Indiana has absolutely no shortage of state parks. There’s a little something for everyone here: stunning dunes, breathtaking beaches, incredible forests, amazing geology… it certainly seems as if we get the best of most worlds out here. There is a state park in Indiana that, for whatever reason, doesn’t get as much love as the others. This park is known more for the ghosts that supposedly stalk the grounds than anything else, and for good reason: it’s scary as all get-out after dark. Enter the world of Potato Creek State Park, an old park that might just be one of the most haunted places in Indiana. Perhaps that’s the reason it doesn’t garner as much attention as most. Check out these Potato Creek State Park photos and learn more about its haunted past.

Potato Creek State Park is 12 miles southwest of South Bend, Indiana, and is named for the rich supply of potatoes grown on the creek's banks in the 1800s.
Flickr/Steve Stearns
It offers around six miles of hiking trails, but people don't usually come here for the hiking. They come here for the stories they've heard about the spirits that roam the park grounds at night.
Most commonly reported are the sounds of children screaming and thrashing about in the water.
Al/Flickr
When concerned citizens rush in to investigate, they find absolutely nothing. It's widely believed that these sounds are the ghosts of drowned children from the old frontier days, when survival into adulthood was a much more perilous journey than it typically is now.
The drowned children aren't the only ghosts that lurk here, either.
John Brighenti/Flickr
Visitors have reported being followed by a "strong presence," but upon turning around to face the person behind them, they discover that there's nobody there (well, nobody they can see, anyway). The sounds of a woman weeping near the lake are often heard as well.

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It is unknown how many people have died at Potato Creek State Park, but considering the land was a clashing point between Native Americans and unwelcome European settlers for many years within the last century or so, it's not at all surprising that some tortured souls may still linger here.
Anna Hesser/Flickr
Other reports from the area include specters hiding in the trees; a visitor just there for hiking will catch a glimpse of someone peering at them from behind a tree. The "someone" vanishes as soon as the hiker looks directly at them. This seems quite common for the area, even for people who don't believe in ghosts.
Unsurprisingly, there is a cemetery on the grounds of Potato Creek State Park, and some of the graves belong to the earliest European settlers to arrive in the area.
Wesley Eller/Flickr
It's not uncommon for people to see people walking around in the cemetery who disappear after several seconds of wandering aimlessly, only to reappear in the same place and "replay" the same actions as before several minutes or hours later. Some people have reported being terrified out of their minds while exploring the graves because an unseen hand touched their hair or face.
There are even stories out there of people who were chased out of the graveyard by "something," though upon looking back once they felt they were safe there was, unsurprisingly, absolutely nothing there.
Kevin Chodzinski/Flickr
The voices of children echo from beyond the trees, as do what sounds like the voices of their mothers calling for them. If you'd like to try and hunt some ghosts of Potato Creek State Park, you can try camping here or renting a cabin. People who have gone the cabin-rental route have reported bizarre occurrences in the cabins, like flickering lights, orbs, moving objects, and the sense of being watched.
Do you dare spend a weekend exploring Potato Creek State Park?
Bob Dilworth/Flickr
You never know - maybe it really is the most haunted park in Indiana. Maybe it's all stories. We guess you'll have to go check it out for yourself and tell us your best ghost stories, should you encounter the unexplained.

For permits, closure information and updates, and information about booking a cabin or campsite at the ever-so-spooky Potato Creek State Park, you’ll want to do so on the official Potato Creek SP website.

If you’re a little too creeped out to stay inside the park at night, you can always find a great place to stay on Vrbo.com.

Have you ever visited Potato Creek State Park? Did you experience anything that scared you and which you could not explain? Tell us all about it in the comments. Craving more haunted Indiana? These haunted spots in Indiana are sure to give you chills.

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haunted parks in Indiana

Tori Jane | August 24, 2022

Where is the most haunted park in Indiana?  

Indiana is known for its beautiful state parks – 24 of them, to be exact. Potato Creek State Park is well known for its ghosts (and its status as the “most haunted” park in the Hoosier State), sure, but there are plenty more haunted parks in Indiana to go around. For example, if you count cemeteries as parks (which, technically, they are), you get a lot more results:

  • The Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute is well-known for being host to the ghost of a dog named Stiffy Green. He’s buried there, and you can find his headstone to this day – or you can just go meet him.  

 

Are there any dark parts of Potato Creek State Park history?  

Many people have met an untimely end at Potato Creek State Park, and nowadays even the locals are a little leery about, say, camping at the most haunted campground in Indiana:

  • People have drowned here, including children, and they say sometimes at night you can still hear them thrashing and crying for help in the water – only for someone to come to the rescue and find nothing (and nobody) there.
  • There were also many, many clashes here between Native American tribes and European colonizers, resulting in plenty of bloodshed on the grounds.  

 

Where are some of the most haunted places in Indiana? 

So, what are some other haunted places in Indiana worth checking out? There are lots and they include:

  • Look into real-life haunted houses like Whispers Estate, which is supposedly so outrageously plagued by the souls of the dead that some visitors have quite literally been injured by them and a waiver is required to investigate.
  • There are numerous haunted cemeteries in Indiana, too, like:
    • the Stepp Cemetery
    • Elizabethtown Cemetery
    • the Highland Lawn Cemetery
  • You can’t miss the Hannah House, which has been infamously haunted for ages.  

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