FORT WAYNE (765 alt., 252,000 pop.), seat of Allen County, second largest city in Indiana and historically one of the most significant, is an industrial and railroad center in the heart of a rich agricultural region. Its traditions recall the chief town of the Miami Indians once occupying this spot, and the era when General Washington envisaged an American outpost here and General ' Mad Anthony' Wayne made the dream a reality. Gateway to the northern Indiana lake region, Fort Wayne is a recreational rendezvous as well as a manufacturing and trading center. Within a radius of 50 miles are 300 lakes varying from quiet fishing resorts to those offering more elaborate entertainment.
In the heart of the city the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers join to form the Maumee River. From the junction of these rivers, four blocks from the business center, the flat land rises to a low range of hills partly encircling the northern environs. To the south lies a gently lifting plain.
Calhoun Street is the principal business street and the city's meridian. Century-old structures still sound and serviceable, grimy anachronisms amid modern stores and office buildings, stand in the narrow streets of the original part of town. Principal lanes for east-west traffic are Washington Boulevard and Jefferson Street; Clinton Street, the longest in Fort Wayne, is the main north-south traffic thoroughfare. The Italian Renaissance courthouse, in the square bounded by Calhoun, Main, Court, and Berry Streets, is the geographic center of the city. Towering over the entire business scene at 116 E. Berry Street, stands the 22-story Lincoln National Bank & Trust Company Building. A steel structure of modern design, it is faced with Indiana limestone, and has lead spandrels, terra-cotta top, and a cupola and observation tower.
Fort Wayne's location at the confluence of three rivers has led to its present importance. Seeing the advantage of the site for travel and defense, the Indians established Kekionga, or Miami Town, at this place; here early French traders and soldiers erected Fort Miami for the same reason. A prosperous fur-trading post for more than a century, Fort Wayne later developed as a commercial and industrial city. Owners of sawmills and gristmills found plenty of water power available, and industrial growth was stimulated by the building of the Wabash & Erie Canal, begun here in 1832. This canal, one of the longest ever constructed, connected the Ohio River and Lake Erie. By the time the railroad from Pittsburgh to Chicago was built, Fort Wayne had become such a center of trade and manufacture that its location on the main line of that road was inevitable.
Since 1891, when the Wayne Knitting Mills opened to produce the first full-fashioned hosiery in the United States, the manufacture of this product has been one of Fort Wayne's chief industries. In 1885 Sylvanus F. Bowser began to manufacture self-measuring oil tanks for kerosene; since then the city has become a leading producer of fillingstation equipment. Other Fort Wayne products include railroad car wheels, boilers, tanks, washing machines, steel, medicines, motor trucks, automatic phonographs, display cases, meat-packing products, mining machinery, and tents and awnings. One of the largest brewing industries in the State is also located here.
For years before and after the coming of white men, the site of Fort Wayne was the headquarters of the Miami Indians. Known at different times as Kekionga, Kiskakon, Omee Town, Twightwee Village, Frenchtown, and Miami Town, the village was a center of trade, travel, and communication for the greater part of the area that later became known as the Northwest Territory. A 7-mile portage from this point to the Wabash River joined the waterways of the Great Lakes with those of the Wabash and the Mississippi.
When white men first came to the site is not known with certainty. Dr. Charles E. Slocum, historian, says Samuel de Champlain reached the head of the Maumee River as early as 1614, and that La Salle crossed the portage in 1669 or 1670. But even the date of the building of the first French fort, Fort Miami, is obscure; and the name of the builder is not known. According to Dr. Slocum, this fort, built on the east bank of the St. Mary's River, was begun between 1682 and 1686.
Jean Baptiste Bisset, Sieur de Vincennes, appears definitely to have 'rebuilt and strengthened the first French fort in 1697.' In 1750 M. de Raimond, commandant of the fort, warned his government that English traders, by paying twice the French price for beaver skins and underselling the French on rifle balls, were capturing the business and ultimately would defeat the French. For his pains he was relieved of his command. True to his prediction, the fort was surrendered to the English at the close of the French and Indian wars in 1760.
