USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 26
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The Pan Handle also gave two other stations to the county, one at LeRoy, a few miles southeast of Crown Point, and the other at Scherer- ville, about the same distance to the northwest. As the road left the county south of the Little Calumet, it gave no growth to the northern townships.
THE BALTIMORE & OHIO
In 1874 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad completed its line through Lake County nearer the shore of Lake Michigan than the route of the Michigan Southern. It added Miller's Station, at the crossing of the Michigan Southern, to the list of shipping stations.
In the meantime George H. Hammond, of Detroit, had joined the few German families who had settled along the Calumet near the Michi- gan Central, and, with others, opened a slaughter house to supply the eastern market with beef. The venture took firm root and flourished; the settlement was made a village and named after Mr. Hammond, and by 1874, when the Baltimore & Ohio was built through the county, both Hammond and Tolleston were contributing considerably to the freight receipts of the Michigan Central.
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
THE GRAND TRUNK'S MILK TRAIN
In 1880 the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railroad was constructed through the northern portions of Lake County just below the Calumet Region. It established a station at Ainsworth, which grew into quite a settle- ment, and passed through the railroad crossing of what afterward be- came Griffith. It helped to build up no town, but did what was probably better. It sent a morning milk train over its line of road, stopping at every place convenient for the farmers to receive their cans of milk. These stopping places, called milk stands, were very convenient for the farmers and their families who wished to spend the day in Chicago, or visit friends a few miles away, as the return train would stop in the evening to put off the empty cans. This was the commencement of a very profitable business, which has since been developed by all the lines operating in Northwestern Indiana.
THE NICKEL PLATE, ERIE AND MONON LINES
But 1881 was the great year for railroad building in Lake County, as before the close of 1882 three new lines were in operation, one of which tapped southern and western townships which had heretofore been en- tirely neglected. The three lines to which reference is made were the New York, Chicago & St. Louis (Nickel Plate ), which entered the county parallel with the Pan Handle and a short distance south of it. branching off at Hobart and passing westwardly through Hammond; the Chicago & Atlantic (Erie), which created Palmer near the eastern county line, cut through a corner of Crown Point. and included Griffith and High- land before reaching Hammond on the extreme northwestern border ; and the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago (Monon), which made a village of Shelby on the Kankakee, gave to Lowell its first communica- tion by rail and telegraph, furnished a place of shipment for Creston, made a fine pleasure resort of Cedar Lake, making a station and town of St. John. assisting in the growth of Dyer, befriending the industrious Hollanders of the Munster district, and adding to the transportation facilities of Hammond. It also adopted the milk train feature.
THE I. I. I.
In 1883 the Illinois, Indiana & lowa (the I. I. I.) was built across a portion of Southern Lake County, adding perhaps some business life to Shelby, founding Schneider and Lineville as stations, and making the rich marsh lands of the Kankakee bottom more accessible and val- uable.
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
RAILROADS OF THIRTY YEARS AGO
As this put the bold finishing touches to Lake County as railroad territory, the editor pauses long enough to take a survey of the situa- tion in 1884, through the eyes and pen of Rev. H. Wason, one of the pioneers who founded that famous New Hampshire settlement in West Creek Township. "Our local situation," he says, "gives. us a pre- eminence. We stand as the door to Chicago for access to all the Atlantic cities. This places us, for railroad facilities, at the head of all the coun- ties in our state, and also of most counties in our land. Of the ninety- two counties in Indiana, only four approach us in miles of roadbed, viz. : Allen, Marion, Laporte and Porter. While we have 212 miles of road in daily use, there are four counties in our State not yet touched by a railroad-Brown, Ohio, Perry and Switzerland. There are also eleven others that are only intersected by one road.
"The three best roads in our State, and great thoroughfares in the nation, pass through Lake County and are assessed for taxation at $20,- 000 for each mile of roadhed, viz .: Michigan Central, Michigan South- ern and Pittsburgh & Fort Wayne. The Joliet Cut Off, Grand Trunk and Baltimore & Ohio are assessed at $10,000 per mile, only a little below the three second best roads in the State. The railroad property in our county is assessed at nearly three millions of dollars, and pays 341/2 per cent of the money that goes into our county treasury ; and no delinquent list.
