Another Car Crash at the Black Cat

An article titled, "Reckless Drivers and Speeders Draw Fines in JP Court," that appeared in the Hobart Gazette of September 23, 1948, contained this description of an accident:

A three-car crash on state route 6 near the entrance to the Black Cat restaurant last Saturday evening about 11 p.m., resulted in the arrest of William E. Finley, age 34, 2699 Gibson St., East Gary. Police investigation showed that Paul Verplank of Hobart, who was pulling a small two-wheel trailer on the back of his westbound car, was forced to stop when a large semi-truck suddenly stopped in front of him. Emil Skolak, age 33, 1705 McKinley street, Gary, who was accompanied by his wife Helen, and driving a new Lincoln sedan then stopped back of Verplank, and Finley, driving a Buick sedan, crashed into the rear of Skolak's car, which in turn hit Verplank's trailer.

When I found this, I thought at first that perhaps the mystery of the undated Black Cat crash photo had been solved … until I started searching online for images of the cars mentioned; namely, a 1947 or '48 Lincoln sedan and a Buick sedan (probably 1940s, maybe 1930s). The images I found didn't look like the cars in that picture. So the photo remains a mystery, and I can only conclude that the Black Cat was a popular place to have car crashes.


I am on something of a blogging vacation because I foolishly promised that over the winter I would label the agricultural implements and other tools in the Merrillville/Ross Township Historical Society museum's Farm Room (as several visitors have asked us to do), and I'm finding out that (a) there is much more stuff in that room than I ever realized, and (b) my knowledge of vintage tools is pretty vague. So my blogging time has been going into educating myself.