In 1763 the English lost the fort temporarily to the followers of Pontiac, but soon recaptured it. They discontinued the garrison, however, and until the close of the American Revolution the site at the junction of the three rivers was a lawless trading settlement known as Miami Town. In commercial importance it was surpassed in the West only by Detroit and Vincennes, but in spite of the presence of English traders the Indians were powerful and defiant. Here many settlers captured in savage raids on settlements in Kentucky, Ohio, and southern Indiana were brought to die by torture; and the fame of Little Turtle as a soldier began in this vicinity with the massacre in 1780 of Colonel Auguste de la Balme and his troops.
At the close of the Revolution General Washington, writing to General Richard Henry Lee, said, 'I cannot forbear observing that the Miami village points to an important post for the Union.' In 1790, the second year of his presidency, Washington sent General Josiah Harmar to establish a post at Miami Town, but Harmar was outwitted and defeated by Little Turtle on October 19, only four days after his arrival. The next year General Arthur St. Clair led the second American army to defeat at Little Turtle's hands. But for the third expedition Washington selected as leader that master disciplinarian, Anthony Wayne, who drilled his army scientifically and finally defeated Little Turtle in 1794. After marching his army back up the Maumee, Wayne built the stockade (across the river from Miami Town) around which grew the American village of Fort Wayne.
Evansville, Indiana
EVANSVILLE (383 alt., 121,582 pop., 342,815 metropolitan pop.), seat of Vanderburgh County, is a link between the unhurried Old South and the bustling, industrial North. Still an important avenue for commerce, the romantic Ohio River recalls the great days of steamboat traffic, when Evansville was a prominent port of call. Located at the mouth of Pigeon Creek, halfway between the falls of the Ohio and the river's mouth, the town has one of the best harbors on inland waterways. For many years it was a vital link between Northern farmers and the markets of the South, and even now the impressive volume of its river freight and its busy water front give Evansville the characteristic atmosphere of a river town. The bordering horse country adds an air of easy leisure. In August the business and industry of Evansville continue almost automatically, while attention focuses on running horses at the Dade Park race course southeast of town.
The city, fifth largest in Indiana and largest on the Ohio River west of Louisville, covers 11 square miles of land -- level except for a number of hills in the northwest section. The romance of the old steamboat days, however, is recalled only by Sunday excursion boats and an occasional showboat making its way down the river from Pittsburgh.
The center of Evansville's business district is on Main Street for about 10 blocks back from the river. A second mercantile area is on West Franklin Street (the only through east-and-west street), across the Pigeon Creek Bridge. Streets in the city's comparatively small downtown section run northwest to southeast and southwest to northeast, parallel and at right angles to the northeast segment of the horseshoe curve of the river. This was the original Evansville. As the city grew, later streets were laid out north-south and east-west.
The city's importance as a transportation center contributed to the rise of industry early in its history. Major products are auto bodies, steam and electric shovels and cranes, electric and gas refrigerators, tools, electric headlights, infant foods, glass bottles, grain products, clothing, textiles, beer, and cigars.
Evansville's location on the Ohio made it easy for wandering theatrical troupes to give occasional performances even in the early frontier period. In 1852 the first theater, Mozart Hall, was built and the showboat period of the 1880's (see Music and the Theater) brought added theatrical importance to the town. In recent years, in addition to performances by road companies, theater-goers have enjoyed the productions of the Community Players, an amateur company that gives several plays annually. Concerts are given by the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra. Among its outstanding natives the town is proud of Marilyn Miller, Joe Cook, and Louise Dresser, stage celebrities.
When in 1812 Colonel Hugh McGary built his cabin on a spot that became the foot of Main Street, he had no plan to found a town. In the days when he lived west of Princeton, it occurred to him that if he were to live at this U-bend of the river -- some 30 miles to the south of his old home -- it would be simpler for him to visit his wife's relatives in Henderson (then Red Banks), Kentucky. He started a ferry at this point, which became known as McGary's Ferry. In 1814 the growing village was made the seat of the new county of Warrick.
