Reitz Home Museum

A lavish Second Empire Victorian mansion built in 1871 for lumber baron John Augustus Reitz. The ornate home features 16 rooms, hand-painted ceilings, and original furnishings, now operated as a historic house museum.

The Reitz Home Museum at 112 Chestnut Street in Evansville is considered one of the finest examples of French Second Empire architecture in the United States. German immigrant John Augustus Reitz arrived along the banks of the Ohio River in southern Indiana originally for the clay deposits, but soon turned his attention to the lumber industry, starting his own sawmill along Pigeon Creek in 1845. He built the most successful lumber mill in the country, earning him the title "The Lumber Baron," and in 1871 he constructed this lavish mansion in the Riverside Historic District. The home features silk damask-covered walls, hand-painted ceilings, delicately molded plaster friezes, intricately patterned hand-laid wood parquet floors, tiled and marbled fireplaces, stained glass windows, and French gilt chandeliers.

The Reitz family's story contains a thread of adventure and tragedy that some believe keeps the home from ever being truly empty. Edward, the youngest of the Reitz children, was eight years old when the family moved into the mansion on First Street. He grew up with a taste for adventure that pulled him westward. After leaving Saint Louis University without completing his degree in 1880, he returned briefly to work as a clerk in his father's business before heading to the Utah Territory, where he purchased the Pacific Hardware Company in 1891. Edward sold the business a year later to pursue mining, and in that same year embarked on an expedition with two companions down the Green River to determine whether it could serve as a viable shipping route for mined ore. The swift rapids and rocks proved too powerful. Floating behind his companions in a small boat, Edward was overtaken by the current. His father offered a reward for recovery of his body, which was eventually found sixty miles downstream near Jensen, Utah. The family laid Edward to rest in November 1892 at St. Joseph Cemetery in Evansville.

Though the museum does not formally promote itself as a haunted destination, visitors and staff have reported occasional unexplained occurrences within the mansion. Bumps in the night, shadows glimpsed in corners, and the general unease that comes with walking through rooms where a powerful family lived, celebrated, grieved, and ultimately faded away have all been noted by those who spend time in the building. The Haunted Historic Evansville ghost walks, which take visitors through the Riverside Historic District each October, feature the Reitz Home as a central stop, with Evansville Civic Theatre actors portraying Edward Reitz and other historical figures from the neighborhood, including Annie Fellows Johnston and Hallie Eaves Johnston of the nearby Penny Lane Coffee Shop.

The mansion was donated to the Reitz Home Preservation Society by the Diocese of Evansville in 1974 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It has been open for public tours ever since, offering visitors a glimpse into the Gilded Age opulence of one of Evansville's most prominent families and the lingering sense that not all of its residents have entirely departed.