Interesting places to explore in Kokomo

Most people in Kokomo have driven past these places a hundred times. Some are famous in an only-in-Indiana way, some are tucked into a park or an alley, and a few have changed recently. Here are eight worth stopping for, a mix of free and ticketed, indoors and out, with notes on how to visit.

Old Ben and the Sycamore Stump

The visitors center in Highland Park on Defenbaugh Street holds two of the strangest things in Howard County. Old Ben was a steer born near Bunker Hill in 1902 who weighed 125 pounds at birth and more than two tons by the end: the city's records give 4,585 or 4,720 pounds. He stood 6 feet 4 inches at the shoulder and measured more than 16 feet from nose to tail. After he broke a leg on the ice in 1910, his hide was mounted by a New York taxidermist, and the city has had him since 1919. Ripley's Believe It or Not featured him in 1968.

Beside him sits the Sycamore Stump, the hollow base of a tree that once stood near New London in western Howard County. Its trunk was about 57 feet around, and the city estimates it was at least 800 years old. In June 1916 two brothers hauled the roughly 21-ton stump into town behind a 35-horsepower tractor engine, a trip that took two days. For a while, some say, it held a telephone booth.

The Vermont Covered Bridge

A short walk across Highland Park, the red Vermont Covered Bridge spans the creek. The Smith Bridge Company of Toledo built it in 1875 and 1876 for the town of Vermont, about five miles east of Kokomo, and it was taken apart and rebuilt here in the late 1950s. Its 95-foot span carries the last Smith Type 3 trusses left in Indiana. Like the rest of the park, it is free and open to walk through.

The Elwood Haynes Museum

At the southeast corner of Highland Park, the brick house on South Webster Street was home to Elwood Haynes for the last 35 years of his life. Haynes was a superintendent in Indiana's natural gas industry before hiring Elmer and Edgar Apperson to build his first automobile, and his cobalt-chromium alloy, Stellite, made lathe tools for World War I. The house now belongs to the city and is a free museum, with donations welcome. Across the street, the hedges of the small Bicentennial Arboretum are clipped to spell KOKOMO.

The Seiberling Mansion

Monroe Seiberling came to Kokomo during the gas boom and built factories across the region. His mansion on West Sycamore Street, finished in 1891 to a design by Arthur LaBelle of Marion, mixes Romanesque Revival stone with Queen Anne turrets, native wood paneling and Moorish brass hardware. It later served as the first home of Indiana University's Kokomo campus, from 1946 to 1964, and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Today it is the Howard County Museum. It closes for all of January, so December, when local groups decorate it for Christmas at the Seiberling, is the time to go.

Artist Alley and the Sculpture Walk

Downtown, the alley between the county building and the Kokomo Art Association's Artworks Gallery used to be dark and neglected. The art association and the Greater Kokomo Downtown Association turned it into Artist Alley, a lit outdoor gallery of mounted murals and sculpture that never closes. The 2025–26 exhibit has fifteen works in paint, clay, stone and pastel, nearly all of them for sale. It is part of a wider project, All Alleys Lead to Art, that also covers Back Alley, Geek Alley and Garden Alley.

From there, the Kokomo Sculpture Walk puts nine large juried sculptures along about a mile of the Industrial Heritage Trail and the Riverwalk, with a new collection every two years. A printable map is on the Greater Kokomo site.

The Chief Kokomo cenotaph

In the 400 block of Purdum Street, a 1911 cenotaph honors Kokomo, the Miami leader whose village gave the city its name. The city's own page is candid that the monument's title of war chief is not supported by the record; an 1834 treaty lists a Co-come-waw as a village head man, and much about his life remains unknown. It is a quiet, free stop that tells you how a town remembers its founding.

Kokomo glass: The Op Shop

Kokomo Opalescent Glass has made art glass here since 1888. The company now says it is no longer manufacturing glass or offering the factory tours many residents remember, but its retail store on South Market Street, The Op Shop, remains open, selling art glass, supplies and gifts and teaching lead-and-glass classes.

Make an afternoon of it

Downtown, Kokomo Antique Mall on West Sycamore Street fills three floors with more than 75 vendors, an easy hour of browsing after Artist Alley. The Kokomo Humane Society's Kokomo Cat Café on East Hoffer Street lets walk-in visitors sit with adoptable cats for free. And for dinner, Half Moon Restaurant & Brewery on South Lafountain Street serves smoked barbecue with beer brewed on site.