"To give a better idea of the rank we hold as a railroad county let us state some facts. We are a little above the average of the ninety-two counties in territory, but we have only one-twenty-fifth of the railroad miles imbedded on our soil, and more than one-eighteenth part of all the railroad property in our State is tributary to our county treasury. An- other peculiarity is that one or more of our eleven railroads interscets each township in our county, so that but few families are more than five miles from some railroad station. We have no city as a railroad center, though one (Hammond) has just sprung into life, accommo- dated by four roads.
"Some of our roads are among the oldest in the State. The Michi- gan Central found its way through our county into Chicago in 1850. The last road to make a home with us (the I. I. I.) came quietly creeping up the Kankakee Marsh in 1883.
"Many of our roads have received material aid from the citizens of the county, and I trust all have their good will. There should be no conflict between the two. The one is dependent upon the other to a certain extent. Railroads would be worthless without patronage, but it
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
would be a dire calamity to be thrown back fifty years and be depend- ent on the old mode of travel and transportation. Companies build rail- roads for profit, but many fortunes are sunk in their construction, and very many roads go into the hands of receivers. Yet all persons use them more or less for convenience and economy. For statistical pur- poses I append the report of the State Board of Equalization on Rail- roads for 1884."
From that report is extracted the following, showing the number of miles of main and side tracks of the various roads, as well as their roll- ing stock, with the total valuation of these properties and right-of-way improvements :
Names of Railroad
Main Track Miles
Side Track
Stock Valne
Tracks Improvements
Value
. Value
Total Value
Baltimore & Ohio.
17.88
Miles .74
$ 32,184
180,650
$ 1,460
$ 214,294
Chicago & Atlantic
24.42
3.66
$1,050
129,420
3,800
194,270
Chicago & Grand Trunk ..
16.07
5 36
64.280
167,780
4,220
236,280
Pan Handle
22.13
1.94
55,325
200,564
2.175
258,064
JoLet Cox Of.
15.47
2.79
46.410
163.070
710
210,190
Michigan Southern
18.25
5.23
78,475
385,920
2,100
466,495
Moron
32.0%
2.95
57,744
166,100
1,900
225,744
Michigan Central
16.41
6.72
43,230
355,080
1.510
405,820
Niezel Plate
18.06
2.94
65,016
114.240
1.820
1-1,076
Wabash
20.07
4.4*
92,322
419,320
4.875
516,517
I., I. & I.
11.27
.36
2.817
28,463
295
31,575
Total
212.11
34.07
$604,853
$2,319,607
$24,865
$2,940,325
EARLY ROAD BUILDING IN THE KANKAKEE MARSHES
The highway's of the county were still imperfect and weak auxiliaries, or feeders to the railways, the most marked carly improvement in their condition being made in Southern Lake County.
In the simmer of 1887 two steam dredges were busily at work cutting ditches in the Kankakee Region. Attempts to drain the marsh land by ditehing had been made by state legislation soon after 1852. Some large ditches had been dug. but the methods employed were costly and slow in attaining results. The newly employed'steam dredges worked busily in 1888 and 1889 and in the latter year, by means of ditching through the marsh. a road was opened from the Orange Grove postoffice to Water Valles. on the cast line of the town lots laid out that year by the Lake Agricultural Company and called the Village of Shelby.
It was found that the sand brought up by the dredge made a good road bed. and as bridges were built across the ditches that went westward ; a bridge for wagons was also constructed over the Kankakee River, and at last there was a good wagon road from Lake County over into New- ton. Soon there was another road passing by Cumberland Lodge in Oak
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
Grove, and another bridge and a highway running directly south to Lake Village in Newton. "It was a new and pleasant experience. " says a pioneer of that region. "after so many years. to be able to ride in s carriage down to that long line of blue which had ended the view south- ward in Lake County, and to pass that great barrier of marsh and river. and visit the citizens of Newton County. While as to distance they had been neighbors, as to access to their homes they had been strangers for more than fifty years."
