USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 27
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GAR
GARY UNION RAILROAD DEPOT
"On July 1, 1907, the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company began operating, and on October 31, 1907. purchased from the Indiana Harbor Railroad Company of Illinois, formerly the Terminal Railroad Company, the property owned by that company extending from Chappell, Ill., to the Union Stock Yards, including interest in leasehold covering the right of way along Forty-ninth Street owned in fee by the Grand Trunk Rail- way Company, and rights of joint user of property and facilities of the Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad Company north of the Little Calumet River near Osborn, Indiana.
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"Chicago Junction Railway Company was formed on January 1, 1898, by the consolidation of the Chicago, Hammond and Western Rail- road Company and the Chicago and Indiana State Line Railway Com- pany. The Chicago, Hammond and Western Railroad Company was formed on September 30, 1896, by agreement of consolidation between the Chicago, Hammond and Western Railroad Company and the Ham- mond and Blue Island Railroad Company. The Hammond and Blue Island Railroad Company was formed on September 30, 1896, by the consolidation of two companies of like name, organized respectively under the laws of the States of Indiana and Illinois.
"The Indiana Harbor Railroad Company of Illinois was incorpor- ated under the name of Terminal Railroad Company on April 16, 1896, under the laws of the State of Illinois, and constructed a line of rail- road from Chappell to the Union Stock Yards. On January 23, 1905, the name of the Terminal Railroad Company was changed to the Indiana Harbor Railroad Company of Illinois."
FINANCIAL STATEMENT SEPTEMBER 30, 1914
Cost of Road. $10,210,479.53
Capital Stock $ 2,450,000.00
Equipment 491,568.31
Funded Debt 6,725,000.00
Capital Stock of
Advances for Con-
Calumet Western
struction 1,742,280.06
Railway and I. II.
R. R. of Illinois. . 214,201.00 $10,917,280.06
$10,916,248.84
Employees, as of September 30, 1914, 1,550.
STATE LINE INTERLOCKING PLANT
Until 1906 Hammond was the only large railway center in Lake County, and one of the most striking evidences of that fact was the great interlocking plant, known more generally as the State Line Tower. The News describes it with enthusiasm: "A stranger in passing through Hammond over nearly any of the great trunk lines of railroad would observe in the northwest part of the city, on the Indiana side of the line dividing the States of Indiana and Illinois, the largest manual inter- locking plant on the western hemisphere. In fact there is but one larger in the world, and that one is located at Chatham Junction, near London, England. This plant is known as the State Line Interlocking Tower.
"It is probable that no more complete and perfect interlocking plant
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has ever been built than this one. The trains of the following railways pass over the tracks controlled by this immense plant : Chicago & West- ern Indiana R. R. and Belt Railway of Chicago, Chicago Junction Ry., Pennsylvania Ry., Chicago & Erie Ry., Chicago Terminal Transfer Ry., New York, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. (Nickel Plate Line), Chicago, India- napolis & Louisville Ry. (Monon Route), Michigan Central Ry., Wabash Ry., Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry. (Chicago Belt Line), Pere Marquette Ry., and L. S. & M. S. dummy line. There is perhaps not another place in America outside of the large cities where so many important lines of railways come together at one point and it is the only place in the vicinity of Chicago where all the belt lines come together. It is on this account that Hammond is celebrated for her superior advantages as a shipping point, advantages that are unapproached by any other city of the same size in the country. It is on account of these facilities that so many important manufacturing industries are looking this way for loca- tions and the cause of the city's remarkable growth, in the past, and her bright prospects for upbuilding in the future.
"The State Line Tower building is constructed of pressed brick, laid in cement. The dimensions of the building are 161%x100 feet, three large triple windows light up the room below the operating floor so that an inspection of the working parts of the mechanism of the machine can be quickly and easily made. The operating floor is so arranged that the men in charge have a clear view of all the tracks within the limits of the interlocker. The construction of the building is on the slow com- bustion plan. The roof is of No. 1 Banzon slate supplied under speci- fications of the United States Government. The interior of the operating room is finished in natural wood. The machine frame is made for 224 levers and is 94 feet in length. There are at present 160 active levers in use, and 10 more are now being added. In the construction of this plant there was 62,000 feet of one inch pipe, weighing 47 tons, used. The most extreme signal operated is 2,692 feet from the tower. There are 109,000 feet or about 21 miles of signal wire consumed in the plant.
"Switches are operated at an extreme distance of 1,242 feet. It re- quires 200 gallons per month of the best grade of kerosene oil to light the signal lamps. Upwards of 300 trains move over the plant every 24 hours. At a test made some time ago by the Erie Ry. 275 levers were required to be handled to move the trains for one hour.
