Old Lake County Jail

Visitors and investigators at the Old Lake County Jail report orbs, unexplained voices, cell doors slamming and a dog barking with no source; American Hauntings runs overnight ghost hunts there and calls it one of the most haunted places in Indiana, and ghost hunters have been photographed leaving cigarettes in the jail as an offering to draw spirits out. The 'escape-proof' jail in Crown Point became internationally famous on March 3, 1934, when bank robber John Dillinger escaped using a fake pistol carved from wood or a washboard and blackened with shoe polish, forcing deputy Sherman Ford and jailer Frank Saager to open his cell and a series of doors on his way out, one of the most notorious jailbreaks in American history. Dillinger had been extradited to Crown Point to face murder charges tied to an East Chicago bank robbery, and Sheriff Lillian Holley ran the jail at the time. It operated until the 1960s, and the Old Sheriff's House Foundation is restoring the sheriff's house and jail.