Inside the Abandoned American State Bank in Gary, Indiana

The American State Bank in Gary, Indiana started out holding people’s money and ended up holding the city’s paperwork. Inside is a small vault, garbage bags of documents from the City of Gary, a basement that turned out to be a youth center, and rooms upstairs that burned.

I went in thinking this would be a short video. The place is small, and the vault is much smaller than the one in the Chicago bank, where the vault was in the basement and was huge. Then the paper started. The video description says the City of Gary last used the building in the late 90s as some kind of admin space, which would explain the legal paperwork, the youth services records and all the documents lying around.

What we found

The first rooms look like they might have fire damage. Somebody was probably sleeping in there. There’s a really old computer, literally burnt in from being on for so long, and kids’ toys all over.

The vault door is big, and there’s a lock box next to it and a vault ventilator, but the vault itself is small. I’m guessing they used to keep people’s keys in there. I told everyone there probably wasn’t going to be too much to show.

Then the documents. There were garbage bags full of papers from the City of Gary, Indiana code books, cassette tapes and what was probably an expensive chair at one point. One room was the tax consultant’s, which is why there are so many code books. Another sign said code enforcement division. One of the guys found documents with Social Security numbers, race and income on them. I’m not going to show any of that, so it stayed out of the video. One wall upstairs is completely bowing out and looks ready to collapse.

The basement is a different story. A wall was built in afterward, and a sign says youth services bureau. There’s a yearbook of school law from 1968, a teacher’s manual with answer keys for English, children’s books, little gift bags and a lot of kids’ toys, including a basketball game. We also found a pile of tape things that none of us could identify at first, which turned out to be lift off tapes. It’s a pretty gross youth center. Someone also joked that there might be a body in the suitcase. It’s a big suitcase, but not that big. There was nothing in it.

Back upstairs, the paper kept going. There was an Indiana State Police report and a personal identification application, which I could show because it was blank. There was a Christmas tree that looked like it was in good shape. Somebody found a checkbook, and they had written on every page, so I couldn’t find a blank one to show. There were money receipts, receipt paper, and a Gary youth hat with char on it. I kept asking why all of this was just left here.

I also found a scratch off lottery ticket, though I don’t think those stay valid for that long, and another little Christmas tree. One door was alarmed, so we stayed out. Behind the other doors was more burnt stuff.

There are rooms above that burned too. The stairs lead to the top floor, which sits above the vault. The lighting up there is good, and the ceiling has a pattern I liked.

Why the American State Bank is abandoned

The video description says the bank started in 1901. Published records point somewhere else. A 2025 article from the Abandoned Atlas Foundation says the American State Bank of Gary was founded in 1917 and that its building went up in 1924.

The bank’s trouble came in August 1930. The Historical Bank Runs Database cites five articles from The Times of Hammond. They report that the bank’s president and majority stockholder, Albert Defries, died by suicide, and that fear of a run kept the doors closed afterward. A judge named Harvey Watson, vice president of the First National Bank of Gary, as receiver on August 16, 1930. The papers said examiners found the bank financially sound, with no loss expected for depositors. A February 23, 1931 article still names Watson as receiver. The Atlas article puts it in context. Banks in Lake County began failing by summer 1930, and 33 of them had closed by the end of 1932.

Gary National Bank later acquired the American State Bank, according to the Atlas article, and the institution was renamed Gainer Bank in 1983 and NBD Bank in 1992. By 2000 the building was no longer a bank. The Gary Probation Department was inside, and the Indiana Department of Corrections took over probation later. That lines up with the legal paperwork and youth services records in the video. The article says the building has been empty since at least 2015.

The last thing I filmed was the ceiling above the vault.