USA > Indiana > Lake County > Report of the historical secretary of the Old settler and historical association of Lake County, Indiana, and papers. Crown Point 1911 > Part 3
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An act of Congress by which these swamp lands were ceded to the State of Indiana, provided that the money accruing from the sale of said land should be used for draining and reclaiming them. (See appendix to the re- vised statutes of Indiana of 1842.) Many thousands of acres of these lands were deeded by the State of Indiana to purchasers who bought in good faith, but the money paid into the state treasury was used in other ways than for drainage. A few small ditches were dug that did but very little good towards the drainage of this large body of wet land.
In 1855 my father excavated the upper portion of the original Eagle Creek ditch to make a new and straighter channel for the waters of Eagle Creek. His part of the work was mostly done with teams, using plows, scrapers and shovels. No dredges we: known in this part of the country at that time. Nicholas Sherer had the contract for the remainder of the said ditch through the over-
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flowed lands, to enter the Kankakee River about a mile cast of the Illinois state line.
He and his gang of men worked in the water, often to their knees, to dig that part of the ditch, with shovels. In the course of years the grass and sediment filled up a large part of this ditch because the fall was so slight there was not sufficient current to keep the channel clear. That portion dug by my father had sufficient fall to wash out larger, from a ditch 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep to a channel in places 60 feet wide and 10 feet or more in depth, except in one place in Section 31, where the ditch is but little wider or deeper than when dug fifty-six years ago. The washing of soil from this part of the ditch and the Niles ditch, dug many years since, at the upper part of Eagle Creek, have caused the filling up and covering of acres of former swamp, which is now rich tillable land ..
About 1870, William F. Singleton, who was related to General George W. Cass, and owned a large interest in Kankakee swamp lands, planned a beginning of a drainage system which resulted in the digging of the Singleton ditch in 1873.
This Singleton ditch has taken the place of that part of the old Eagle Creek ditch which had become nearly or quite filled up. Some of the way the old line was used, but for the most part an entirely new ditch was dug
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near the old one. The Singleton ditch connects with the Eagle Creek ditch at almost the exact place where my father's contract commenced in 1855. This Singleton ditch was dug with a steam dredge, which you all know is a combination of powerful machinery carried on a large flatboat, to be moved in the water as the ditch is being dug. This Singleton ditch has since been twice cleaned out by dredges to deepen and enlarge it, to carry the flood water of several creeks that empty into the marsh and also to make it the outlet for waters from several other large ditches. About 1885 the Brown ditch was constructed, parallel with and from one to two miles from the Singleton ditch, and emptying into that ditch in Section. 29 in West Creek township. A few years later the Griesel ditch was dug to take the waters of Plum Creek and Spring Creek. Then came the Cedar Creek and West Creek ditches, to carry the waters of those two large streams, and the Ackerman ditch, to drain a large body of rich land in Cedar Creek township. Some years ago a large ditch was dug to carry the water of the Singleton ditch across the state line into Bull Creek, which was enlarged, to conduct said waters into the Kankakee River a few miles down the river from the old outlet.
With all these miles of ditches from 16 to 60 feet wide and 6 to 16 feet deep, there was still a very large tract of land that produced mostly wild grass, canebrake and
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bulrushes, and was the home of countless numbers of mud hens, coots, thunder pumpers, snapping turtles and bull frogs.