"The plant was installed in November, 1887. Since that time the E. J. & E. Ry. have built a large freight yard with a capacity for 700 cars just north of the plant, the lead switches being connected to the plant. The C. & W. I. R. R. are now (1904) laying two additional main tracks, making it a four track road and the Erie Ry. and C. T. T. Ry.
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are both double tracking their lines. Additions are now being made at the tower to handle this increased trackage.
"The Western Union Telegraph Company have made the Tower tele- graph office one of their main test offices and will soon install a large switch board there. There are ten men employed regularly at the State Line Tower, nearly all of whom are old employees of the C. & W. I. R. R., the company having charge of the operation of the plant."
EXPANSION OF ELECTRIC SYSTEMS
For the past ten years the greatest railway expansion in Lake County, especially in its northern sections, has been through the electric systems. The first of the interurban lines in Lake County was that which was put in operation between East Chicago and its district on Lake Michigan, founded three years before by the erection of the Inland Steel Mill and still called Indiana Harbor. The cars commenced to run between these two divisions on February 20, 1904.
GARY & INTERURBAN RAILWAY
The largest of the electric systems with headquarters in Lake County is the Gary & Interurban Railway Company, which operates eighty-five miles of track, reaching Gary, Hammond, Indiana Harbor-operating a line between Hammond and Indiana Harbor-Gibson, Tolleston and Calumet, and then east to Chrisman, MeCcol, Crocker, Valparaiso, La- porte, Woodville and Chesterton.
The original Gary & Interurban Railway Company was organized in 1907 by Frank M. Gavit of Whiting, who, in his building operations, worked through the Cooperative Construction Company, headed by Fred- erick H. Wood. Notwithstanding the hard times and the financial panic of 1907, the road was pushed along from Gary through an unsettled and unprofitable distriet, to Hammond; also east to Ambridge, the work- ingmen's suburb of Gary ; and twenty-six miles of electric railway built and equipped before the return of a dollar! Some of the Air Line pro- moters, who wanted an outlet through the Calumet region to the east- . ward, were interested in the Gary & Interurban, and in 1913, a reorgani- zation was effected which was most aeeeptable to all. The consolidation included the original Gary & Interurban, the Goshen, South Bend & Chicago (Valparaiso & Northern) and the Gary Connecting Railway Company, operated under the name of the first named eoneern. The Gary & Interurban seeures its power from the Northern Indiana Gas and Electric Company and the Publie Utilities Company of Chicago.
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The Gary & Southern Traction line connects with the Gary & Inter- urban and affords good service to and from Crown Point.
CHICAGO, LAKE SHORE & SOUTH BEND
The Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Electric Railway is also a line which is of splendid practical value to the Calumet region, passing through Hammond and Gary on its way to South Bend, with a branch from East Chicago to Indiana Harbor. The line from Gary to Kensing- ton, Illinois, makes direct connections with the suburban service of the Illinois Central, thus providing another convenient connection with Chicago.
HAMMOND, WHITING AND EAST CHICAGO LINE
The Hammond, Whiting & East Chicago is an electric system which especially covers the western territory of the Calumet region. It oper- ates twenty-five miles of road in North Township and its main points are indicated by the title. By virtue of a running arrangement with the South Chicago City Railway Company, it operates through cars from Hammond, via Roby and South Chicago, to Sixty-third Street and Madison Avenue, Chicago, where connection is made with the Chicago City Railway, the Elevated and the Illinois Central.
RAILROAD YARDS AND WORKS
Since the founding of Gary in 1906 not only has there been a great development of transportation lines in the eastern and central districts of the Calumet region, but Hammond and the western territory have likewise been wonderfully stimulated. This has been strikingly shown in the founding, expansion and consolidation of large freight yards, ma- chine shops and locomotive works, like the famous Kirk yards at Gary, the Gibson transfer yards in the southeastern part of Hammond and the Baldwin Locomotive Works south of Indiana Harbor.
The Gibson yards were built and placed in operation in the fall of 1906, as well as the large round house and machine shop. There are now handled through these yards in the neighborhood of three thousand freight cars daily, their entire operations employing from fifteen hun- dred to two thousand people. The New York Central has spent some $1,500,000 at this point in the erection of buildings, shops and tracks for its extensive L. C. S. (less than car loads) Transfer Station. The Chicago. Indiana & Southern and the Indiana Harbor Belt line, which
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are controlled by the New York Central and have their headquarters at Gibson, employ some fifteen hundred people. Most of the employees reside in Hammond. A branch of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion is located at this point, and occupies a handsome building erected by the Chicago, Indiana & Southern.
