Nature meets industry as overgrown brush grows into one of the massive, abandoned coal-fired Power Plants at INAAP.
There is no official ranking of the largest abandonments in the country, so I will call this 10,000+ acre World War II era ammunition plant the largest abandonment in the country because I can. Built in 1942 to support the US efforts in WWII, the plant continued to produce through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. All of the gates and doors were closed and locked at the end of the Cold War, prior to that point the base had been kept on "Standby Status," constantly ready to produce should war between the US and USSR have ever broken out. For a rundown of the history of the plant, check out the Wikipedia article: Indiana Army Ammuntion Plant.
The photos were taken during a handful of trips to the site over the past year. Despite several trips and dozens of hours exploring the complex, I've probably only seen around 5% of the 1400 buildings. The collection of abandoned buildings is the size of a small city; the sheer size, coupled with the repetitive nature of the architecture, as well as overgrown weeds and trees infringing upon the streets make it extremely easy to get lost if one didn't know their way around. Luckily, Sherman (of Abandoned Online) and I are pretty well informed and don't find barbed wire topped fences to be much of an obstacle.
Interior of the 211-X series of buildings, the "Screening and Graining Houses," there are six identical buildings, and another six of a slightly different style on the southern half of the base.
10,000 acres of scenes just like this one slowly rot away in Southeastern Indiana. It's an eerie feeling walking around through the complex, and every sound you hear is suspicious.
Interior of building #401-1, the power plant. The two coal power plant are the largest buildings in the complex.
These metal catwalks are 100 feet above the generator hall of the power plant. It was an interesting climb up to this point.
Looking out over the 10,000 acre wasteland that is INAAP. We climbed to the top of the power plant roof to take this photo.
A panorama taken from the roof of the power plant, showing the bulk of the ammunitions plant. Click to see the full size
The empty, decaying "machine room."
No exploration of an abandoned building would be complete without using the abandoned bathrooms.
While a few of the wood framed buildings have collapsed partially, or are very near it.. this one was in remarkably good shape, considering it's been open to the elements for 15 years.
This view of the power plant (401-1) was taken from inside one of the water pumping stations.
Recently, parts of INAAP have started to be demolished. However, the task of taking down 1400 buildings is a daunting one, almost as daunting as hiking into and around the site itself. Keep an eye out for posts in the future about this place. To see all my photos from INAAP, visit the photography section: (of zfein.com INAAP gallery).