A few years ago, after a tedious legal fight, another large ditch was dug to build a levee or dam to prevent the flood waters of the Kankakee River from overflowing this body of land. This levec was started in Eagle Creek township at the junction of the swamp lands with the high land, about one-half mile west of the Porter county line, extending south and southwest, entering the river near the east end of Jerry Island, then starting at the west side of Red Oak Island, continuing to the river crossing of the I. I. I. Railroad. This has since been extended to the Monon right-of-way at Shelby, with a later extension to River Ridge, which is a natural levee parallel with the river nearly to the Illinois state linc. The Gifford or C. & W. V. Railway grade, which crosses the Kankakee River at right angles near the southeast corner of our county, bearing thence to the northwest, has made a levee which, together with the ditch dug for construction, has helped to protect some of the lands on the west side of the railroad. The removal of the old mill dam on the ledge of rocks at Momence, Illinois, was delayed many years by the death of General Cass. After that was finally removed, lowering the water about seven feet, years of earnest work were required to secure an appropriation by the Indiana state legislature for the
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removal of part of the ledge of rocks in the river at Momence. For many years the people of Momence, to- gether with the officials of the Eastern Illinois Railroad, prevented the removal of rock to still further increase the outlet for the waters of the Kankakee River and the ditches we have mentioned. Much of the credit for securing the removal of the ledge of rock in the river and the construction of several of the above mentioned ditches is due to one of our most public spirited citizens, Mr. John Brown. Besides the above mentioned expensive works, there have been dug many miles of smaller ditches and many miles of tile ditches to further drain these lands and make them permanently available for farming purposes.
Some of the results of the immense amount of money expended and years of hard work spent in these improve- ments are that a very large tract of valuable land has- been added to the producing power of Lake county, fur- nishing millions of bushels of grain of the various kinds adapted to our soil and climate, on the lands that only a few years ago were covered in fall, winter and spring with water from two to six feet deep. The accumula- tions of water by the Kankakee River and the large number of creeks on both sides in the seven counties of this northwest corner of Indiana, made this an immense lake nearly all the year. This furnished a resting and feeding place every fall and spring for immense flocks
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of ducks, geese, brants and cranes, on their way south in the fall, and their return in the spring to their northern summer resorts. Their flying machines were not run by gasoline but were good for long distances.
Many hunters made it a business for years to shoot game, for sport and for market. One hunter claims to have shot forty-two geese in one day, with an average of twelve a day for several days. The average of du ks shot during the season was about forty, running from fifteen to one hundred a day. Prices of ducks at times were as low as 75 cents per dozen. One spring a heavy snowstorm blinded the geese so that one hunter shot about one hundred geese in one day in Goose Pond near Beech Ridge, and another one of the party got forty the same day.
Many years ago high water and smooth ice caused such a collection of deer on one of the islands that hunters killed ninety deer in one day. Muskrats were so plenti- ful that good trappers averaged about thirty-five rats per day, or from twenty to eighty per day and 800 to 1,000 per day for the trapping season. One hunter named Patrick caught, in one year, 10,000 muskrats. The prices paid for the hides varied from 10 to 33 cents each. They have since sold for $1.25 each. Hunters also caught many coon, mink and skunk and occasionally an otter. One hunter caught in one trap thirty rats and one mink at 32 consecutive settings of the trap. W. W. Ackerman,
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Burnham Bros., F. E. Brownell and others will verify the above and tell others. Mr. Ackerman used a 7-foot pad- dle to push his boat over the marsh and a 11-foot paddle when running his boat on the river. He is still living, well and hearty, and one of the very few of the oldest trappers of game on the Kankakee marsh.
The days of hunting and trapping for geese, ducks, cranes, prairie chickens, snipe, rails, mud hens, rats, coon, mink and otter, are gone. We cannot wonder that the Indians hated so badly to give up and move away from such a wonderful, happy hunting ground.
These lands, since drained, are producing of corn from 50 to 90 bushels per acre, wheat 15 to 44 bushels, oats from 25 to 60 bushels, and many other crops in propor- tion, besides furnishing pasture in summer and feed for winter for many thousands of cattle, sheep and hogs. Good comfortable houses, barns and other buildings are now on all parts of these reclaimed lands and many fami- lies of children growing up to make good American citi- zens. While the singing of prairie chickens, geese, ducks, thunder pumpers, mud hens and bull frogs made music for the early settlers, the laughing and singing of the happy children grown and fed on the produce of this rich soil is still sweeter music to those who now live on or near these wonderful lands.
For many years thousands of acres of these lands were
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advertised for taxes, with no bidders. Many tracts were sold for 50 cents to $1.50 per acre. Now but very few tracts can be bought as cheap as $25 and many are called worth $50 to $100 per acre. Some tracts have actually changed ownership at prices that look unreasonable.