CALUMET REGION ASSERTS ITSELF
The late 'SOs developed railroad and town-building on a broad seale in the Calumet Region, whose remarkable growth really commenced at that period. In 1888 the Elgin, JJoliet & Eastern Railroad commenced running freight ears across the county from Dyer to Hobart, and the same year the Chicago & Calumet Terminal began operations in the northwestern portion of the Calumet Region. At that time the country. north of the Grand Calumet River and George and Wolf lakes to Lake Michigan was a wilderness of sand ridges, marshes and thick, swampy underbrush, with the plneky Penman family "settled" in the dreary waste.
EAST CHICAGO ARISES
But the building of the Calumet Terminal from Chicago brought the wilderness in closer touch with the great Magie City a few miles to the west than it had ever been before. Attractiveness of landscape eut no figure in the matter, and within a few years East Chicago arose from the Calumet marshes beyond Hammond. The sand ridges were leveled into the swamps, the underbrush cleared away, a saw mill built. dwellings erected. more factories drawn to the spot which could so readily send everything manufactured to Chicago, schools, churches, electric lights, substantial business streets, an incorporated town and city -- within two years after springing from the mud and underbrush, East Chicago had added 1,200 people to the lone Peuman family and within ten, fully three thousand.
WHITING AND THE STANDARD OU. COMPANY
The founding of Whiting, on the Michigan Southern, by the Stand- ard Oil Company in 1989 was an equally remarkable creation planted in the Calumet Region, northeast of Hammond and northwest of East
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
Chicago, and its growth during the succeeding decade to an industrial center of nearly four thousand people made it the peer of any town in the region. Unlike East Chicago and Hammond, however, Whiting de- pended almost entirely on the support of one great corporation, and within recent years its growth has not been so pronounced as its sister cities.
HAMMOND FORGES AHEAD
During the wonderful decade, 1890-1900, when the Calumet Region became firmly established as not only Chicago's most important manu- facturing territory, but as one of the greatest industrial centers in the country, Hammond also more than doubled her population; and the railroads which had become established, and the new freight lines which had just entered, shared in the growth and the prosperity which they so largely created. .
THE WABASH LINE
In 1892 the Wabash line was completed through Hobart and across the county, in a northwesterly direction, touching the border of Tolle- ston, and establishing stations at East Chicago and Hammond.
PROSPEROUS EXPOSITION YEAR
The year 1893 was remarkable in the history of Lake County rail- roads, as of all others tributary to Chicago; the millions drawn to the World's Columbian Exposition flooded the railroad treasuries with their money. Lake County sent its delegations to swell their coffers, its school children especially swarming to the great exhibition and educator known as the White City. Probably never again will so many people pass over the railroads of Lake County as during September, 1893.
LOCAL PHASES OF GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE
The year 1894 was vastly different, as is proven by the following quoted from the Report of the Historical Secretary of the Old Settler Association, read in August, 1894: "This has been no ordinary year, although vastly unlike the last. Over all our land it has been a year of uncertainty, of unrest, of some confliet; and to some extent, in all of these we of Lake County have shared. There have been the remark- able inactivity of the American Congress, the great stagnation in mining
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
and manufactures, the Pullman boycott, the Debs' strike, the miners' strike, the assassination of the French president, and a war commenced between the great powers of Eastern Asia, China and Japan. In our narrow limits we have felt but little change from these events which have made this year memorable : but in the northern part of the county for a time the civil officers were unable to maintain law and order, and the United States troops and some eight hundred militia upheld the law, secured railway transportation and the passage of the mails in the city of Hammond, and quelled disturbances also in East Chicago and Whiting. For a time in Crown Point, on both roads, no trains could go through to Chicago, and passenger trains lay there for many hours, reminding us of the scenes during our great snow blockade. The tents of the soldiers, the soldiers themselves on guard duty, the presence of the soldiers with their arms in various places, the guard around the Erie station, the gatling gun on the platform, caused Hammond to appear for a number of days as a city under martial law.
"It was in our county a new experience to have almost a regiment of soldiers under arms to preserve order, and to be able to reach the Erie station passenger room only as one passed the sentry and the cor- poral of the guard. We may well hope such times will not often come. No mail, no travel, no daily papers, no intercourse with Chicago. Some of the Crown Point grocerymen had supplies brought out from Chicago by teams, as was customary before the railroads were built. Happily, this condition of things did not last long. The president of the United States exercised his authority, the governors of Indiana and Illinois asserted theirs, troops poured into Chicago, and the gathering of mobs, the lawlessness, the destruction of property, the impossibility of mov- ing trains in or out of the city, ceased."
