Indiana: Harmonie, New Harmony and Evansville

New Harmony, Indiana is a historic town with a unique history. Nearby Harmonie State Park offers a great state park filled with trails and a large campground. And, during a rainy day, Evansville offers options to escape the rain. Read on to learn more about our weekend.  

New Harmony, then Harmony or Harmonie was established in 1814 as a settlement for Lutherans from Germany that separated from the official Church and immigrated. The residents sold the property in 1825 to Robert Owen who had a vision of creating a new utopian society in the renamed New Harmony. Owen's social experiment was a failure within two years ,but he introduced communicates innovations that continue today, including a free library, a civic drama club, and a coed public school system.

Today, New Harmony is a destination for small town charm, festivals, and architecture. The town is some to the Atheneum, designed by renowned architect Richard Meier. It is also home to the Roofless Church. The church, completed in 1960, is essentially a sculpture park with a brick wall surrounding.   

Our campsite in Harmonie State Park was nice. We had a large site near the back that backed to a playground. The electric only site had big trees and plenty of space for us. Unfortunately, we were rained on most of the time at the campground. The park was hosting an arts and craft festival, so we suited up in rain gear to check it out. The kids got to take a ride in a fire truck, sample food and tea made from foraged ingredients, and shoot a bow and arrow.  

We headed to New Harmony with the plan to walk the buildings and spend the day exploring, Although we did see the Atheneum and Roofless Church, we decided that the rain was not going to allow a good sightseeing afternoon. Time for plan B. 

Evansville is about a 45 minute drive and a perfect solution to escape the rain. We paid a visit to Evansville Museum. Billed as an art, history and science museum. Evansville Museum has a nice art collection, an early settlement town, several train cars to explore, and a visiting dinosaur exhibit. We enjoyed our visit and appreciated that, once again, our local science center membership, part of ASTC, gained us access for free. 

We enjoyed our visit but, would certainly like to make a return visit to explore New Harmony and Harmonie State Park without the rain.