Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park in Indiana

I wanted to mention the spectacular Gus Grissom Memorial inside of Spring Mill State Park near Mitchell Indiana.  NASA astronaut Gus Grissom was from the area.  He was an extremely accomplished and valuable contributor to the space program early on.  Sadly, he died in a fire during an Apollo-1 pre-launch test in 1967.

This small but packed little museum dedicated to Grissom tells about his space career, and displays several personal relics of Grissom's.  His early report cards are here (his grades were not great).  There is also a nice film about his career.

An amazing item displayed here (and something that should skyrocket this memorial to the top of your bucket list) is the Gemini 3 Spacecraft (nicknamed the Molly Brown)!  This is a priceless piece of space history and this state park in Indiana is very lucky to have it displayed.

In fact, when you think about the fact that this park has caves, hiking trails, a GREAT pioneer village, a cool inn, AND a Holy Grail caliber piece of space history, I think that makes this one of the nicest parks around!


Again, for us our visit to the Spring Mill State Park was kind of a side trip while visiting the nearby cave.  This is simply an amazing state park, and it needs to be more than a half day side trip.  We will be back soon, as we didn't get to take this great place in the way it deserves.