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During the late 19 th century, southeastern Indiana came to specialize in an industry it still dominates. Its forests supplying the raw materials and a concentration of German immigrant artisans providing the craftsmanship, the area became known for furniture manufacture.
As the days grow brisker and the leaves take on brilliant hues, many Americans of a certain generation are wont to characterize the season with an expression born in Indiana. “When the frost is on the punkin” is the opening phrase of a classic poem by James Whitcomb Riley.
Among the landmarks that figure prominently on an Indiana ghost-tracker’s map is the Willard Library. The stately brick edifice in downtown Evansville has such a reputation for paranormal activity that the library, in partnership with the Evansville Courier and Press, has installed surveillance cameras or “ghost cams” in the reportedly haunted rooms.
While ghost-trackers in Evansville keep on the lookout for the Lady in Grey, an apparition in different attire haunts the imagination of paranormal investigators in central Indiana. A spectral Lady in Black is said to lurk in the Stepp Cemetery, located deep within the Morgan Monroe State Forest, south of Martinsville.
For Hoosier storytellers with a taste for the macabre, the Central State Hospital is a familiar theme. The defunct institution on the near-west side of Indianapolis treated and housed many of the state’s mentally ill for almost 150 years.