Merrillville Then and Now: 73rd Avenue at Madison

Yet another view of the Walter Bros. garage, from a postcard I bought a few months ago. The photographer, C.R. Childs, stood along present-day 73rd Avenue and pointed his camera east toward Madison.


(Click on images to enlarge)

Here's a screenshot from Google street view, 2024:

Image courtesy of Google Maps.

In spite of its stylish design, which I totally love, the back of the postcard is not helpful for purposes of fixing its date …



… but we know it dates to 1913 or later, since the photo is captioned "Lincoln Highway."

I consulted the Ainsworth vintage-car expert for further help, and he tells me:

There are a couple of cars (like the one closest on the right) that appear to be Model T Fords (not new looking). Ford's last year for gas headlights was 1914. Headlights were electric after 1914 and the car on the right appears to have gas lights. Walter Brothers sold Buicks and the truck in the doorway could be a late teens Buick delivery truck. The cars on the highway fit the 1916/1917 timeframe.

So I'm estimating the date of this photo to be circa 1917.

Concerning the starting date of the Walter Bros. garage business, A Pictorial History of Merrillville says this:

Like their father, Ernest "Cheese Henry" Walter, the three sons, Howard, Leslie, and Clarence, were capable business men who undertook their enterprise in 1917 when they were only 18, 20, and 21 years of age, respectively.

At first, the young entrepreneurs operated out of Elbert's Garage, an old wooden building; later they relocated to the Keilman building on the southwest corner West 73rd Avenue and Madison Street [i.e., where this photo was taken].

But in the on-line local newspapers, I found this 1913 item:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 2 Dec. 1913, p. 6.

This seems to say that they were already running a car-rental business in 1913, at which time Howard (b. 1893) was 20, Leslie (b. 1895) was 18, and Clarence (b. 1897) was 16.

I also found this 1915 item:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 10 Apr. 1915, p. 7.

So they were selling Fords and Overlands already.

But I found nothing to specify where their business was located at any particular time.

Comets at Sunset ca. 1972

(Click on images to enlarge)

The Ainsworth vintage-car expert tells me that the cars in the foreground are 1972 or 1973 Mercury models, while the cars in the background are Comets.

On the back of the card, Art Hill is bragging about the "NEW TOWN of Merrillville" — the town was officially incorporated in 1971.




I think the photo was taken at sunset. The photographer was facing south-southwest. Could you get that artistic-looking sky in that direction at sunset? It would be a chore to get up at sunrise just to take a picture. No, it was sunset, and after taking the photo the photographer went to get something to eat at the York Steak House in Southlake Mall.

Here's a present-day view of the same building (more or less), which was built in 1972 per the county records:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Google street view.

♦    ♦    ♦
I monitor collectibles for sale on Ebay that relate to both Merrillville and Hobart. The difference between what turns up in my searches for each is striking. Most of the items relating to Merrillville involve commerce in the 1970s through 1990s. A lot of the collectibles are ticket stubs from performances at the Star Theater. On a few occasions I have come across items that go further back. But those are rare treats.

For Hobart, it's the opposite. Postcards from the first half of the 20th century are so abundant that I find myself passing up images that I already have an original of (unless the message on the back is particularly interesting) and I've even found things even going back to the 19th century. And yet the two towns are roughly the same age. Merrillville, I believe, was much smaller throughout much of its history, until the population boom of the 1950s. And, again, it wasn't officially a town until 1971.

Merrillville today seems a sprawling anthill of commerce and traffic. It doesn't have a downtown on a human scale, the way Hobart does. It doesn't have a central figure, like a mayor. It doesn't have an emblematic topographical feature, like Hobart's Lake George.

If you want to buy a car, though, you have a lot of choices in Merrillville.

Does it sound like I'm maligning Merrillville? Heaven forbid, after the hundreds or thousands of hours I've spent in its library and its historical museum, not to mention its Menards and Meijer! Also, part of Deep River County Park is technically in Merrillville. So how could I not love it?

Deep River Then and Now: International Dairy Co.

1936 and 2024:




(Click on images to enlarge)
Historical images courtesy of R.F.
2024 images from Google street view.

Per a 1936 history of Union Township written by Wheeler High School students and teachers:

The Pure Milk station was built in the fall of 1925 by the Midwest Dairyman's Company, but there have been several improvements made in the equipment since then. There have been no decreases in the shipment of milk; rather it has increased gradually from 10,000 pounds daily in 1925 to 36,000 daily in 1936. It is owned by the International Dairy Company and all members that belong are Pure Milk members.[1]

I must take their word for the construction date, since I have not been able to find any relevant information in the newspapers I have access to. Indeed, I read through the whole of 1925's Hobart Gazette without finding any mention of what must have been a big event in the village of Deep River. On the other hand, the Porter County Assessor's records have 1950 as the build date. I think that may be a mistake, unless the dairy building burned to the ground and an identical version was built anew in 1950. Possibly that was the date the two back sections were added on; they were not original, as we can see in the second 1936 photo, and as the relevant 1939 aerial photo confirms.

The earliest newspaper article I have found about the dairy dates to January 1931:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 24 Jan. 1931.

Pretty exciting event, but I don’t think it made the Gazette.

