USA > Indiana > Lake County > History Of Lake County (1929) > Part 14
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In the fall of 1920, plans were adopted for the bathing pa- vilion, and in 1922 this bathing pavilion, which contains two thousand lockers, was opened to the public. The surrounding grounds were improved, lawns were developed and shrubbery was planted. Ninety-foot flood light towers were erected which not only lighted the waters for the bathers, but also lighted the parking space and the surrounding park property.
Playground equipment was installed on the beach, picnic tables were provided throughout the wooded section, brick ovens were built and roadways constructed.
In the summer of 1923, contracts were awarded for the recreation building, known as a combined restaurant and rec- reation building, and for the construction of an open air danc- ing or concert pavilion. The recreation building was designed to serve both summer and winter sports. This building is used for dancing and other social functions, and is equipped to pro- vide regular restaurant service; it will accommodate six hun-
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dred people at banquets. During the winter season, skating and tobogganing are provided for on the Calumet Lagoon.
In 1926 and 1927 other improvements were added, including the casting platform in the lagoon, and baseball diamonds; ad- ditional playground equipment was placed on the beach, and in 1929 two hundred trees were planted on the hill south of the bath house.
During the past season (1929) over twenty-five thousand cars were parked, and more than one hundred and fifty thou- sand people bathed in the lake.
Riverside Park
In 1920, through condemnation proceedings, the Park Com- missioners obtained three hundred acres of land for park pur- poses along the little Calumet River. The ground is fronting on Broadway, our main thoroughfare, and is well located from a transportation standpoint, both for street cars and boulevards. In 1925 Harrison Street was paved from 19th Avenue to 35th Avenue, with a 34-foot concrete, asphalt and macadam pave- ment. With the completion of this road, actual construction on the golf course commenced, contracts were awarded for the Club House, sewers and water-supply service. The first nine holes of the golf course were put in use during the latter part of 1927; the second nine holes were put in use the latter part of 1928. The tennis courts were completed, as well as the boulevard lighting system. During the past season more than 60,000 people used this park.
The club-house service includes locker rooms, showers, rest rooms, restaurant and golf supply shop.
During 1929, baseball diamonds were built and an athletic field for football games was constructed. The ground is now being cleared for further development north of the river.
Gateway Park
In 1928 the United States Steel Corporation donated the vacant property on North Broadway to the City of Gary for the Gateway Park. It was decided to erect the new City Hall and Court House buildings in this location. The City Hall was built on the east side of Broadway at Fourth Avenue, and the Court House on the west side of the street. In the spring of 1929 the Park Commissioners adopted plans for the improve-
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ment of the park lands. The site was graded, reflection pools, rubble stone walls, concrete and macadam walks were built, and the landscape was completed late in the spring of 1929. Two buildings on Broadway and one on Washington Street yet remain to be acquired before this work can be completed. The park commissioners hope to have this accomplished before the spring of 1930.
Washington Park
In the fall of 1928, Washington Park was purchased, locat- ed at Fifteenth Avenue and Connecticut Street. Contracts were let for the erection of a Field House, wading pool, sewers and water service installation. Shrubs and trees were planted, walks laid out, the latest playground equipment was installed, baseball diamond and flood light towers were completed and the park was open to the public in June, 1929. Situated in a thickly settled district this playground has been filled to ca- pacity the whole year around.
Pittman Square
This property located at Fiftieth Avenue and Pennsyl- vania Street, was donated to the City of Gary by the Pittman and Watson Realty Company, and contains about four acres. No improvements are contemplated beyond the leveling and building of lawns until such time as the district requires ad- ditional playgrounds.
Boulevards
After many years of developing the parks of Gary, there remained much work to be accomplished in order to bring about the joining of the parks by means of a boulevard sys- tem, not only to serve the needs of our people in reaching the parks, but to facilitate the movement of traffic through our city. In 1921, the Park Commissioners launched a program of road construction that eventually brought us the "through" highway, which now extends from the west city limits to the Lake Front Park over a continuous stretch of roads known as the Industrial Highway, Fourth Avenue, Fifth Avenue, and the Gleason Roads Numbers One, Two, Three, Four and Five. Harrison Boulevard was paved from Nineteenth Avenue south, through Riverside Park to Thirty-fifth Avenue. Trees
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were planted along the Fifth Avenue route to Lake Front Park; trees and shrubs were planted on Sixth Avenue from Lincoln Street to its intersection with Fifth Avenue on the east. Twenty-first Avenue was planted with trees from Taft Street to Broadway; and Forty-Third Avenue from Harrison Boulevard to Kentucky Street on the east.
