Lost Hammond, Indiana

by Joseph S. Pete

Overview

In the heart of the calumet region, hardworking Hammond helped build America. Originally known as State Line Slaughterhouse, the city began as no more than a meatpacking plant for nearby Chicago. In time, the city grew, and at its industrial height, trains, chains, cigars, shirts, candy, nuts, player pianos, commercial wallpaper, concrete roof slabs, gutters, boilers, potato digging devices, screws and steel products poured from its many factories. Meanwhile, its many racetracks and casinos earned it the title of "Atlantic City on the Lake." The city also nurtured Jean Shepherd of A Christmas Story fame and was even home to an early NFL team. Hammond-born journalist Joseph S. Pete explores bygone landmarks like Phil Smidt's, Madura's Danceland, the State Theatre, the Woodmar Mall and the W.B. Conkey factory, all of which now live only in legend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467142861
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	04/13/2020
Series:	Lost
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	626,749
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Joseph S. Pete was born in Hammond and lived by the city for much of his life. He's an award-winning journalist for the Times of Northwest Indiana, an Iraq War vet, an IU grad, the Northwest Indiana Literary Journal editor and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. His work has appeared in 150 literary journals, including Spirits, Dogzplot and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and in books like Indiana at 200 and Poets to Come: Walt Whitman's Bicentennial. He never misses Festival of the Lakes.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction 11

1 State line Slaughterhouse and Early Days 27

2 Ice Harvest at Wolf Lake 35

3 Roby 41

4 West Hammond 48

5 Five Points 52

6 Downtown 66

7 Movie Theaters 77

8 Department Stores 90

9 Jean Shepherd's Hammond 102

10 Hotels 105

11 Restaurants 110

12 Trains 120

13 Standard Steel Gar Company/Pullman-Standard Factory 122

14 Taylor Chain Company 127

15 W.B. Conkey/Rand McNally Plant 129

16 Sears Roebuck/Alvah Roebuck 138

17 Straube Piano Company 143

18 State line Generating Plant

19 Nine Span Bridge 149

20 WJOB and The Hammond Times 152

21 Woodmar Country Club 157

22 Woodmar Mall 160

23 Hammond Pros and Other Professional Sports 166

24 Hammond Distilling Company 174

25 Bank Calumet and Other Financial Institutions 179

26 Indiana Botanic Gardens 183

27 The Roller Dome 187

28 John Dillinger Museum 189

Epilogue 193

Bibliography 199

Index 201

About the Author 205