Historic Hotels & Inns in Indiana

Ways in

Themes in Indiana

Indianapolis, from Union Station to Mass Ave

Four of the city’s nine stays are in the Indianapolis Union Station–Wholesale District: the Omni Severin, which opened in 1913 as the Hotel Severin facing Union Station; the Crowne Plaza, with rooms in the station’s 1922 train shed, some inside Pullman cars; Le Méridien, in the 1928–29 Hotel Lockerbie; and the Hampton Inn, in the Big Four Building, a railway headquarters of 1929–30. Near Monument Circle, the Hilton Garden Inn fills the 1915 Fletcher Trust Building and the InterContinental the 1926 Illinois Building, and on Mass Ave the Bottleworks Hotel is a 1931 Coca-Cola bottling plant.

The French Lick and West Baden springs resorts

Paoli physician William A. Bowles built the first hotel beside French Lick’s sulfur springs around 1845. Former Indianapolis mayor Thomas Taggart bought it in 1901, expanded it and sold the springs’ Pluto Water nationally, and Franklin D. Roosevelt rallied support there at the 1931 governors’ conference. At West Baden, Lee Wiley Sinclair opened a circular hotel in 1902 under a 200-foot free-span dome, the largest in the world until 1913; it later served as a Jesuit seminary and Northwood Institute’s campus before preservationists rescued it. Both are Historic Hotels of America members run by French Lick Resort, and Listverse reports that locals call French Lick Springs one of Indiana’s most haunted places, with stories of Taggart’s ghost.

State park inns and Brown County

State Penal Farm laborers finished Turkey Run Inn in 1919, the Potawatomi Inn opened above Lake James in Pokagon State Park in 1927, and Abe Martin Lodge opened in Brown County State Park in 1932, named for Kin Hubbard’s cartoon character. At Pokagon, the DNR rents rooms in the Potawatomi Inn’s original Historic Section; at Abe Martin, a 54-room wing was added in 1987, so ask for a room in the original lodge. The Fort Harrison Inn in Lawrence has rooms in the old Fort Benjamin Harrison post hospital, which the park dates to 1906. Elsewhere in Brown County, the Story Inn has rooms above the village of Story’s 1916 general store, and the inn says its Blue Lady Room is named for a ghost several guests report seeing.

Ohio River towns and small-town Indiana

In Madison, the 1884 Eagle Cotton Mill on the Ohio River is now a Fairfield Inn & Suites and a Historic Hotels of America member. A few blocks from the river, the Iron Gate Inn is a B&B in a house the inn dates to about 1840. Corydon, Indiana’s first state capital, has the Kintner family’s 1873 Italianate hotel, and Batesville has The Sherman, John F. Brinkman’s 1852 frame hotel behind a 1933 Tudor Revival front. In Columbus, The Inn at Irwin Gardens is merchant Joseph Irwin’s 1864 house, remodeled in 1910. In the north, stay at The Oliver Inn, James Oliver’s 1886 house in South Bend; the Charley Creek Inn, the 1919–20 Hotel Indiana in Wabash; or Hotel Elkhart, opened in 1923.

Road trip

Indianapolis to French Lick, inn to inn

Indianapolis

Start downtown at the Omni Severin, opened in 1913, or in a Pullman-car room at the Crowne Plaza in Union Station. Pick from our Indianapolis guide.

Columbus

Stay at The Inn at Irwin Gardens, Joseph Irwin’s 1864 house, remodeled in 1910, with Pompeii-inspired gardens and rooms named for Irwin family members.

Brown County

Sleep above the 1916 general store at the Story Inn, or at Abe Martin Lodge in Brown County State Park; ask for a room in the 1932 lodge.

French Lick and West Baden Springs

End at the springs: the French Lick Springs Hotel, whose oldest surviving part is its 1901 east wing, or the West Baden Springs Hotel under its 1902 dome.

Context

History and architecture

Indiana became the 19th state in 1816, with Corydon its first capital. Among the stays we list, the oldest built as hotels are John F. Brinkman’s 1852 frame hotel in Batesville, now The Sherman, and the Kintner family’s 1873 brick hotel in Corydon. At French Lick, William A. Bowles built a hotel beside the sulfur springs around 1845, and Thomas Taggart bought and expanded it from 1901; in 1902 Lee Wiley Sinclair opened the domed West Baden Springs Hotel. In Indianapolis, founded in 1821, Henry Severin Jr. opened the Hotel Severin facing Union Station in 1913, the station’s elevated train shed was completed in 1922, and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway put up its Big Four Building headquarters in 1929–30. State park inns opened at Turkey Run in 1919, Pokagon in 1927 and Brown County in 1932. More recently, office towers, a cotton mill and a bottling plant have become hotels, among them the Fletcher Trust and Big Four buildings in 1996 and the Illinois Building, which opened as the InterContinental in 2025.