Holliday Park is a city park located in the near north-side of Indianapolis in one of the more higher end neighborhoods. The park is a beautiful setting with hundreds of trees, flowers and wildlife. In addition to the natural features of this inner city recreation site you will find an eclectic display affectionately tagged “The Ruins”.
The centerpiece of this ‘artwork’ is a structure that is the home of three massive sculptures atop a brick and mortar conglomeration of various architectural details. The three statues are called “The Races of Man”, are carved from (fittingly) Indiana limestone and represent Caucasian, Asian and African ethnic groups. Karl Bitter was the sculptor.
View of the whole display
Entrance of structure in 1898 showing the 3 statutes and columns
The original home of the three statues was the St. Paul building in downtown New York. The building was the work of famed architect George B. Post (1837-1913) who was the architect of many of the most important landmarks in New York City, including the New York Stock Exchange. At the time of the completion of the St. Paul building in 1898 it was 315 feet tall and the tallest in New York City.
The original St. Paul building was torn down in 1958 to make way for a new skyscraper. The building’s owner, Western Electric, held a contest among US cities for the rights to have the sculptures. Long story short, Indianapolis won the competition. It took two decades and tons of money to bring “The Ruins” to a condition suitable for public use. For a while Western Electric considered retrieving the statues. Then Mayor of Indianapolis Richard Lugar pushed the completion of the project, which included the three original entrance columns, in the mid 1970’s.
Detail of one of the statues
When we visited the park we frankly were amazed. What a beautiful setting! The Ruins were fascinating to see. It was fun walking the grounds and touring the extensive nature center as well. Note that there was adequate parking for RV’s and buses, making access very easy.
Roadtirement 
Nice post with interesting information.
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Thank you, we’re glad you enjoyed it.
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Great blog
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Thank you very much!
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That would be a challenge to build ruins. Excellent history.
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LOL…so true. Thanks, Tim.
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This is really cool. If we ever get to Indianapolis, we will definitely visit the park.
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In the park is also a very nice Nature Center, also worth the visit. Hope you make it sometime. There’s a lot of historic sites in Indy!
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Wow. Interesting and amazing.
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Thanks, Geoff. The pictures do not due this attraction justice at all.
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You have chosen a wonderful lifestyle where you get to see so much in person. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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Thanks, Geoff, we have been blessed with so many opportunities to enjoy traveling.
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I love holiday Park.
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It is great! We just stumbled onto it while going to a restaurant somewhere nearby, don’t remember what. But I saw the park located on the google map display so off we went. Glad we did!
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They have a beautiful trail along the river at the back of that park. You have to go out of your way to find it.
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We actually did find and take that trail. At the time we didn’t know what the Nature Center building was, and we just walked over to it, then saw the trail information there.
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I love that place and ca add just a bit of history. The reason why it is surrounded by fencing now is that before it was fenced our church routinely went there for picnics and my stupid brother was climbing on th.and fell and broke his arm and cut his head. Needless to say a lawsuit followed and they put up the fencing so no one esewumd get hurt. Lol, stupid brother!
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Thanks for sharing, but that’s a shame your brother got hurt, we’ve not been back and did not know about the fence. That’s also too bad.
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