In the year 1906, when the Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad was nearing completion, the railroad officials saw the need of some pro- vision for the accommodation and general welfare of the employes who would have to stop at Gibson, the northern terminal of the road.
Mr. W. H. Hotchkiss, who was general manager of the Chicago, Indiana & Southern at that time, consulted the authorities of the Young Men's Christian Association relative to establishing a department of the association at Gibson for the general welfare of the company's employes.
Satisfactory arrangements were made and a building was erected and furnished by the railroad company, costing approximately $35,000, and turned over to the Young Men's Christian Association to operate. Mr. W. J. Miller was called from Cleveland, Ohio, as the general secretary of the department and began his work early in 1907.
Mr. W. C. Belman, who was president of the Hammond Young Men's Christian Association. which was incorporated, became president ex- officio of the Gibson Railroad Department, and on April 24, 1907, a committee of management was organized, consisting of II. A. McConnell, chairman ; A. R. Upp, vice chairman ; A. J. Chapman, treasurer ; R. N. Burwell, recording secretary ; F. N. Hickok, and J. H. Scott.
The building was completed and dedicated in July, 1907, and the doors have not been locked since. Day and night men have been coming and going, enjoying the hospitality and comfort made possible to them by the railroad company in erecting the building for their employes.
When built in 1906, the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern yards at Gary were as large as any in the world. In the Kirk yards are about 135 miles of tracks, and over 4,000 loads are handled daily by the 2,000 or more men who are employed. The plant covers 1,380 acres, and the annual pay roll of the concern is about $2,000,000.
The Baltimore & Ohio shops stretch along the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Electric line for some distance. partly within and partly without the western boundary of East Chicago. About 150 men are employed in them, the yearly wages of whom amount to a third of a million of dollars.
The Erie yards and shops are in Hammond, between the Grand and Little Calumet rivers, cover over eighty acres and employ some three hundred men.
The Monon, also, which comes up from the South, has yards and shops
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which cover forty-eight acres near the southern limits of the city, and employ about one hundred and fifty men, and its depot at Hammond is a little gem of convenience and good taste. The same may be said of the Lake Shore and the Baltimore & Ohio depot at Gary.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works, when completed, will occupy more than three hundred and seventy acres of ground in the southeastern out- skirts of Indiana Harbor, northeast of the plant of the Grasselli Chem- ical Company. Foundations for some of the principal buildings are (December, 1914) well under way.
NOTABLE FEATURE OF THE PRESENT
It is thus evident that the strong feature of the present railroad situa- tion in the Calumet region, which, in turn, represents the most remark- able advance in transportation facilities made in any territory of the country outside of the immediate Chicago district, is the promotion of the great enterprises championed respectively by Hammond as the strongest factor in the western portion of that region and Gary, the eastern leader. To an impartial observer, it would appear, judging from the prodigious industrial development of the entire region that there will always be plenty of railroad business for each, and considerable to spare for East Chicago, Indiana Harbor, Whiting and any other brisk town which may take a notion to be born.
CHAPTER XXI
CALUMET REGION INDUSTRIES
THE HOHMANS OF HAMMOND-OTHER PIONEER FAMILIES-RISE OF THE FRESH BEEF BUSINESS-SHIPPING COMPANY FORMED-STATE LINE SLAUGHTER HOUSE FOUNDED-THE HOHMAN BOARDING HOUSE- START OF HAMMOND-MARCUS H. TOWLE-FIRST SHIPMENT OF RE- FRIGERATED BEEF-MR. TOWLE AND MR. HAMMOND DIFFER-THOMAS HAMMOND ENTERS BUSINESS -- A BIG, WARM MAN-BURNING OF SLAUGHTER HOUSE-JAMES N. YOUNG-THE W. B. CONKEY PLANT -SIMPLEX RAILWAY APPLIANCE COMPANY-STANDARD STEEL CAR WORKS-ILLINOIS CAR AND EQUIPMENT COMPANY-FITZ HUGH LUTHIER COMPANY-NORTHERN INDIANA GAS AND ELECTRIC WORKS -F. S. BETZ MANUFACTORY-AMERICAN MAIZE COMPANY-FOOD PRODUCTS OF REID, MURDOCH & COMPANY-CHAMPION POTATO MA- CHINES-STAUBE PIANO PLANT-THE IIAMMOND DISTILLERY-THE HAMMOND ELEVATOR-ENTERPRISE BED COMPANY-EAST CHICAGO FOUNDED-THE INLAND STEEL COMPANY'S