We who have seen these wonderful changes do not dare tell you nearly all of the things we have known of this country for fear you might accuse us of belonging to the Ananias Club, but if any doubter will take a trip by automobile or flying machine through or over these rich farms I am sure you will say, "Not all the truth has been told of them." I have not told you of the many miles of good roads built of natural homegrown material, passable all the year round with team or auto; of the miles of telephone lines connecting the majority of the homes with neighbors and towns; of the hundreds of mail boxes on free rural routes that give each family daily mail every morning, nor of the free hacks or school buses that carry nearly all those children to school, where their teachers are so competent and their scholars so capable that many of them can hold their own even in competition with those of older communities. They do not hesitate to compete for Professor Heighway's big dictionaries or any other prizes. One is sometimes tempted to wish for "the gift of tongue or pen" to tell of these things as they deserve.
OSCAR DINWIDDIE.
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THE FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF GARY. By Louis J. Bailey.
(Read at a meeting of Lake County Historical Asso ia- tion August 30, 1911.)
What a wonderful event, and yet how natural and simple a one have we seen who have witnessed the estab- lishment and growth of this city. How simple it was to watch the scene on one June day in 1906, as the few men with their teams, their scrapers, wagons and shov- els labored leveling and clearing away the dunes of sand, filling in the marshy ponds, cutting the oak trees and scrub oak-working out and out from that little center until a large space was cleared and leveled.
Here in this spot for ages the mighty forces of nature have played a part-shifting the sand from dune to dune -heaping and piling today where yesterday was sink hole and marsh-covering its sand with weeds and strange plants-cherishing with hard and fateful blows its stunted, gnarled and twisted oaks-affording a covert for its own wild birds and wilder beasts. What an epic of nature has been played out on its soil during the ages. Since the days when Laurentian ice came slowly crunch- ing and forcing its steady way from the great white North and with its recession left lake and bay to cover deep with sand or soil-here have been played the com- edy and tragedy of the fruitful earth-wild bird and wild
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beast have fallen a prey to wild man and he in turn has passed on leaving in his room the pioneer and the set- tler to conquer and subdue to their will the uncultivated wastes.
This soil, called Gary, is the last to be subdued. Fol- lowing the men and their work of clearing comes the civil engineer with his line and level to lay out in predeter- mined and orderly manner the streets and allays and building sites of the coming city. Follow closely mason and builder, engineer and mechanic, and soon our soil that has lain its ages the sport of mother nature in her most strange and changeful moods is subdued to the hand of man and the scientific genius that resides in it. A city is on the ways-and as building after building-houses, stores and mills-leave the hand of the builder-wild nature is subject to industrious and industrial man.
For it is an industry that has called forth this city- and it is for us today to briefly record the reasons for its founding and the facts of its growth. This is an age of industrial expansion. Multiplying inventions and con- centrating capital have made it so. It is no new thing for an industry to found a city, and perhaps the steel in- dustry has been the greatest industrial factor in town building of this sort, as witnessed by the many cities of Pennsylvania. We have then not an unusual spectacle before us when we contemplate the largest steel corpora- tion in the world looking forward and making provision
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for an increasing steel market in the middle west of this country.
The United States Steel corporation was formed in April, 1901, consolidating under one general management twelve large concerns engaged in every kind of steel manufacture in all branches from the mine to the finished product. Probably one of the strongest arguments that could be given for such a large consolidation of such great interests was the safety and steadiness that would be insured to the steel industry for an indefinite future by the enlarged capital and extended resources. Indeed, the concerns seemed to run along about as they always had, but the new management turned its initiative to making the future more secure. In accordance with those provisions it made large purchases of ore and ore lands in the great iron ore ranges of northern Michigan, Wis- consin and Minnesota. It provided for the future in the matter of coal-one of the necessary products used in the process of steel making-and purchased large acreage in the coal lands of Southern Indiana and Illinois. These lands are not to supply only present needs, but are su - cient to last at the present ratio of increase of produc- tion for fifty to a hundred years.
