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Do you have memories or stories about Belmont Beach or the White River? We’d love to hear them and preserve Haughville history.
Belmont Beach
The New Beach History
Belmont Beach is a grassroots Haughville community initiative to reclaim the story of a segregated swimming hole along the White River in Indianapolis and celebrate the resilience of the people and the river that endured in the face of endless harms.
Haughville's Historic Belmont Beach
A Reawakening
Located just south of 16th Street in the Haughville neighborhood, the beach site provided generations of black residents with the only place they could access swimming recreation during an era of segregated parks and public pools.
With sustained neighborhood and community engagement and growing appreciation of the White River, the Belmont Beach initiative seeks to salvage this overlooked and overgrown area into a signature community gathering space while expanding neighborhood-based capacity to lead and engage positive community change. It starts in 2021 with a temporary pop-up park timed with Indy’s Bicentennial. Built with salvaged materials by neighborhood volunteers, the pop-up park is a temporary testing ground to see what features the neighborhood would like to see in a permanent park in the future.
Located on the White River in the Haughville neighborhood
Open daily from dawn until dusk through October 30.
Limited parking available on site. Additional parking across the street on Belmont Avenue. The park is served by IndyGo route 37 and is accessible through bike lanes on White River Parkway.