WORKS-INDIANA HAR- BOR INDUSTRIES-AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES-OTHER STEEL PLANTS -GREEN ENGINEERING COMPANY-ALUMINUM FACTORY-REFINING COMPANIES-UTILIZATION OF TIN "WASTE"-THE GRASSELLI CHEM- ICAL WORKS-CUDAHY PRODUCTS-EAST CHICAGO DOCKS-INTER- STATE IRON AND STEEL PLANT-HUBBARD STEEL FOUNDRIES-THE LIMBERT WORKS-REPUBLIC IRON AND STEEL WORKS-MAKERS OF STEEL TANKS-ASPHALT ELECTRIC CONDUITS-ELECTRIC POWER PLANT-RIVET AND BOLT MANUFACTORY-A LARGE SUBJECT-STAND- ARD OIL PLANT AT WHITING-HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE-ORIG- INAL OWNERS OF THE WHITING PLAT-FIRST BUILDERS OF THE OIL PLANT-OIL CLOTH AND ASPHALT FACTORIES-GARY, YOUNG BUT QUITE FINISHED-TRANSPORTATION BY LAND AND WATER-THE FACE OF NATURE CHANGED-SOME BIG FACTS ABOUT THE STEEL MILLS- AMERICAN SHEET AND TIN PLATE PLANT-UNIVERSAL PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY-AMERICAN BRIDGE COMPANY, AMBRIDGE-GARY BOLT AND SCREW WORKS-INDUSTRIES OF THE FUTURE-INDUSTRIAL SUMMARY.
The great industrial belt of Lake County covers substantially the northern third of its area, or North, Calumet and Hobart townships.
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CHICAGO
WELATEN
N
A
A
SOUTH CHICAGO
MICHIOAN OITY,
ed RIDGE
INDIANA HARBOR
LOCR PORT
ISTON
COUNTRY AROUND THE SOUTHERN BEND OF LAKE MICHIGAN
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LAKE COUNTY AND THE CALUMET REGION
The greatest industrial plants are included in North and Calumet town- ships, which embrace the cities of Hammond, Gary, East Chicago and Whiting. At the rate that territory has been developing for the past twenty years, it does not seem possible that the time can be long de- ferred when these municipalities shall sink their local differences, their natural and stimulating struggles for superiority, and merge into one grand metropolis of which Indiana and the United States would be proud. As to whether the Calumet region will ever be absorbed by what is already the greatest interior city of the world, is a matter for specu- lation projected into the further future.
Speaking in general terms, the municipalities of the Calumet region, within the past twenty years, have increased in population from 9,000 to 63,000, or seven-fold; in 1900, they numbered nearly 20,000. Their improvement in everything which goes to make people comfortable and happy ; to feed them both the good things of the body and spirit-this transformation is simply a leap from crudeness to metropolitan life.
THE HOHMANS OF HAMMOND
It was Hammond which gave birth to the industrial life of the Calu- met region, and to trace it to its very beginning we must introduce the Hohman family, of fine old Prussian stock and the pioneers of that part of the county, which settled on the north side of the Grand Calumet River in what is now North Hammond, in April, 1851.
Ernst W. Hohman, the head of these first comers to the Calumet region, was well educated and democratic, and, as one of the young Revolutionists of the '40s, left his native Prussia and went to London. There he met a thrifty woman, born in Wales, and married her in 1849. A few days afterward, they set sail for America, arrived in New York, August 20th of that year and continued west to Chicago.
Mr. Hohman was then thirty-two years of age and, like other sensible Germans however well educated, had mastered a trade. He was a tailor, but Chicago life in that line did not appeal to his longing for American freedom ; so he went prospecting along the line of the Michigan Central Railroad which was being projected south of the Grand Calumet. He finally selected forty acres of land at a favorite river crossing, and with his educated, agreeable and capable young wife, opened a tavern in a log house which he erected for the purpose. Although at the time of their coming Mrs. Hohman spoke neither German nor English, her husband was a master of them both, as well as of French; so that the young couple had no difficulty in not only communicating with each other but with the travelers who "put up" at their hotel. They were friendly
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and sociable, supplied good food and comfortable lodging, and made the Hohman House one of the best known hotels in the region.
Being confident that the locality would develop under the stimulus of railroad building, Mr. Hohman made several purchases of land on both sides the river until he owned nearly a thousand acres. He died in 1873, after George H. IIammond, Marcus M. Towle and other De- troit capitalists had bought a tract on the south side of the river for the great slaughter house which was Hammond's mainstay for nearly twenty years.