The development of the steel market during the last ten years has been steadily toward the middle west and middle south of the country. The corporation found itself handicapped by having only two mills in direct
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connection with this developing territory-those at South Chicago and at Jolict, Illinois. In addition these two mills were so surrounded by cities that sufficient expansion was impossible. During the year 1904 the officers and engineers of the Illinois Steel Company-the subsidiary company whose mills are at South Chicago and Joliet- carried on an "investigation of a large territory contigu- ous to Chicago, especially respecting transportation facili- ties, suitability of sub-soil conditions for heavy founda- tions, and suitability of conditions incident to the proper housing of employees and their families." In 1905 con- clusions were reached which resulted in the selection of the site now known as Gary. The territory was not an unknown one to the officials of the corporation. On a site just east of Indiana Harbor had been erected in 1904 the Universal Portland Cement plant, a subsidiary com- pany of the corporation manufacturing cement from blast furnace slag. The new territory selected adjoined this plant on the east. A large territory was available. It was crossed by five great trunk lines of railroad, and harbor facilities on Lake Michigan were possible so that the ore freighters from the Northern ore ranges might unload directly at the steel works, thus saving trans-ship- ment necessary to inland mills like those of Pennsylvania. The pure sand sub-soil was most favorable for the neces- sary heavy concrete foundations, and by beginning anew It seemed possible to develop a city along lines of sani-
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tation and convenience in accordance with modern idcas. The purchase of land for the corporation began quietly in July, 1905, being conducted by A. F. Knotts, a former mayor of Hammond, as agent and attorney of the cor- poration. Most of the land in the neighborhood had been subject to the stock yards boom of 1892 and 1893, which centered in Tolleston where many subdivisions had been platted and many lots sold to individuals. The main section of land on which Gary is now located was known as the Veeder Tract and the Spoor Tract, which with land held by the L. S. & M. S. Railway amounted to nearly 2,000 acres. This was the land first purchased together with other tracts lying to the west and south, and many lots held by individual parties, and which it was finally decided to make the site of Gary, the mills and the city.
The first official statement of the corporation regard- ing Gary was made in the annual report for the year ending December 31, 1905, as follows: "Altho the ca- pacity of the producing furnaces and mills located at Chicago and vicinity has been materially increased from time to time, it has not kept pace with the increased, and rapidly increasing consumption tributary to this location ; and therefore a large percentage of this tonnage is now supplied from Eastern mills. In consequence of these conditions it has been decided to construct and put in operation a new plant to be located on the south shore of
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Lake Michigan, in Calumet Township, Lake County, In- diana, and a large acreage of land has been purchased for that purpose. It is proposed to construct a plant of the most modern standard, and to completely equip the same for the manufacture of pig iron, bessemer and open-hearth steel, and a great variety of finished steel products. The total cost will be large. The conclusion to build this plant has been made after very careful con- sideration by the Finance Committee and the Board of Directors of the corporation. Notwithstanding the large sums which have been paid since the organization of the corporation for increasing the producing capacity by subsidiary companies they have only maintained their position in the trade. In 1901 these companies produced 43.2 per cent of the pig iron manufactured in this coun- try and in 1905, 44.2 per cent. In 1901 these companies produced 66.2 per cent of the bessemer and open-hearth steel ingots, and in 1905 60.2 per cent. While these com- panies do not expect or desire to control the steel in- dustry, they must, so far as proper and practicable, main- tain their position; and to do this it has been and will be, necessary to expend large sums of money from time to time."