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Public Parks (Continued)
HAMMOND PARKS By A. M. TURNER December, 1929. Central Park
Central Park was acquired in 1887, during the administra- tion of M. M. Towle, as Mayor. In the year of 1905, the Pub- lic Library was placed thereon.
Douglas Park
Douglas Park was acquired during the year of 1896, during the administration of Patrick Reilly, as Mayor; it contains 24 acres.
Harrison Park
Harrison Park was purchased in the year 1898; it contains 24.22 acres, and cost the city $36,482.00. This park is the best developed and most used of any of the parks in the city. The negotiations were made under F. R. Mott, as Mayor.
Lake Front Park
Lake Front Park was acquired in 1903, during the admin- istration of Patrick Reilly as Mayor; it comprises 1300 feet of Lake Michigan frontage with riparian rights. A municipal bath house was erected in 1915. The Park and beach are used to capacity during the summer months.
Columbia Park
Columbia Park was purchased in 1910 during the admin-
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
istration of Lawrence Becker, as Mayor; it contains about 15 acres and cost $25,746.00. This park fronts on the Grand Calumet River and Columbia Avenue.
Maywood Park
Maywood Park was acquired in 1914, during Mayor John D. Smalley's administration; it contains about 20 acres, and cost $17,500.00. It was well planted and landscaped and has a modern shelter house.
Small Parks
Conkey Park, Glendale Park, Illianna Park
These parks are attractive; are of value to their environs and add to the appearance of the city. Various tracts in Wood- mar have been set aside for park purposes and will serve as a reminder to other subdividers that they can not afford to be less liberal.
By the year 1922, sentiment in favor of modernizing the city in the way of park extension and development asserted itself.
Expression was given to this desire by Mayor Brown in the re-organization of the Park Board. W. R. Beatty and A. M. Turner became members. A careful survey was made. How- ever, the Board was advised that the then limit of the city's bonded indebtedness had nearly been reached and that not more than $25,000.00 was available for park activities.
Turner Field
In the fall of 1921, the writer had presented the city for recreation purposes 51/2 acres of close-in river front property. Bonds in the sum of $25,000, were sold and the proceeds used to buy 31/2 acres additional property including several old cottages. The property was fenced and improved. By this time the public became interested, and, as a result, a stadium was demanded. Bids were asked for, the contractor taking in pay- ment a contract with the Board for the seating concessions. This contract of $29,000.00 was assigned to the banks and
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when reduced to $18,000.00 from a small percentage of the receipts during semi-professional games one day per week, city bonds were issued payable at the rate of $2000.00 per year. $10,000 yet remains to be paid and not one dollar of the tax-payers' money has or will be used for this purpose.
Addition to Central Park
In the rear of Central Park was a row of eight lots with three old houses. This property was purchased, giving the park the entire block.
Hessville Play Field
Hessville Play Field was acquired in the year 1924, it com- prises about 10 acres.
Forsythe Park and 1200 Ft. Lake Frontage
This property originally consisted of 38 acres, with 1200 feet of Lake Michigan frontage which happily joined the city's shore property of 1300 feet, lying to the east. The price agreed upon was $150,000.00, of which the city paid $25,000.00, for an outright purchase of 21/2 acres. The balance was pur- chased by G. J. Bader, F. J. Smith and A. M. Turner, who leased it to the city, with the option to purchase. As a result, the surplus land we were required to take to obtain the Lake Shore property was sold, which gave the Board the Lake Front free of cost to the city, plus about $107,000.00, about $75,000.00 of which was used to purchase a well wooded tract of 30 acres on Wolf River, in the same vicinity which is now known as Forsythe Park. A portion of the land sold went to Lever Brothers, upon which a $5,000,000.00 factory is now being erected, thus a double purpose was served.
