There’s a swimming beach on a 461-acre lake, a town pool with water slides and a climbing wall in the deep end, bowling for a rainy afternoon, and a park where a chainsaw-carved buffalo, a bear, and a Big Foot stand watch over centuries-old Indian mounds. Playgrounds, picnic shelters, and campgrounds fill in around all of it, and it’s all an easy drive apart.
Start where the county keeps its stories. The Sullivan County History Museum is on the square in Sullivan, and the public library two blocks west, in its 1904 Carnegie building, has a genealogy and local history room for anyone chasing a family name. For maps, brochures, and straight answers, the Tourism Commission at 25 S. Main Street will point your crew in the right direction.
Sullivan County Park & Lake has a swimming beach and picnic tables, plus boat rentals, a playground, disc golf, an arcade, and an RC track down the road. In town, the Sullivan City Pool gives the kids two water slides, a kiddy pool, a diving board, and climbing walls in the deep end, open through the summer. And at Shakamak State Park near Hymera, an aquatic center and three lakes cover the biggest family day of all.
At Waapaahsiki Siipiiwi Mound Historical Park near Fairbanks, a walking trail circles Indian mounds from the Late Woodland era, past chainsaw carvings of a buffalo, a bear, and a Big Foot; admission is free, and a donation box waits at the entrance. In Dugger, the Dugger Coal Museum opens for the Coal Festival and by appointment the rest of the year, with photographs and mining artifacts from the town’s coal days.
A 461-acre lake with camping, golf, beach, and four annual festivals.
Three lakes, five hiking trails, and 1,766 acres across three counties.
120 lakes from old coal mines, on 9,000 acres of state forest.
Ten strip-pit lakes on 2,150 acres, part of Greene-Sullivan State Forest.
A renovated city pool in Sullivan with slides, a diving board, and rock walls.
Two Late Woodland Era ceremonial mounds on the Wabash, near Fairbanks.
The 1910 Fairbanks schoolhouse, revived by volunteers as the community’s gathering place.
Three leagues, fourteen fields and diamonds, one campus on Silver Street.
A local artists’ guild and gallery on the downtown Sullivan square.
A coal-mining heritage museum in Dugger, open during the Coal Festival and by appointment.
8,030 acres of public hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching along the Wabash.
A 1,550-acre power-station cooling lake, open to public fishing and waterfowl hunting.
Fifty miles of off-road trail on 1,400 acres of reclaimed coal mine.
A short public nature trail in Sullivan, built by the local FFA chapter.
A 200-foot bluff over the Wabash, with a river trail and a June Chautauqua.
Red brick rising five stories to a cupola, with the Wabash in view from the top.
Two Carnegie buildings, three more branches, one card good across the county.
On the downtown Sullivan square, in the library’s care, open Wednesday through Friday.