Almost immediately after its selection as county seat, the village lost the honor and seemed about to dwindle away when McGary enlisted the aid of General Robert Evans and James W. Jones. In 1818 he sold the section above Main Street to General Evans and the town was replatted. In the same year, to settle a three-cornered political controversy, Warrick County was divided into three counties. McGary's and Evans's town was named Evansville and made seat of the newly created Vanderburgh County. A brick courthouse was built.
The population, 200 in 1819, when the town was incorporated, grew with the migration westward by flatboat. Usually several flatboats traveled together with a frontiersman as guide and navigator. These 'western boatmen,' as the guides were called, were usually tall and thin, sinewy and capable of unbelievable endurance under hardship. Among their accomplishments was a precise accuracy with tobacco juice, many being exact at a range of 15 feet.
In Evansville and similar Ohio River towns, flatboat operators traded powder, lead, salt, and flints for pork, venison, hams, skins, fur, and other products of the region. They carried the new cargo to New Orleans where they sold it, together with the lumber of which their boats were made, making the return trip afoot or on horseback.
The coming of the steamboat opened a golden age for Evansville. The Robert Fulton, first steamboat to ply the Ohio River, appeared in 1809, but more than a decade passed before this form of transportation was accepted as practicable. Early steamboats were remarkable for their noise and slowness. Flatboaters often walked along the banks from Natchez to Evansville and made the trip in as short a time as did the steamboats. By 1822, however, the steamboats had cut the time for the trip to New Orleans to 7 days from the 30 required for flatboats, and made the upstream trip, New Orleans to Evansville, in 16 days instead of 90. As the river schedules improved, increasing quantities of goods were shipped by boat, and by 1854 the Ohio River was the 'grand avenue of prosperity for the thriving town of Evansville.'
But with all its natural advantages the city did not escape troubles. It suffered losses in the financial depression of 1824-9, and the coincident epidemic of milk sickness took its toll. (When Dr. William Trafton, an Evansville physician, discovered a cure for this malady during the epidemic, he won Nation-wide prominence.) Cold weather added to the city's troubles in the winter of 1831-2, when the river froze to a depth of 22 inches, crippling business by stopping river traffic. With spring came the first of Evansville's four disastrous floods, making an island of the village for a time. In the summer 391 persons died in an epidemic of cholera.
To crown misery with disillusionment, Colonel Hugh McGary, patriarch of the town, was charged in 1832 with horse stealing. When arrested for riding an animal said to have been stolen, he explained that he had traded with a relative for it. He was not prosecuted, but community whispering forced him to leave town.
Meanwhile, in 1828 several shops for blacksmiths, hatters, and cobblers were established, and as Evansville grew, sawmills were erected on Pigeon Creek to supply heavy timbers for shipbuilding and fuel for steamboats. In 1836 the Mammoth Internal Improvement Bill, which named Evansville as southern terminus of the Wabash & Erie Canal, brought new immigration. Real-estate prices collapsed in the financial depression of that year, however, and the period until 1844 was a lean one. Recovery began to be felt in 1844 and 1845. In 1848, when its population had grown to 4,000 and its area to 230 acres, Evansville was chartered as a city. The legislature authorized completion of the canal, construction of which had been halted by the depression; several flour mills and foundries, a furniture factory, two wharf boat plants, and new sawmills were established on the strength of anticipated canal trade.
But at almost the same time that the first canalboat from Petersburg arrived in April 1853, the first railroad train arrived from Princeton. The last boat came through the canal to Evansville in 1860. River traffic, which today is wholly confined to freight shipments, declined appreciably with the development of the railways.
Although the canal was a failure financially, its construction greatly helped the development of Evansville. Because of it, the population grew and manufacturing was stimulated; even before the Civil War the city had become a factory center as well as a shipping point for southwestern Indiana. After the war this industrial growth continued. With craftsmen from Europe attracted by foundries and woodworking factories, the population jumped to 50,756 by 1890, despite a second inundation by the river in 1884. In the early 1900's furniture factories, a number of stove foundries, and a buggy factory were established.