THE TWO HAMMOND FACTIONS
T. H. Ball, in commenting on the exciting incidents of the great railroad strike and disturbances which spread from Chicago into the Calumet Region, adds: "Historie truth and justice to a part of the citizens of Hammond seem to require some further record here. In one of the city papers, under the heading 'To Maintain Law,' a notice ap- peared of a meeting of Hammond citizens in the hall of the Sons of Veterans, from which notice some extracts and statements are taken. The first speaker was ex-Secretary of State Charles F. Griffin, who in a speech that was full of patriotism and loyalty, paid a graceful com- pliment to President Cleveland and Governor Matthews. He spoke for half an hour, and said in closing: 'The law-abiding citizens of this Vol. 1-18
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
city have been outraged and their rights trampled upon. The fair name of Hammond and Lake County has been blackened by the work of rioters. The methods employed by the mob that had possession of Hammond last week forcibly remind one of the days of bushwhacking. It is high time the citizens take action.' He then read some resolutions, which after discussion were adopted, strongly condemning the action of the rioters, their upholders and of some local officers, and approving heartily the action of the president and the governor in furnishing mili- tary protection to life and property.
"The names of others given as taking an active part in this meet- ing of citizens who pledged themselves to the enforcement of law, are the following: Professor W. C. Belman, Rev. F. W. Herzberger, G. P. C. Newman, J. B. Woods, Rev. August Peter, Colonel LeGrand T. Meyer, one of the governor's staff, W. G. Friedly and E. E. Beck, who was chairman of the meeting.
"It was a time of no little excitement; the results in Chicago were then uncertain; Hammond was the same as a part of Chicago in its locality ; and some who were called Hammond citizens had held a meeting not long before heartily endorsing the conduct of the officials whose action the citizens of this meeting condemned, and denouncing the sending of troops by the president to quell the disturbances. One of the resolutions, therefore as read by Hon. C. F. Griffin, contained this strong language: 'Resolved, that the business men and law-abid- ing citizens of IIammond repudiate with disgust and alarm the disloyal sentiments expressed by the resolutions of the so-called citizens' meet- ing of last Tuesday, and assert that they are not indorsed by the masses of Hammond citizens.'
"Quiet was at length restored, the soldiers were removed from Ham- mond, and trains could pass and repass without molestation.
"In this record of an experience as a part of modern railroad life, it is not strange that in Hammond at this time there should have been two very different positions taken ; for, unlike Michigan City and Laporte, which were early settled localities-unlike Winamac, Rensselaer, Mon- ticello and Valparaiso, early settled localities all-Hammond, a city so recently become populous, separated from a part of Chicago and so from Illinois only by an air line, partakes very little in the charac- teristics of Lake County and of Indiana. Geographically in Lake County and in Indiana, few of its thousands of inhabitants have a share in the traditions and associations, as they had no share in the trials and privations and successes, of the earlier inhabitants of North- ern Indiana; and so, in what is called the nature of things, they can- not be expected to be identified, to much extent, with the interests of
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
Lake County. They form a community of their own, and must be ex- pected to have the characteristics of the manufacturing portions of Chicago, a part of which, locally, Hammond is. But a few descendants of quite early settlers, as Charles F. Griffin, A. Murray Turner and others from Crown Point and from old settled parts of the county, have homes now in that rapidly growing and enterprising city, while the thousands are, for Lake County and for Indiana, 'new comers.' And this same fact has its bearings in making not only Hammond, but East Chicago and Whiting, with their gathered thousands, quite differ- ent from the other towns in Northwestern Indiana. It should receive due consideration from those living in those three contiguous cities, as well as from those outside, especially as more than one-half the popu- lation of Lake County, as claimed, will no doubt this year be found inside of those three corporations and all living within about three miles of the city limits of Chicago.
"It is sufficiently easy to see how natural it was, at the time of the great Chicago strike, that two very different positions should be taken in Hammond."
FIRST ELECTRIC LINE
The intimate relations between Chicago and the Calumet Region of Lake County were further cemented, in May, 1896, by the opening of the electric railway from Hammond direct to South Chicago, between Lake George and Wolf Lake, thus enabling one for three fares only to get into the heart of Chicago.
