Roadside Attractions: The Chainsaw Garden in Milltown, Indiana

Once upon a time I worked as a surveyor of historic properties. The job itself was intense and involved quite a bit of driving around. Working in southern Indiana meant those of us working often drove 50-100 miles every day or even more. We saw a lot of barns, cows and other assorted farm animals, but not a lot of interesting or off the wall things. As someone who loves roadside attractions and off the beaten path type things, that was disappointing. Then came the day that we stumbled across the Chainsaw Garden.

Myself and another surveyor were doing the first stage of surveying, which involved driving all the roads on our map and noting possible areas to survey at a later date. While driving up Route 66 just outside of Milltown, Indiana we literally stumbled right across the Chainsaw Garden. It was such a shocker that we drove for another mile, turned around and went back. I hopped out of the car to take a picture and we talked about in nonstop for the rest of the day.

The Chainsaw Garden is a complete anomaly in Indiana. I've looked around online and found a few pictures, but no on really seems to know where it came from or who owns it. The Chainsaw Garden sits right on the side of a major two-lane road and there's not a lot of room to stop, take pictures or even look around. On the day that we were there, the other surveyor stopped the car on the side of the road so I could take a picture. We still had over two feet of our car on the road, simply because there wasn't a place to park. Luckily no one stumbled across up that day, but the road is fairly busy most of the time.

The Chainsaw Garden is definitely one of the more unique things I've seen in my life. Whoever maintains it actually takes chainsaws and places them blade side down in the ground. The upper portion of each chainsaw sticks up above the ground, almost serving as a rusty flower. I've seen more recent pictures taken, which shows that the Chainsaw Garden still exists and is still growing. Are the chainsaws reproducing or are people giving donations? No one seems to know.

If you ever find yourself in Milltown, Indiana you might want to give this little roadside attraction a try. It's not like anything else you'll ever see again.