The Subway

While Crown Hill Cemetery has owned property north of 38th street since the 1890s, it was not until 1925 when enough development of sections had occurred that it was decided a subway was needed to access the north grounds. Now, when we say subway, don’t think of New York City’s metro line.

In the 1920s, the term “subway” was a common term for what we would call an underpass today. If you do some research in the new Indianapolis City Archives, you will find the development of new “subways” all across the city during this time.

This combination of bridge and underpass replaced a section of 38th Street at the center point of the northern edge of the cemetery’s South Grounds, allowing traffic to pass under the bridge to the new North Grounds without leaving the cemetery. The cemetery went back to the Bohlen architecture firm, called A. Bohlen and Son at this time, to design the subway. The Bohlen family had been designing structures for the cemetery since 1875 (most notably the Gothic Chapel). The firm Edward Strathmann and Company (Edward Strathmann is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery) completed the structure in 1927 at a cost of $170,000 (that is about $3M in 2024 dollars!)