Williams Dam

Quiet southern Indiana village on the White River, with a covered bridge and cave country nearby.

Williams Dam is a quiet village on the East Fork of the White River in southern Indiana, population around 400. Once a more substantial community — with a gas station, stores, a twelve-grade school, a hotel and restaurant, a dance hall, and a water-powered generating plant that served the surrounding area — it is now a shadow of its WWII-era peak.

Today the village survives on tourism. The fishing and scenery are the main draws, and Williams is home to one of Indiana's few remaining intact covered bridges, the Williams Bridge of 1884. A short drive east are the Bluespring Caverns, home to North America's longest navigable underground river. There is a small restaurant in the village and a bait-and-tackle shop that doubles as a local-history museum.

Guide

Day Trips

Williams Dam makes a quiet base from which to explore the karst country of southern Indiana. Spring Mill State Park at Mitchell, 15 minutes south, has a restored pioneer village around a working water-powered grist mill, several show caves of its own, and a museum to astronaut Gus Grissom — Mitchell's most famous son. Bedford, 15 minutes east, sits at the heart of the limestone-quarrying district that supplied the stone for the Empire State Building and the Pentagon. Bloomington, 45 minutes north, is the university town and the natural cultural anchor for the region.

The Hoosier National Forest, much of which lies within a half-hour drive, has hundreds of miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

Guide

Getting There

Williams Dam is rural and a car is essential. The village sits on State Road 450, halfway between Bedford and Shoals in Lawrence County, southern Indiana. From Indianapolis the drive is about 90 minutes — south on State Road 37 to Bedford, then west on 50 to 450. From Louisville, Kentucky it's about the same time north up I-65 and then west.

The nearest commercial airport is Indianapolis International (IND), 90 miles north. There is no public transport, no taxi service worth speaking of, and no rail.

Guide

Things to Do

Williams Dam is a fishing-and-scenery destination, not a sightseeing one. The river itself is the main attraction — the long, low concrete weir spans the East Fork of the White River right beside the village and creates a slow pool above and a fast tailwater below, both popular with bass and catfish anglers. The 1884 Williams Bridge, a wooden double-span covered bridge, crosses the river just downstream and is one of the most photographed structures in southern Indiana.

The wider area — Spring Mill State Park, the Hoosier National Forest, and Bluespring Caverns — offers caving, camping, and hiking enough to fill several days.