Ainsworth Then and Now: The Pantry/Sharp School Services Again

1937 and 2015



(Click on images to enlarge)
1937 photo courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Taken on July 5, 1937, the top photo is two years later than the first then-and-now I showed you (though the "now" photos were taken the same day in both posts).

I like this photo because it shows you the emptiness of the northwest corner of that intersection (73rd Ave./S.R. 51). Now the fields have been filled up by the Christian Assembly Church and the John Wood Elementary School.


These next photos were taken from that northwest corner.




(Click on images to enlarge)
First and third images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

While the older photos are undated, we can be pretty sure they were not taken on July 5, 1937! I would say that they date a bit later than that: someone has had time to put up some directional signs that weren't there in the 1937 photo. The car is not clear enough to identify, but it appears to be a late-1930s or early-1940s model.

In the foreground of the first photo you will notice a gravel road, which is not the main north-and-south S.R. 51, but a shortcut that people would take if turning west onto 73rd Ave. from southbound S.R. 51 (or turning north onto S.R. 51 from eastbound 73rd) — much the same way that nowadays they cut through the church parking lot. The posts mark off an unused triangle of land between the shortcut and the main north-and-south S.R. 51. You can see a few of those posts in the 1937 photo.

Ainsworth Then and Now: The Pantry/Sharp School Services

A descendant of Cecil and Ruby Tonagel has generously shared a collection of photos with the Hobart Historical Society and the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society. So at last I have seen more than a corner of the Tonagels' store!

Here's a then-and-now:

1935 and 2015




(Click on images to enlarge)
Top image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

That is among the earliest photos we have of The Pantry, as the Tonagels named their new business.



And I'm pretty confident that 1935 marked the beginning of this business run by the Tonagel family, since the on-line research for my first post about the Tonagels turned up a Mobilgas ad suggesting that as late as July 1935 Cecil was still occupied as the manager of the Walnut Gardens, well east of Ainsworth on the Lincoln Highway … although I suppose he could have run two businesses at once.

In its early days, The Pantry was not so much a grocery store as a lunch counter and tourist stop, taking advantage of the traffic on the Lincoln Highway, which then passed right in front of it. Out back of the main building stood cabins that tourists would rent (and we shall see photos of those, too).

After the new Route 30 was put through, diverting the tourist traffic south, the Tonagels gradually changed the focus of their business to serving the locals.