Wicker Park
A Township Park jointly owned and used by the five muni- cipalities in North Township, namely: the cities of East Chi- cago, Whiting and Hammond and the villages of Highland and Munster, comprises 231 acres of well-wooded and well water- ed land; it has an excellent 18 hole golf course upon which
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
50,000 games per year are enjoyed. A Park House, costing $36,000, was paid for from the profits on the sale of 61% acres of detached land not needed for the Park. Wicker Park was purchased and completely developed by the following men, at a minimum cost:
William Ahlborn, G. J. Bader, H. P. Conkey, George Han- nauer, Carl Kaufmann, R. H. McHie, P. W. Meyn, E. C. Minas, W. J. Reilly, Walter Schrage, F. J. Smith, C. L. Surprise, A. H. Tapper, Leo Wolf and A. M. Turner.
The property was deeded to the Township, and on January 14th, 1927, was dedicated by Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States.
Thus during the seven years ending in 1929, a substantial start has been made toward making Hammond and environs a livable place.
Hammond's present Board of Park Commissioners is com- posed of the following, namely : James A. Malo, George Geyer, Harry Glair, A. M. Turner and Adrian E. Tinkham, Mayor.
2
Public Parks (Continued) RURAL PARKS By EDWIN F. KNIGHT Crown Point
To those who see God in Nature, Lake County's park, com- monly called The Fair Grounds, is most appealing. Originally these grounds comprised forty acres of (SW-NW-17-34-8) and were donated to Lake County by Richard Fancher for county fair purposes, which gift merits the lasting gratitude of the community. The Fair Grounds lie about one mile south of Crown Point on the Crown Point-Cedar Lake concrete high- way.
This original timbered tract forms a natural amphitheatre, in the center of which lies a deep crystal body of water known as Fancher Lake, around the shore of which is a noted resilient
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FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LAKE COUNTY (Near St. John-Removed to Fair Ground, used as Boy Scouts' Cabin)
PUBLIC PARKS
race track. In spite of the keen competition of the automobile the race horse is still monarch of the track. Many of our old settlers and prominent citizens have driven in exciting races around the track and have bathed in the cool refreshing water of the lake when the style of their bathing suit was of little consequence.
Since those days the old frame "Floral Hall"' has been re- placed with a modern brick "Memorial Hall." Other brick buildings have replaced frame buildings and many new ones, including a fine automobile display building and a modern comfort station have been erected. The old board fence has been replaced by new woven wire fencing which permits an un-obstructed view of the grounds.
The far-sightedness of such men as A. Murray Turner, J. Frank Meeker and others induced the county, in 1912, to acquire the beautiful wooded forty acres forming the park's northern entrance. The Tabers, who had owned it for many years, had kept it in its original state.
The park is much used by families and public gatherings, like those of the Old Settlers. Many of the County's institu- tional and business concerns picnic there. The Boy Scouts have a cabin in the park.
The County in 1927 added about 60 acres to the south, and in this tract is the tourist camp.
An interesting Zoo is being maintained in the Park, and harbors some of Lake County's wolves and other four-footed animals and fowls. Water is supplied to various parts of the grounds and buildings. A caretaker lives in a county residence on the grounds, and the buildings, grounds and animals are well taken care of. The Fair Grounds Park has gained a na- tional reputation and many travelers have declared it to be the most beautiful of Fair grounds. It is a scenic spot of rare beauty in a county of exceptional commercial advantages.
South-East Grove
With concrete and other improved roads and quick trans- portation has come a demand for more parks and the pre- servation of beauty spots for the public. Another of nature's places of beauty is South East Grove in the Southeast part of the county. It is also an historical place, many a stirring debate
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
and meeting having been held at its school house. Persons par- ticipating in such have afterward occupied prominent places in the county's growth. They in 1870 decided in a debate, that women should not vote.
Our noted historian, Timothy H. Ball, calls it "the finest if not the largest of our upland groves." At an early date a ceme- tery was located in a part of the grove and many of the coun- ty's earliest settlers are buried there. It is still maintained.
Cedar Lake and the Kankakee
Much regret will come if the county does not obtain some ground adjacent to the waters of Cedar Lake. It begins to appear that the citizens of our county will soon have no place for public gatherings on its banks and, without the payment of fees will be barred from access to this beautiful lake's shores. This should not be.