On March 12th, 1906, the first corps of engineers ap- peared on the scene, making their headquarters in the former cottages of the Calumet Gun Club, some of which still stand on the lake shore just east of the har-
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bor. R. E. Rowley was the chief civil engineer, and T. H. Cutler assistant chief. A. P. Melton, as assistant chief, came a month later, in April, to take charge of laying out the town site. The site for the steel works consisted of nine hundred acres and in order to clear it and have sufficient open space on the lake shore it was necessary to relocate three railroads. The Baltimore & Ohio railroad was relocated from Indiana Harbor to Mil- lers, a distance of ten and one-half miles, the Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad for a distance of eight and one-half miles, and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad from Indiana Harbor to a point one mile east of Millers, or eleven and one-half miles. For · practically half of this distance the railroads were ele- vated through the town site, the elevation serving to sep- arate the mill and the town sites. Following the engi- neers many contracts were let for grading the two sites. The condition of the land was that of many sloughs, ponds and marshy places alternating with sandy dunes and hills, all covered with pine, scrub oak, and wild vege- tation. Everything from wheelbarrows to steam shovels was called into use and dunes leveled and sloughs filled in as fast as possible. Broadway, the first and main street, was located and following hard on the heels of the grading gangs came the laying of Broadway pave- ment. The banks of the Grand Calumet river, which rambled widely and covered much territory, were filled
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in and narrowed and straightened. On the other side of the mill site sand was dumped into the lake and the shore lines extended farther out, and the excavation of a harbor slip was begun which has since become the Gary Harbor, twenty-five feet deep, 200 feet wide and ex- tending inland over 5,000 feet, and ending in a great turning basin 1,000 feet wide.
The Lake Shore Railroad established a stop called Gary, designating it at first by a sign board and later when the wintry blasts came on, using an abandoned freight car as a station. Near the station grew up a small city of tents and tar-paper shacks. The pioneers of Gary put in their first winter living in tents and these thinly protected shacks. The first bridge over the Grand . Calumet river was a wooden one, and until this was erected in 1906 all goods and people had to cross in a row boat ferry. The first building erected was a small frame office building for the Gary Land Company, com- pleted in June, 1906, and located on the west side of Broadway about a hundred yards south of the present Union station. It has since been converted into a house and stands now on Jefferson street. In this building was located the postoffice of which T. E. Knotts was post- master, and the offices of the engineers working on the town site. Just west of this grew up a thickly settled street of tents and shacks which was known as "Euclid Avenue." Here was established the first grocery, cloth-
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ing store, laundry, restaurant, soda fountain, etc. The Fitz hotel was erected in the neighborhood by P. F. Fitz- gerald and the Falkneau Construction Company put up a large tar papered structure called the Falkenau Inn near the present Sixth avenue and Washington street.
The steel corporation continued to acquire land until their holdings amounted to nearly 9,000 acres. For the purpose of holding, developing and selling the land a subsidiary corporation was organized. This, the Gary Land Company, was in charge of A. F. Knotts as agent until April, 1907, when Capt. H. S. Norton of Joliet be- came the agent. The company adopted a singularly wise and far sighted policy for handling its town property. It laid out a large section of the town site as the Gary Land Company's first subdivision, promising to pave all streets, lay all sewer, water and gas mains and electric wires through the alleys. It set a certain published price on each of its lots, and in return restricted the territory upon which liquor might be sold, and required that on certain streets only limited classes of buildings might be erected and set a time limit for such erection. The first sale of lots was made by the Land Company in September, 1906. But not until spring was house build- ing started in earnest. Then the Gary Land Company let contracts for the erection of 400 houses costing from $2,500 to $15,000 each. And the citizens of the new town followed as fast. Houses and brick blocks began to
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spring up almost like mushrooms. Paved streets and sidewalks appeared, public service mains were installed, stores, markets, hotels and restaurants increased and the new city began to take form.
The corporate and political existence of the town of Gary began in July, 1906. A census was made on June 9th, 1906, when the population appeared as 334. This number included some of the older inhabitants of Pine, Clark Station and the territory east of Tolleston.
Following the census-taking a petition was filed with the County Auditor signed by fourteen citizens, request- ing an election to decide on the matter of incorporation. This petition was granted by the County Commissioners at their June meeting and an election ordered on July 14th. At that election thirty-eight votes were cast, only one being against the proposition. Following that action the Commissioners divided the town into three wards and ordered an election of town officers for the 28th of July. At that election forty-nine votes were cast, the result being the election of :
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