legacy Center at 617 Indiana Ave. is also the site of some apparitions. Some theatergoers claimed to have seen shadow people sitting in theater seats and on stage, one of whom is believed to be the center’s namesake, Madam C.J. Walker.
The Murat Theatre at the Old National Centre is also believed to be haunted by the spirit of a maintenance man as well as Elias J. Jacoby, the man behind the theater’s construction.
We hope you enjoyed these tales. Have a happy Halloween!
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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