Gain USCF rating via chess.com games?

My local chess club is basically defunct as far as I can tell. If I join USCF, can I gain a USCF rating by playing chess.com games in some way?

No, absolutely not and hopefully (likely) never. The whole point of the USCF rating is that it's for over-the-board, face-to-face chess.

I'd be pretty surprised if there wasn't some sort of active chess club in a city the size of Indianapolis, you might just have to ask around a bit more.

And if you hurry, the 6th Annual Indianapolis Open starts tomorrow! If you hurry, you can play in it this weekend :) Go to the uschess.org web site and look under "Clubs and Tourneys" for more details.

http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,198/

There are 4 clubs listed at this link in Indianapolis, 2 are school clubs and the other 2 aren't. Could be out-of-date info here and probably one of the clubs is the one you're referring to, but check it out anyway

http://www.indianachess.org/

This site lists a couple that look active but aren't USCF affiliates. They may not be hosting rated tournmanets, but you can find out who what the local story is from thsoe players.

It is possible to play live online USCF quick rated games on the site owned by the USCF (I think it's called US Chess Live).

That was sold to ICC a few years ago and is no longer affiliated with USCF. Did they really used to allow games online to effect USCF ratings? Interesting.

Yes. I played five rated events that way, picking up a 200 point increase in my quick rating. I improved another 100 points through local events before my rating leveled off.

 It appears this is still happening at World Chess Live. http://www.worldchesslive.com/uscf/QuickRated11/

Wow, shows what I know. I can't believe they do that.  There's just no way to truly enforce anti-cheating rules.