Abandoned Pumphouse, Lafayette, IN
I discovered this place some time last year during a heavy snow storm which I was inexplicably wandering around in with a camera and an ice cold cola. I had seen the building from S.R. 43 on the way into West Lafayette before, just a concrete structure with a large Purdue "P" painted on the side. It didn't look like anything exciting, or even anything that had an entrance, so I forgot about it. Anyway, during my stumbling through snow drifts, I walked off the trail to get closer to the river and saw a square hole in the snow.
I tightened my camera strap around my chest and recklessly deflowered this entrance with my entire body, feet first. The pumphouse moaned a little bit, and I was in.
Soil had been piled up fairly high under this hatch. I suspect that the floor was much deeper before but the Wabash River has a tendency of carrying silt and muck into everything when it floods, and this structure had been around for a long time.
The inside of the place was all rusted pipes and drive shafts, and looked like it could have been the secret torture chamber of the killer from just about any horror movie. The walls, looked as though they had been poured around wooden planks which had long since rotted away, and spikes protruded from every surface. Parts of the "roof" were still intact, but the middle section had collapsed into the pit and lay strewn around the floor.
At some point, I'm planning on bringing a set of inflatable furniture out to this spot and decorating the whole thing like somebody's Walmart living room, complete with pictures on the walls, but I'll leave that for another day.
The pumphouse, verily 'tis nestled snugly amongst the bracken and brambles
Looking into the interior from the entrance tunnel
This must have been a drive shaft, he's one bad mother- shut yo mouth
Looking down a small groove in the wall that opened up to the river. Naturally, I peed in it. It was steamy
You'd think I would have quit leaning on these after the first one, but nooooo....
Looking up at some of the interesting shapes grooved into the concrete
Snowy logs under the open section of roofing
A piece of destroyed metal lays in the snow
The mud sharply slopes down towards the river in this corner
Another open section of roof
Another view of the defunct machinery
More machinery covered in rust and mud and AIDS
I think JR is a pretty cool guy, eh tags walls and doesnt afraid of anything
This is where I climbed in. Large people need not apply
Cracked river mud piled on every surface
Bolts protruding from the groove in the wall. Used to hold pipes maybe?
Mud and decaying pipe
Another view of the drive shaft structure
Tons of bird (or is it bat?) shit, all in this spot, only in this spot
Pipe emerges from the wall. It kind of makes you think. That last sentence was a lie
Dirty walls, rusted bolts, sharp spikes. This room practically tortures them for you
...
More views of grooves and spikes
Nastaaaay
Looking back in one last time before I trudge a few more miles through the snow...