The city, fifth largest in Indiana and largest on the Ohio River west of Louisville, covers 11 square miles of land -- level except for a number of hills in the northwest section. The romance of the old steamboat days, however, is recalled only by Sunday excursion boats and an occasional showboat making its way down the river from Pittsburgh.
The center of Evansville's business district is on Main Street for about 10 blocks back from the river. A second mercantile area is on West Franklin Street (the only through east-and-west street), across the Pigeon Creek Bridge. Streets in the city's comparatively small downtown section run northwest to southeast and southwest to northeast, parallel and at right angles to the northeast segment of the horseshoe curve of the river. This was the original Evansville. As the city grew, later streets were laid out north-south and east-west.
The city's importance as a transportation center contributed to the rise of industry early in its history. Major products are auto bodies, steam and electric shovels and cranes, electric and gas refrigerators, tools, electric headlights, infant foods, glass bottles, grain products, clothing, textiles, beer, and cigars.
Evansville's location on the Ohio made it easy for wandering theatrical troupes to give occasional performances even in the early frontier period. In 1852 the first theater, Mozart Hall, was built and the showboat period of the 1880's (see Music and the Theater) brought added theatrical importance to the town. In recent years, in addition to performances by road companies, theater-goers have enjoyed the productions of the Community Players, an amateur company that gives several plays annually. Concerts are given by the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra. Among its outstanding natives the town is proud of Marilyn Miller, Joe Cook, and Louise Dresser, stage celebrities.
When in 1812 Colonel Hugh McGary built his cabin on a spot that became the foot of Main Street, he had no plan to found a town. In the days when he lived west of Princeton, it occurred to him that if he were to live at this U-bend of the river -- some 30 miles to the south of his old home -- it would be simpler for him to visit his wife's relatives in Henderson (then Red Banks), Kentucky. He started a ferry at this point, which became known as McGary's Ferry. In 1814 the growing village was made the seat of the new county of Warrick.
Almost immediately after its selection as county seat, the village lost the honor and seemed about to dwindle away when McGary enlisted the aid of General Robert Evans and James W. Jones. In 1818 he sold the section above Main Street to General Evans and the town was replatted. In the same year, to settle a three-cornered political controversy, Warrick County was divided into three counties. McGary's and Evans's town was named Evansville and made seat of the newly created Vanderburgh County. A brick courthouse was built.
The population, 200 in 1819, when the town was incorporated, grew with the migration westward by flatboat. Usually several flatboats traveled together with a frontiersman as guide and navigator. These 'western boatmen,' as the guides were called, were usually tall and thin, sinewy and capable of unbelievable endurance under hardship. Among their accomplishments was a precise accuracy with tobacco juice, many being exact at a range of 15 feet.
In Evansville and similar Ohio River towns, flatboat operators traded powder, lead, salt, and flints for pork, venison, hams, skins, fur, and other products of the region. They carried the new cargo to New Orleans where they sold it, together with the lumber of which their boats were made, making the return trip afoot or on horseback.
The coming of the steamboat opened a golden age for Evansville. The Robert Fulton, first steamboat to ply the Ohio River, appeared in 1809, but more than a decade passed before this form of transportation was accepted as practicable. Early steamboats were remarkable for their noise and slowness. Flatboaters often walked along the banks from Natchez to Evansville and made the trip in as short a time as did the steamboats. By 1822, however, the steamboats had cut the time for the trip to New Orleans to 7 days from the 30 required for flatboats, and made the upstream trip, New Orleans to Evansville, in 16 days instead of 90. As the river schedules improved, increasing quantities of goods were shipped by boat, and by 1854 the Ohio River was the 'grand avenue of prosperity for the thriving town of Evansville.'
