The Firehouse Travel Blog: Indiana Beach Amusement Resort.... An Oasis in Corn Country

The Norway Dam that creates Lake Shafer

Indiana Beach Amusement Resort, maybe you have heard of it, maybe you haven't. It has been in Indiana's corn country and out in the middle of nowhere since the 1920's. It sits next to and on top of Lake Shafer, an artificial lake that was formed with the creation of the Norway Dam on the Tippecanoe River. With the formation of this lake, an oasis rose in an area full of corn farms, drawing many families to the area to snap up this newly created waterfront property for summer vacation homes. Back then one family saw the potential of this newly created water front property and literally built a beach to provide a place for people to enjoy water activities. This was the modest beginnings of Indiana Beach, which since then has grown into "Indiana's largest Resort and Vacation Playground" advertising over 40 rides and attractions, games, fine dining, dancing, an exciting Waterpark, and six roller coasters.

One of the few highlights of the trip to Indiana beach

As mentioned before, Indiana Beach is in the middle of nowhere, making it a boring trip through corn country on two lane roads and through small towns. Occasionally in the small towns there will be interesting sites or signs. One that stood out was near Knox, Indiana pointed out it was 1080 miles to DisneyWorld. Wish we would have gotten a picture, but we were on limited time and on a mission to see what has made Indiana Beach thrive in the middle of corn country. Adding to fuel the desire to visit this amusement resort is that this park could easily be on the verge of extinction.

Corn as far as the eye can see

This assumption is based on the sudden closure at the end of the season of 2011 and protest by former employees claiming the new owners are being lax on safety and maintenance of the rides. I will get to that more later.

After making our voyage through the back country roads and small towns we arrived at Indiana Beach about an hour after opening and had no issues finding parking. As matter of fact, we had our choice of parking spots on this sunny and hot Saturday Morning. The empty parking lot lead us to believe this place was going to be deserted, but as we were stepping out of the truck, buses began to arrive. My wife quickly got sun-blocked up and we made a bee line for the ticket booths.

Nice picture spot, love the t-shirt

We were warmly greeted near the ticket booths and directed to specific lines because certain booths could take cash only due to debit/credit card machines not working. Machines like that go down all the time so no big issue. A major issue we found out later in the day, there are no working ATM machines at Indiana beach, there haven't been for sometime. So if you want to play the carnival games, bring cash.
Stepping up to the ticket window, there was a sign posted that The Splash Battle was not working along with the parks signature coaster, the Hurricane Hoosier. So in theory, there were 38 other rides and attractions and 5 other roller coasters we could challenge. We had decided earlier in trip that we were not going to go to the water park because of time constraints and really wanted to explore the rest of the park because there was the real of threat thunderstorms ending the day even earlier than we had hoped. So we purchased our pay one price for rides only wristband which was decent value of $24.95. To include the water park the price would have been $34.95 or if you didn't want to do either the rides or water park, you could purchase a $2.00 boardwalk admission. Wristband on, we head through the south entrance to the park.

The south entrance to the park is across a suspension bridge(the longest in Indiana, or so Indiana Beach claims) making for a very picturesque view with the Hurricane Hoosier roller coaster that dominates the shoreline. As a matter of fact, this is the view given in brochures making the park look amazing. The Hurricane Hoosier looked like a fantastic out and back roller coaster over the water making it unique, but as the sign stated at the ticket booth, it was closed. After crossing the bridge, it became obvious how old the park was and we got our first glimpse of how it would prove very difficult for people with mobility problems to enjoy the park. In our opinion, this park needs to work harder on being ADA compliant, it looks like the very minimum has been done just to pass guidelines. To reach the park from the south entrance over the bridge there is very steep slope on to the ground of the park.This would be very difficult for someone in a wheel chair or on crutches.

This picturesque view from the south entracnce

We did quick size up about the lay out of the park heading from the south end to the north end and the layout is a jumbled mess. Space is limited and rides are shoe horned into odd places. It felt and looked like a carnival came to town and this was were the rides came to die. A coat of paint can go a long way. We began to think the former protesting employees were right about there being safety issues in the park. Rides were rusty and signage out of date. It literally looked like a project was started and left unfinished.

A solitary hole from a golf course that has vanished.

To cement this opinion, a few of the biggest signs were, signage laying all over the place, one hole, presumably the last hole, of a miniature golf course, just left to sit all by itself, and also signs that could have been easily painted over that had old information stating in order to ride the ride proceed "across the street to purchase tickets". There have been no single ticket sales in nearly 2 years.

The Hurricane Hoosier is built over the water in places.

In all, there were some really decent hidden gems in this park. The Cornball express and Steel Hawg where very nice roller coasters. The Cornball Express has some great pops of airtime in its tight configuration. This would easily be a great wooden coaster if it were maintained better, it was by far one of the roughest roller coaster I have ridden, but not the roughest in the park. The Hurricane Hoosier did indeed open later in the day, but besides it being scenic and unique by being built over the water, it was very rough(the roughest in the park) and boring. Steel Hawg was short, but enjoyable steel coaster with an fun 111 degree beyond vertical first drop. It definitely is re-rideable but with it's relativity short ride time and lack of excitement after the first drop, it could get boring quickly. A classic and must see attraction here is Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle. This is a very nicely done haunted house that uses black light and the element of surprise to send chills, giggles, and screams through this haunt. The downsize to Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle it is an up charge attraction.

Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle it is worth the up charge to experience

The largest attraction to Indiana Beach is by far it's location on and over Lake Shafer. Now that we have been here, we won't make a special trip out of our way to go back. If for some reason when we are traveling somewhere and this is somehow on the way(it is out in the middle of nowhere), we would stop because it could make a nice break in the day. I must mention, based on what we saw. We would never pay for the water park. It was very small, the slides looked beat up, and lack variety. We easily did this park in a few hours and missed out on two of the six coasters because of thunderstorms. The thunderstorms also brought to our attention that there may be poor policy for weather. We saw lighting and it took them over 15 minutes to spread the word to all of the rides to close.We were in line for a coaster and were the last ride shut down, the other coasters and rides had closed long before the one we were at did. Instead of the employees seeking shelter from the intensifying storm, they huddled together in the middle of the street to talk. Not much longer after our ride was closed, lighting hit so close to the boardwalk, it took out their security radios and computer systems for the stores, it also had people screaming and hitting the deck. I would agree that this park could use some better maintenance on their rides which could increase safety. There is potential here to be a great small town amusement park as is there the equal potential of this park closing it doors forever.

Here are some more photos for your enjoyment of Indiana beach