All the children were born in the log-house inn near the State line, and six of the offspring survive. The widow managed the estate during her life, with the assistance of her elder son, Charles G. Hohman, and, as stated by a loyal friend : "She proved equal to the task, and with an open purse and willing hand did many things to aid in the early develop- ment of Hammond. She built the first business block of any importance, the Hohman Opera House Block, and assisted in locating many indus- tries. She was a devout Episcopalian, and by her death on June 15, 1900, St. Paul's Episcopal Church lost a constant attendant and the chief contributor to its support."
Charles G. Hohman has been the active manager of the estate since his mother's death in 1900, and as the later purchases of his father cov- ered much of the present business center of Hammond it is one of the most valuable in the Calumet region. The family name is stamped on the city through its chief business thoroughfare, Hohman Avenue.
OTHER PIONEER FAMILIES
Not long after Mr. and Mrs. Hohman opened their tavern in the log house situated on their forty-acre tract north of the river, William Sohl and his wife (Mrs. Hohman's sister) settled east of them on the Michi- gan City road and opened a grocery store, with a side line of liquors. Long afterward, after Hammond became a city, forty acres of the Sohl estate was divided among the children of the deceased couple and platted as additions to the original site.
The third settler upon the present site of Hammond was J. Drecker, who came about 1858, and was followed by perhaps a dozen other fam- ilies who located in the neighborhood of the Hohmans before the coming of the men who backed and built the slaughter house. Among the best known of these were Patrick W. Mullen and the Goodmans, who all lived on the bank of the river along the Michigan City road. Mr. Mullen finally opened a saloon in the city and was elected to the city council. His sons became famous butchers and held world's records for quick
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slaughtering, skinning and quartering; and while Hammond was one of the leading centers of the beef trade in the Middle West, such champions were heroes in their class.
Before the founding of the slaughter house the Mullens and the Good- mans, the Ahlendorfs (nearest neighbors to the Hohmans) and nearly all who resided along the Calumet earned a goodly share of their living by trapping and spearing muskrats in the winter, and by acting as guides and helpers of the Chicago hunters and fishermen. These occupations, with the harvesting of ice, brought in considerable revenue to those who were not cultivating land, or speculating in it, or establishing themselves in various lines of primitive business.
RISE OF THE FRESH BEEF BUSINESS
Now a new page for this section of the Calumet region is to be turned, and the editor will allow the Hammond Daily News to perform the act gracefully, in the following words :
"Previous to the year 1868 shipping fresh beef, poultry, butter and eggs across the continent with any degree of certainty that the shipment would arrive at its destination in good condition, was thought to be impos- sible. In that year, however, it was demonstrated beyond all doubt that by the use of refrigeration fresh beef could be transported around the world if necessary, and arrive at its destination in perfect condition. To the lamented George HI. Hammond, of Detroit, is due the credit of this discovery, and it came about in the following manner : In the year 1868 the Davis Brothers, who were at the time fish dealers located in Detroit, invented a fish box in which they could ship fresh fish from points on Lake Huron and Lake Superior to Detroit and have them arrive in a good marketable condition. The box was a success and Davis Brothers had it patented. Davis refrigerators as household articles were made but were not a success, though their ability to refrig- erate was never questioned. The work required to operate them and the expense of the salt condemned them for domestic purposes.
"The same year that the Davis Brothers found that their box for ship- ping fish was a success they were approached by George H. Hammond, who was in the wholesale and retail fresh meat business in the same street. Mr. Hammond thought the same principle of refrigeration might be built into a car to carry fresh beef, and the Davis Brothers designed a car. The Michigan Car Company of Detroit built the car after the plans of the Davis Brothers.
Vol. 1-19
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SHIPPING COMPANY FORMED
"During the time the car was building an arrangement was made by Mr. Hammond with George W. Plumer and Marcus M. Towle to load the ear at Detroit with fresh beef for Boston. The car was loaded and Marcus M. Towle went with it to Boston, where, after a trip consuming six days, the car was opened in the presence of a number of railroad men, Mr. Towle and Mr. Hammond. The weather had been very warm during the trip, notwithstanding which the beef arrived in fine condi- tion. A company, or rather a partnership was formed within the next few days, and in this company George H. Hammond took one-third inter- est, Caleb Ives (a banker of Detroit) one-third, Marcus M. Towle one- sixth and Geo. W. Plumer one-sixth. The capital invested was $6,000 divided in the ratio of the interest of each partner.
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