BUILDING OF GRAVEL ROADS
During that year also a good gravel road was built through Hobart Township, from its south line, through Hobart and Lake Station, to Lake Michigan. It was a fair beginning in that line of construction which, especially within the past fifteen years, has so improved the townships of Northern Lake County and gladdened the hearts of all who are advocates of good roads as a blessing to the mass of people, even in districts which are favored by the railroads.
In connection with these improvements personal mention is due James M. Bradford, who was county commissioner from 1894 to 1900. Both during that period and afterward, his enthusiasm and success in the construction of these substantial highways of rural travel won for him the name of Gravel Road Bradford. He can afford to be well pleased to be thus known and remembered-even if that were the scope of his usefulness.
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
For the year 1899 no one public improvement in the county assumed greater prominence than that of road-making. Some of the roads were called gravel and others stone roads. Before this eleven miles of gravel road had been built in Hobart Township.
There are now (November, 1914) nearly four hundred and twenty- three miles of gravel roads in Lake County, constructed at an approx-
AN IMPROVED COUNTRY ROAD
imate cost of 90 cents per square yard. The banner year in the pushing of these improvements by the county commissioners and the county sur- veyor, who have charge of all such work, was 1900. County Surveyor Seely, to whom the editor is indebted for the faets stated in this par- agraph, reports the mileage by townships as follows: North, 94.8 miles ; Cahimet, 68.5; St. John, 46.7; Hobart, 46.2; Ross, 38.7; Center, 37.3; Cedar Creek, 32; West Creek. 23.4: Winfield, 12.9; Hanover, 12.1 ; Eagle Creek. 11.1. Total. 423.7 miles.
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
THE NEWEST RAILROADS
In 1899 a freight line was constructed from Griffith to Lake Michi- gan and thence westward, called the Griffith & Northern Indiana and in 1903 the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville Railroad was completed to the town named.
The Chicago, Indiana & Southern, controlled by the New York Cen- tral, is also one of the late roads, which runs from Indiana Harbor, through the four western townships of Lake County to Danville, Illinois, crossing the Monon at St. John. In combination with the Indiana Har- bor Belt Line it has large freight yards in the western part of Indiana Harbor.
THE BELT LINES
Besides the sixteen main lines which traversed Lake County by 1904 or 1905, there were such belt lines as the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, Chicago Junction, Chicago Terminal Transfer, Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern, Chicago & Western Indiana, East Chicago and Griffith & Northern Indiana.
The four main belt line systems of the Calumet region have more than eight hundred miles of trackage, and may be briefly described as fol- lows: The Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Road has 200 miles of tracks, 25 of which are along the lake shore in Indiana. It circles around Chi- cago, at an average of about thirty miles from its business center, and touches Waukegan on the north, West Chicago and Aurora on the west, and Joliet, Coal City and the Indiana lake shore on the south. It inter- cepts every road that enters Chicago.
The Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad runs from Mayfair on the north, through Maywood, Blue Island and Chicago Heights, on the south of Chicago; skirts the Calumet River region and reaches East Chicago and Hammond. It is especially important in the development of the Hammond district.
The Chicago & Western Indiana, or inner belt line, closely binds the Stock Yards district and the Calumet region.
The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company operates one of the best known lines of that character in the Calumet region. Its history and financial status are thus set forth by W. S. Osborn, its auditor :
"This company, under the name of East Chicago Belt Railroad Com- pany, was incorporated under the laws of the State of Indiana on May 16, 1896, and constructed certain lines of railroad in the vicinity of Hammond. On June 29. 1907, the name of East Chicago Belt Railroad Company was changed to Indiana IFarbor Belt Railroad Company.
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
"On June 29, 1907, the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company ac- quired, and on October 31, 1907, purchased the properties of the Chi- cago Junction Railway Company, extending from Whiting, Ind., to Franklin Park, Ill., including rights of the Chicago Junction Railway Company as common user of the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company, extending from Blue Island, Ill., to McCook, Ill .; also rights of the Chicago Junction Railway Company to operate over the Calumet Western Railway, the South Chicago and Southern Railroad and the Calumet River Railroad.
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