For an ideal game preserve the Kankakee river is unexcelled. God gave man a place here that would have required years and large sums of money to build. Even though this point is ap- preciated it may already be too late to acquire the same.
What a county ! Unequalled industries, productive farms, beautiful and restful parks and water courses, only a few minutes apart.
Editorial Note :- The above articles upon the subject of public parks were written upon request. The authors of these papers are outstanding friends of park developments in this section of the State. Mr. W. P. Glea- son now is, and for many years has been, president of the Gary Park Board, and, along with his board members, comprising C. D. Davidson, Louis H. Glueck, Frank Borman and a superintendent, has worked faith- fully for the beautification and the development of the city parks and playgrounds, and played an active role in the acquisition of the Dunes State Park. Mr. A. M. Turner, head of the Hammond Park Board, also has taken an active part as patron of and sponsor for the purchase and the development of parks, particularly in Hammond and adjacent areas. Mr. Edwin F. Knight, a nature lover and a worker in Boy-Scout activities certainly knows the old Fair Ground and the groves of the county.
So far as we know, these articles are probably the first papers upon the subject of public parks that have found their way into the publica- tions of the local county Historical Association; but with a rapidly grow- ing population fast encroaching upon the primitive and the natural, the necessity of and the demand for segregated public play-grounds and recreational areas increase; and also there come the wish for and the
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assertion of the right to a portion of the primitive and the natural, out of the little thereof that yet remains, as a rightful inheritance of and for those yet to come. These demands have appeared late, but they have ar- rived. Our first state park, Turkey Run, was purchased partly by private donations and partly by state appropriation in 1917. Our State Conser- vation Department was organized in 1919, under an Act of the legislature of that year. We now have the following state parks, with others in being or in contemplation, namely. Turkey Run, Parke county, 1,070 acres; Mc- Cormick Creek, Owen county, 385 acres; Clifty Falls, Jefferson county, 570 acres; Pokagon, Steuben county, 727 acres; Dunes, Porter county, 2,192 acres; Spring Mills, Lawrence county, 1100 acres, and Muscatatuck, Jennings county, 88 acres, besides Clark County State Forest, 5,000 acres, and a game preserve of more than 3,000 acres in Newton and Jasper counties and some historical monuments.
The coming years should witness a growing aggregation of accessible recreational grounds as relief from metropolitan grind.
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Dream Cities of The Calumet
BY JOHN O. BOWERS
This is just a little story of some dreams that did not come true; of long-forgotten adventures of far-away by-gone days; of bold frontier enterprises and wild speculation in "paper cities;" of bright prospects and vanished hopes.
Convention would dictate that we write, if we write at all, or speak, if we speak at all, of achievement, and not of failure; of doing, not dreaming; that we extol success and deprecate defeat.
But, looking back of and beyond the obvious and the tangi- ble for the real source of achievement, we come at last upon the spirit that generates and promotes the act. And thus, after all, what matters most is the spirit that prompts-the urge that drives-the passion that seeks mastery over opposition.
As inventions are often the children of necessity, so great deeds are the children of dreams. Although "the stuff that dreams are made of" has taken no high rank as a theme for discussion or edification, yet it has been said upon no little authority, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Stooping to parody upon a well-known stanza containing a very fine sentiment, I, in order to express a less lofty idea, may, with little variance from veracity, say :
I hold it true whate'er befall, I feel it when I most bewail, 'Tis better far to dream and fail Than 'tis to never dream at all.
If the only dreams of human life were those which come true, what a sordid, dreary life it would be! If the world would have had no hopes or visions excepting only those which have reached fruition, what a subdued and depressed abode it would have been !
But, on the contrary, as said by the poet Pope,
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blest.
* * * Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state."
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DREAM CITIES OF THE CALUMET
We are prone to laud the big cities and their so-called founders, but in most cases at the beginning the future was wholly unknown, and one man's guess may have been about as good as another's. Ordinarily, cities grow under certain economic laws, or economic conditions, and many of the con- trolling factors are usually quite beyond the control of any particular individual. Of course energy, enterprise and capital play important roles. But the dreamer blazes the trail for the doer. Drab indeed would be the world without dreams, dreary the way without an occasional stroll through dreamland.
