Camp 133

Here's a little map from the Gazette of June 2, 1922, showing where Camp 133 was.


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So, where present-day Liverpool Road crosses the Deep River, Camp 133 was on the west side of the road and the north side of the river.



A Calumet Region Historical Guide compiled as a WPA project and printed in 1939 devotes one short paragraph to Camp 133, explaining that it was "so named because 133 was the number of the local theatrical employee's union whose members established the camp in 1913."

Another Red Barn

I happened to be in an antique store today and found this photo of a fine-looking farm (with cow grazing in yard) …


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… but what really interested me was the other side, which had a stamped form and handwritten information very similar to the Prochno farm photo.




Just for kicks I looked James Dodd up in the census; in 1920 he was 53 years old, farming his own land in Wall Township, Ford County, Illinois.

Melvin, Illinois is in the next township over — Peachtree Township.

We now conclude this completely irrelevant post.

Lester Fisher, 1901-1922

We had a warning about Lester Fisher's health. The 21-year-old died on the last day of May 1922.


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Hobart News 1 June 1922.

It was tuberculosis that killed him, according to the Gazette.

The Gazette also stated that the family was residing in "the Kramer house on Center street." We do find the Jacob Kramer, Jr. family on Center Street in the 1920 Census, but I can't say whether the Fishers occupied the former Stocker house.


Additional Source: "Death of Lester Fisher." Hobart Gazette 2 June 1922.

Windmill Daredevil

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Image courtesy of Eldon Harms.

It's a poor photo, but you wouldn't want to ask him to do that stunt twice so you could be sure to get a good shot.

The notes at the bottom tell us that this was Roney Sauter in 1926. I have no idea who Roney Sauter was. Notes on the back tell us that the location is the Prochno farm.

At the base of the windmill, you can see a neat and substantial-looking structure (pump house?). In the photo of the Prochno farm posted earlier, the only pump-house-like structure near the base of the windmill is a ragged wooden shack with a hole in its roof.

That may indicate that the earlier photo dates to before 1926. Or not.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I don't think it was a happy Thanksgiving for these guys.

But they look like free-range turkeys, don't they? I'd like some free-range turkey.


The postmark is 1961.

It's a Rich Man's Road and a Poor Man's Tax

These notices to Ross Township taxpayers appeared in April 1922:


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Hobart Gazette 14 Apr. 1922.

In view of recent complaints about the condition of local roads, some road improvements would seem necessary and desirable, even if interest-bearing bonds had to be issued to pay for them.

But by late May the protests of some unnamed "Ross Township farmers" had brought a member of the state board of tax commissioners up to from Indianapolis to look into the proposed work. The general objection was that the costs of construction were inflated. With regard to the Woods road, protesters were suspicious of the fact that the wealthy Gary citizens who used the Gary Country Club (at the site of the present-day Innsbrook Country Club) would benefit from the road while not bearing any of its cost.


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Hobart News 1 June 1922.

Perhaps the awarding of the road-work contract to someone who wasn't local didn't sit well with them either.

I gather from the description in this article that the "Sam B. Woods road" to be improved was only five-eighths of a mile long. My guess at its location is marked in red on this excerpt from the 1926 Plat Book:


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The "Goodrich road" improvement area was 2.5 miles "running south and west from Ainsworth on the Lincoln highway" … so, some unspecified chunk of the Lincoln Highway between Ainsworth and Merrillville?


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Hey, I just like making these little maps.

The Prochno Farm

This is the Prochno farm — probably the one on Colorado Street, near the Lester Harms farm.


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Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

You can see the mailbox in front, which would be used by the mail carrier working a Crown Point rural delivery route.

The back of the photo was stamped with blanks to be filled in by hand:



I'm not sure what the purpose of all this was — documentation for insurance purposes? Or perhaps the proud homeowners were ordering a tinted enlargement of this photo to hang on their wall? Anyway, I like the little color details: house white, with green trim and shutters; barn red, with white trim.

There is no date on this.

William Prochno was born in 1880 to Ferdinand and Bertha Prochno, German immigrants. The earliest I can find the family is in 1900, when they farmed rented land in southeast Ross Township. In 1902 William married Louisa Saager. Now, in 1908 the farm that would eventually be the Prochno farm was owned by August Saager, but I don't know what relationship he might have had to Louisa.

The young Prochnos were farming rented land in Eagle Creek Township in 1910. In 1920 they were back in Ross Township, farming what may have been the Saager/Prochno farm (to judge by their neighbors), but the enumerator did not know whether they owned it. They did own it by 1926.

William and Louisa had lost one child in the early years of their marriage. Only their daughter, Mathilda, born circa 1911, survived to maturity. As we know, she married Noland White and then Lester Harms, but neither marriage produced children.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ 1930 Census.
♦ 1940 Census.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.