Hobart Then and Now: Third and Wisconsin

Circa 1958, and 2024.



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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.


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Hobart Gazette, 17 Mar. 1955.

By June 1956, an expansion project was underway.


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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 …


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… 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:


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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:


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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.


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[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