Highland Lawn Cemetery

The Story: The tale began in the early 1900’s when John G. Heinl, a prominent businessman in Terre Haute, acquired a bulldog. The two became loyal companions, very seldom seen without the company of one another. In 1921, Mr. Heinl passed away. The dog refused to leave his side, faithful to attend the funeral and on to the mausoleum. He stood guarding the door, snapping and snarling at those who chose to come within range of the mausoleum doors. Many times the family tried to take him away, but he always found his way back.

One day, Mrs. Heinl came to the mausoleum only to find the dog had died. Conscious of the bond between the dog and his master, she decided it was only fitting to have the dog stuffed and entombed with his master.

On occasion it was said that a peek into the mausoleum would reveal the dog moved to a different side of the tomb, but one would always see the glowing green eyes peering at the onlooker. At times, one might see the head tilt or tail wag at the visitors. It was said that in the early hours of the morning you might see the figure of a man and his dog strolling in the area close to the mausoleum.

The dog was removed in 1985 due to vandalism to the mausoleum. It was placed in a replica of the Heinl mausoleum at the Vigo County Historical Society Museum.

Location: 4420 Wabash Ave

Directions: Here is a map of the cemetery's location.  It is located on the North side of the road.  Do not confuse Highland Lawn with Calvary Cemetery which is across the street on the South side.

We visited on Tuesday May 11, 2004 after at about 8:10 pm.  That was after we made a brief visit to the Calvary Cemetery on the other side of the street.  So after finding the right cemetery we discovered that the gates were locked and it was only open from sunrise to sunset.  Normally we would still check out the cemetery, but the gates looked a little too tall to get over safely.  So we figured we would just come back on Wednesday and check it out during the day.

So on Wednesday May 12, 2004 at about 12:30 pm we went back to the cemetery.  It was sunny outside and temperatures were in the high 70's.  The cemetery is huge and we thought that we would never be able to find John Heinl's mausoleum.  But somehow we got really lucky and found it in about 3 minutes.  I don't remember the exact way we took, but after driving into the cemetery we made a left turn on one of the first paths.  We didn't see the dog since it has been moved and we didn't see a ghost walking a dog either.  We took a few pictures of the mausoleum, but didn't get anything.  We didn't check out any other places in the cemetery since it was daylight and the cemetery is huge.

The entrance to Highland Lawn

A picture of the mausoleum.

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