This article, from later the same year, does establish that the dairy was operating at least as early as January 1930:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 13 Apr. 1931.


This photo, also from 1936, was taken in an unknown location.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.

We don't know who the smiling man was, either — presumably a truck driver for dairy. This photo has the name "Vina Serafinski" in its file name, but I haven't been able to identify such a person, nor anything about the name Serafinski that would help I.D. this location.

From this photo, dated 1938, I gather that someone was really proud of the dairy building and its pretty landscaping:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.

And lastly, a few random articles naming several employees of the International Dairy Co. over the years:


(Click on images to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 12 Dec. 1930.


Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 27 Jan. 1941.


Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 21 Feb. 1967.


_______________
[1] From the "Industrial Development" section of WHEELER HIGH'S WINNING HISTORY OF UNION TOWNSHIP As Compiled By History Class and Instructors For The Vidette-Messenger, printed in the Porter County Centennial, 1836-1936, Special Edition, 18 Aug. 1936, as transcribed at https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/PorterCountyCentennial/Sec3-4-6_UnionTwpHistory.html.

Hobart Then and Now: Third and Wisconsin

Circa 1958, and 2024.



(Click on images to enlarge)
Second photo from Google Street View.

I have had that circa-1958 postcard for years, and when I happened to come across the newspaper article about the opening of the Lake George Medical Center in 1955, I decided it was time for this not-terribly-interesting then-and-now.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 17 Mar. 1955.

By June 1956, an expansion project was underway.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 7 June 1956.

The photo on our postcard above appears to show the post-expansion building, which turned out to be not quite as grandiose as the architect's drawing. I am guessing at about 1958 for that photo, because the lawn and shrubbery have had a little time to grow and settle after the new construction, but the building was still new enough to warrant a postcard. Also, the photographer …


(Click on image to enlarge)

… may have been in business for only a few years in the mid- to late 1950s. "Squire Photo" was the side business of Robley Daniel Squire, whose day job was at the Sears Roebuck store in Gary. The earliest listing I can find for Squire Photo is in a 1956 Hobart directory at the Hobart Historical Society museum, and the latest is in a listing of Hobart businesses as of October 31, 1959, online.[1] (The 1952 directory at the museum lists the Robley Squire family, but no photo business; the 1962 directory lists neither the family nor the business.)

Robley Squire was born in Ohio in 1908 to George and Lydia Squire. Sometime after the 1920 Census, the Squire family left Ohio, and the 1930 Census shows them living on 49th Avenue in Hobart. Robley, then 22, was an apprentice roller in a steel mill.

Soon after 1930, it appears that Robley had a vocation, as we find this surprising announcement in the Burnettsville [Indiana] News of May 18, 1933:


(Click on image to enlarge)

From the steel mill to the pulpit! The young couple lived in Logansport at least until 1935, per the 1940 Census, which finds them back in Hobart, and Robley back in a steel mill. Around 1942 their only child, Daniel, was born. By 1950 Robley was a "Division Manager" at Sears. The directory listings mentioned above indicate that they stayed in Hobart through 1959, but not long after that, the family moved to Illinois, to the far-southern suburbs of Chicago.

Here is a picture of Robley in 1969:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Harvey Tribune (Harvey, Ill.), 20 Nov. 1969.

The ceremony was a family affair, if you read the text.

Robley and Alta now rest from their labors in Illinois. And that is the story of Squire Photo.

And the Lake George Medical and Professional Center was knocked down circa 2006 to make way for the building that is now standing half empty, but half Marco's Pizza, which is delicious.


_______________
[1] "Hobart Businesses — October 31, 1959," Historical Association of Lake County, Indiana Reports and Papers Volume XII (1970), p. 86. https://archive.org/details/reportsandpapersoflakecountyindiana/page/n99/mode/2up

Hobart Then and Now: The Bale House/A Pink Boutique

Many years ago, I posted a then-and-now shot of the Bale house. Here is another version.

Circa 1900, and 2024:

(Click on images to enlarge)
Historical images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.







The people standing in front of the house in the top photo are not identified, but I'm guessing they are B.B. and Emily Bale. I get the circa-1900 date from handwritten notes on a copy of one of the photos in the historical society's file indicate, and there is nothing in the photos to contradict that. The home was built in 1870.[1] I do not know why the Bales waited some 30 years after construction to get photographs of their house. You'd think they'd do that sort of thing in the first flush of new-home pride. But, of course, photographs were a little more difficult to get in 1870.

Nor do I know when the house was demolished. Per the county assessor's records, the building that houses A Pink Boutique was built in 1950.

Here is a detail from the 1902 Sanborn map showing the area, with the Bale house circled in red, to give us some idea of what we may be seeing in the background of these photos.


(Click on image to enlarge)

The only thing I actually recognize is the steeple of Augustana Lutheran Church, above the head of the man holding the horse in the second photo. Between him and the church, we may be looking at the old wooden Pennsy station.

_______________
[1] That's according to two sources, the Gazette obit of 1927 and the undated 60th-anniversary article, reproduced in my post about the Bales; but the News obit (also reproduced in my post) says the Bales "bought" the house in 1870, suggesting that it had been built earlier.