By what power of reasoning or by what prophetic vision could John Kinzie or Mark Beaubien have foretold the actual future of the little settlement around Fort Dearborn? By none whatsoever. Indeed Monsieur Beaubien, the courteous hotelier of The Sauganash, said he "didn't expect no town." Such metropolis, to serve the great middle west, might have been located almost anywhere at or around the southerly end of th great lake. Was there anything about the site of Hammond which could or would have enabled the prophets to forecast the present city ? If so, what was it? What seer saw the signs and laid the plans for it? What became of the plans?
With great foresight, Jonathan Jennings, the Indiana ter- ritorial representative in congress, caused the Enabling Act for the admission of the territory as a state to authorize the extension of the area, and the consequent removal of the northern boundary, ten miles north of the old northern boun- dary, which, under the ordinance of 1787, passed under the Articles of Confederation, was determined by a line drawn east-and-west through the most southerly extreme of lake Michigan. This extension operated to give the new state forty miles of lake frontage. This foresight is more fully appreciat- ed when we reflect that at the time of the passage of the Enabling Act the lands north of the Wabash river were still held by the Indians.
When the white men made their first advent in the Calu- met region, doubtless the prophets or seers saw, or fancied that they saw, Destiny pointing her finger toward the land at the southerly end of the great inland sea as the future home of a great aggregation of people, for was not this land foreor- dained by Nature to be the crossroads of the continent? Was not this the heart from which would radiate the arteries of
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HISTORY OF LAKE COUNTY
trade? The Calumet Region having been recognized by the earliest white settlers as an area of great possibilities, it has long been an attractive field for the honest but often over- confident individual as well as the designing scoundrel who hesitated not to call a barren beach a "city" nor a swamp an "Addition" to an existing city, in order that he might obtain gain from the credulous and unwary prospective purchaser.
During the early period covered by this article, Lake county was for a time wild, primitive and unorganized, the admin- istration of its civil affairs having been temporarily under the jurisdiction of Porter county. The settlers could readily see that ultimately there would be trading-centers somewhere, but just where no one knew. The adventurers and exploiting char- acters sought to establish them, no doubt, for personal gain; but no such founders could have a monopoly of all the gain ; be- sides, there was hazard, as events proved, for public improve- ments and developments do not always follow rules of reason, and the best laid plans of men "gang aft aglee."
So then, with this little prelude, and without further apolo- gy or justification, we now turn to the dreams of a few ad- venturers of pioneer days that failed, but which, notwith- standing such unfortunate ending, still retain for many an abiding interest.
Living here in a vast metropolitan area through which run great trunk lines of railroads carrying thousands of passen- gers daily ; street cars, automobiles and huge auto-trucks, all passing and re-passing in rapid succession; with cement side- walks crowded with rapidly-moving men and women of every race and color assembled here from the four corners of the world; with the air filled with the commingled noises of fac- tories, locomotives, moving trains, whizzing motor-cars and engines of aerial craft, it is hard-probably impossible-to transport ourselves in fancy back to the beginnings of civili- zation in this community; but we can shut our eyes and try. It may do us good to compare and contrast the present with the past, and to notice which way and how far we have gone. In so doing we will not try to be strictly chronological.
Taking a local train eastwardly from Gary on the Pennsyl- vania railroad, almost before we become seated the brakeman or conductor cries out: "The next station at which this train will stop is Liverpool !" If you have never been there you won-
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der what you will see when you shall have arrived; if you have been there you wonder why this place was called Liver- pool, for the name suggests the busy port and mart of England, where ships from every maritime nation in the world load or unload their cargoes and then depart for the utmost parts of the earth, while here is but a little settlement at the junction of two railroads containing a small station house and one or two small dwellings. Liverpool is the name-the only name it has ever had.
Some parents seeing extraordinary genius in their infant sons, and wishing to christen them with suitable names, call them Alexander, Horatio, Homer, Napoleon and George Wash- ington; but what great ambition in the minds of the parent- founders could have prompted them to call this little infant, away out here in the wilderness, a thousand miles from a sea- port, Liverpool? Hereby hangs the first story of some dreams that never came true.
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