Old Lake County Jail Ghost Hunt, Crown Point, Indiana

The Old Lake County Jail, Crown Point, Indiana

The escape-proof jail John Dillinger walked out of. The cell blocks veteran investigators won’t finish. One night, ours.

On March 3rd 1934, a young gangster named John Dillinger walked out of a jail considered the finest and most escape-proof in Indiana, holding what some say was a gun carved from a wooden washboard and blackened with shoe polish. Fourteen jailers were locked in their own cells. He drove off in the sheriff’s own car. Ninety years later, the building he humiliated still stands on South Main Street, and the people who walk its cell blocks at night say the inmates never really left.

This is a six-hour evening investigation of the Old Lake County Jail and Sheriff’s House, a National Register building featured on Syfy’s Ghost Hunters, where doors close on their own, voices echo from empty cells, and one veteran investigator with twenty years in the field has called it one of only three locations in their career they could not finish.

For one night, the jail and the sheriff’s house are ours. You will move through the original 1882 sheriff’s residence and into the jail behind it: the corridors where fourteen men were once locked into their own cages, the small cell where Dillinger waited for his moment, the kitchen door he walked out of, and the upper floors where the shadow figures have been photographed and filmed. The building has been quiet for the public all day. By the time you arrive, it has been waiting.

Location History

The Old Lake County Jail and Sheriff’s House at 226 South Main Street was built in 1882 at a cost of $24,000. The original jail measured 36 by 48 feet, with six steel cells for men, four for women, and a small set of corridors connecting them to the sheriff’s family home at the front of the building. State law required the sheriff and his family to live attached to the jail. They ate, slept, and raised their children fifty feet from the cell block.

As Crown Point grew, the jail grew with it. A larger structure went up around 1908, and a further extension in 1928 pushed the building through the block to East Street, with the capacity eventually reaching around 150 cells, alongside a warden’s residence, departmental offices, an institutional kitchen, a barber shop, and a garage.

In January 1934 the jail received its most infamous inmate. John Dillinger, fresh from a bank robbery in East Chicago that left Detective William Patrick O’Malley dead, was extradited from Tucson and locked in Crown Point to await trial. Sheriff Lillian Holley, recently appointed after her husband, the sitting sheriff, was murdered in office, posed for press photographs alongside him. On March 3rd Dillinger escaped. He locked fourteen jailers, including the warden and a fingerprint expert, into their own cells, took two hostages, and drove away in Sheriff Holley’s own Ford V-8. He was shot and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago that July.

He was not the only name on the cell roster. James “Fur” Sammons, alleged to have been a hit man for Al Capone and described by those who knew him as a psychopath, served time here in late 1933. Countless others passed through and were not famous at all.

The state requirement for sheriffs to live in the jail was lifted in 1958. The cell blocks stayed in use until 1974, when the new county complex opened on North Main Street. The building has been empty of the living ever since. The Old Sheriff’s House Foundation was formed in 1987 and the property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Today it is preserved, restored, and quietly notorious.

The Hauntings

The Old Lake County Jail was featured on the eleventh season of Ghost Hunters in 2016, and the Foundation itself acknowledges that the evidence captured here has been physical, emotional, mental, and visual. The activity is not subtle, and it is not occasional.

The cell blocks are where most of it lives. Visitors and investigators consistently describe shadow figures drifting along the corridors and into and out of cells that were locked decades ago. Cell doors are reported to open and close on their own. The iron bars are heard rattling in empty cells, and the sound carries the way only metal in a stone-floored corridor can.

Disembodied voices are common, sometimes captured on recorders as EVPs, sometimes audible to the naked ear. Footsteps pace the upper walkways when no one is up there. Lights flicker on and off without anyone near a switch. Photographs taken inside the cells regularly return with anomalies the photographer cannot explain. A shadow figure has been filmed on the third floor.

The strongest testimony comes from investigators who do this for a living. One paranormal investigator with more than twenty years of experience and hundreds of locations behind them has stated publicly that the Old Lake County Jail is one of only three places in their entire career where they felt the activity was too much to continue. They reported that the spirits did not want them there. They left. They have said they will return. Their husband has said he will not.

Who is doing this is anyone’s guess. Some believe Dillinger himself is among them. Others point to Sammons, or to one of the many forgotten men who died inside these walls in the long century the jail was operational. The cells do not seem to mind which name you put on the activity. They keep producing it regardless.

Your Investigation

The HRA team will lead structured vigils in the most active areas of the building, including:

• The cell blocks, where shadow figures, disembodied voices, and the sound of bars rattling in empty cells are most frequently reported. Spirit box and EVP work, with cell-door monitoring.
• Dillinger’s cell, the small holding cell where the gangster waited for his moment. Trigger object work and direct calling-out sessions.
• The upper walkways and third floor, where a shadow figure has been filmed and footsteps are heard when no one is up there. K2 and REM pod vigils.
• The sheriff’s residence, the original 1882 family home at the front of the building, fifty feet from the cell block. EMF sweeps and quiet listening.
• The kitchen and rear corridors, the route Dillinger walked out of on March 3rd 1934.
• Free investigation in the final hours, where you can return to the area that unsettled you most, with HRA equipment and team support on hand.

What’s Included in the Ghost Hunt

From just $129 per person, you will enjoy:

• A full night of ghost hunting with the Haunted Rooms America team.
• Structured vigils across the jail, sheriff’s house, yard, upper floors, cellblock, and cells.
• Group vigils and experiments, guided by our experienced team.
• Use of our traditional and state-of-the-art paranormal equipment.
• Free time to investigate at the end of the night.
• Snacks and refreshments provided at intervals throughout the night.

Final Warning

For nearly a century, the cell blocks of the Old Lake County Jail held men the law could not contain elsewhere. Killers. Gangsters. The forgotten. Some of them died inside these walls. Others left a mark on the building that has never been cleaned away.

The doors still open on their own. The bars still rattle in empty cells. Voices answer questions no one living asked. Investigators with decades of experience have walked out before the night was finished.

For one night, the jail is open to those with the nerve to step inside. Capacity is strictly limited. If you want to walk Dillinger’s corridor after dark and see what answers back, secure your place now.

The cells are empty. The jail is not.

TICKETS ARE EXTREMELY LIMITED