The Phantom Road

I have always been puzzled by the fact that the Ross Township plat maps — from the earliest we have onward through the mid-20th century — all show a public road where today there is none.

Here is that road on the 1874 Plat Map. It runs north and south along the section line between Sections 12 and 7, except where it bows out westward to avoid Sprout Ditch, and it connects present-day 61st and 70th Avenues.


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I had to draw in 70th Avenue myself, since it doesn't show up on this map, except for that brief east-west line connecting DeKalb and the phantom road.

Naturally I wondered whether the 1874 cartographer made a mistake. That would not be the only possible error I've encountered on a plat map. Perhaps subsequent mapmakers didn't bother to verify and just copied the original error.

However, I recently came across an announcement in the microfilm newspapers that throws a wrench into the works of the "mistake" theory.


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Hobart Gazette, March 16, 1933.

The announcement mentions the surnames of three property owners whose land is adjacent to the road: Frank, Paine, and Sievert. Those match up with the property owners shown in the 1939 Plat Book.


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I had to patch two pages together.

The announcement names Henry Sievert, while the plat map shows Carl Sievert owning the land, but I think the plat map just hadn't caught up with the reality that Carl had died in 1929 and his son, Henry, now owned the land.


The announcement seems a little garbled — its heading and opening line specify "vacation" of a highway — that is, abandonment — but it goes on to speak of a "proposed highway" that "will pass through" the described land, as if the road were to be built, not abandoned. And then it says the highway is, or will be, 66 feet in width! That's quite an impressive highway. I'm inclined to think that there was a little carelessness in the drafting or the typesetting of the announcement, rather than that a 66-foot-wide local road was proposed to be built during the Great Depression.

I have searched in vain in the Hobart papers for any information about the outcome of the April 4 hearing mentioned in the announcement. Was the highway officially vacated?

As we see above, the 1939 Plat Book still seems to take notice of a public road there. On the 1939 aerial view, we can still trace the line of the road …


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Image via Indiana University's Indiana Historical Aerial Photo Index.

… though it doesn't appear to connect directly with 70th Ave. (and it certainly is not 66 feet in width).

The road is drawn on the 1950 plat map , but not on the 1972 plat map.

Today, if you really zoom in on the Google satellite view, you can see that a wagon-wheel sort of path, probably used by farm machinery, still follows the line of the abandoned road.

That road would come in handy when both the DeKalb Street and the 70th Avenue crossings of the Canadian National Railroad are blocked by freight trains. As this area gets ever more developed, perhaps someday the road will be un-vacated.

Here's a Possum (Random Pointless Photo)

I thought that after the puppies went back to the shelter, I'd have some time to do some real posting, but I thought wrong. So here's a photo of a possum that was eating birdseed around my bird feeders back in February.


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How did my life get so busy?

I Have Seen a Sign …

… not from God, but from Whiting.


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This sign is at the bottom of a ravine between the Grand Trunk Railroad and Deep River County Park. It advertises the Illiana Hotel in Whiting, Indiana. How did it get all the way out to Deep River? — who knows? Perhaps it once stood along the old Lincoln Highway or another main road where travelers in need of a hotel room might be expected to pass.

According to an article on the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society site, the Illiana Hotel opened in 1928. The building, located at 1200 119th Street, was demolished in 2017, at which time (according to the article) the hotel itself "had been closed for years."

I would never have noticed the sign but for the rain that has swollen the little creeks flowing into the Deep River, so that the spot where the dogs and I usually cross this one was too deep.

"Fireproof," reads the first line of the sign. Sounds dangerous.

Roof Repairs, I Hope

While walking my dogs yesterday, I noticed that something had been happening on the west side of Julie Carrozzo's barn.


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I hope it's roof repairs, and not something more sinister.

The east side needs work too.



This barn, like the late Chester house, is owned by the Lake County Parks Department. But the barn is more likely to be preserved since, as everyone knows, Al Capone slept there, or hid out from the G-men there, or used the bales of hay there to smuggle bootleg booze … or something. But it was definitely Al Capone.

Yet Another View of the Pennsy Bridge

All my research time is still going to puppies, so here's a research-free post.


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We've previously seen views from about the same location, but not with those people fishing on the riverbank, and certainly not with that kid in the foreground all dressed up in a white sailor middy and knee pants. It must be Sunday.

The verso carries a heartwarming message:



The year in the postmark is not quite legible — "191"-something, a number with round outlines; could be any round year between 1910 and 1919.

I have no clue who Ray was. He gives his return address as "c/o Ira B. Wyant" in Hobart. I can't identify any such person in Hobart.[1]

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[1] There was an Albert B. Wyant, aka "Abe", but I have no reason to think this was the same person.

Puppy Vacation

These are my foster puppies, Louisa and Delores, on loan from the Hobart Humane Society until March 12. They are the reason I'm not getting anything done.


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I just love the silly expression on Louisa's face in that last one.