But with all its natural advantages the city did not escape troubles. It suffered losses in the financial depression of 1824-9, and the coincident epidemic of milk sickness took its toll. (When Dr. William Trafton, an Evansville physician, discovered a cure for this malady during the epidemic, he won Nation-wide prominence.) Cold weather added to the city's troubles in the winter of 1831-2, when the river froze to a depth of 22 inches, crippling business by stopping river traffic. With spring came the first of Evansville's four disastrous floods, making an island of the village for a time. In the summer 391 persons died in an epidemic of cholera.
To crown misery with disillusionment, Colonel Hugh McGary, patriarch of the town, was charged in 1832 with horse stealing. When arrested for riding an animal said to have been stolen, he explained that he had traded with a relative for it. He was not prosecuted, but community whispering forced him to leave town.
Meanwhile, in 1828 several shops for blacksmiths, hatters, and cobblers were established, and as Evansville grew, sawmills were erected on Pigeon Creek to supply heavy timbers for shipbuilding and fuel for steamboats. In 1836 the Mammoth Internal Improvement Bill, which named Evansville as southern terminus of the Wabash & Erie Canal, brought new immigration. Real-estate prices collapsed in the financial depression of that year, however, and the period until 1844 was a lean one. Recovery began to be felt in 1844 and 1845. In 1848, when its population had grown to 4,000 and its area to 230 acres, Evansville was chartered as a city. The legislature authorized completion of the canal, construction of which had been halted by the depression; several flour mills and foundries, a furniture factory, two wharf boat plants, and new sawmills were established on the strength of anticipated canal trade.
But at almost the same time that the first canalboat from Petersburg arrived in April 1853, the first railroad train arrived from Princeton. The last boat came through the canal to Evansville in 1860. River traffic, which today is wholly confined to freight shipments, declined appreciably with the development of the railways.
Although the canal was a failure financially, its construction greatly helped the development of Evansville. Because of it, the population grew and manufacturing was stimulated; even before the Civil War the city had become a factory center as well as a shipping point for southwestern Indiana. After the war this industrial growth continued. With craftsmen from Europe attracted by foundries and woodworking factories, the population jumped to 50,756 by 1890, despite a second inundation by the river in 1884. In the early 1900's furniture factories, a number of stove foundries, and a buggy factory were established.
Whiting, Indiana
WHITING (589.7 alt., 5,137 pop.), for many years a predominantly German settlement clustered around a railway crossing (now the Calumet Terminal), has been called successively Whiting's Crossing, Whiting's Station, Whiting's, and finally, Whiting.
It was a one-industry town until the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation became an across-the-street neighbor of Standard Oil in 1934. Despite the fact that about 90 per cent of Whiting's population is of foreign-born parentage, the town is like any other industrial city in appearance. Its geographical compactness and the unity conferred by the presence of only one large industry have done much to foster civic spirit. The former, mainly Slavic and Polish, had been adopt American ways. Whiting's residential streets are clean and well paved, and the city maintains a lake-front park of 22 acres, fully equipped with modern recreational facilities.
The BP Oil Company plant at the eastern edge of Whiting is one of the most striking sights in this region, with switch engines, trains of tank cars, row upon row of glistening storage tanks, labyrinths of pipe of all sizes and, breaking the skyline, hundreds of stacks of varying heights. At night, vaguely outlined by lights, it becomes a thing of beauty. As might be expected in a city largely made up of persons of musicloving nationalities, music is an integral part of community life.
It was a one-industry town until the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation became an across-the-street neighbor of Standard Oil in 1934. Despite the fact that about 90 per cent of Whiting's population is of foreign-born parentage, the town is like any other industrial city in appearance. Its geographical compactness and the unity conferred by the presence of only one large industry have done much to foster civic spirit. The former, mainly Slavic and Polish, had been adopt American ways. Whiting's residential streets are clean and well paved, and the city maintains a lake-front park of 22 acres, fully equipped with modern recreational facilities.
The BP Oil Company plant at the eastern edge of Whiting is one of the most striking sights in this region, with switch engines, trains of tank cars, row upon row of glistening storage tanks, labyrinths of pipe of all sizes and, breaking the skyline, hundreds of stacks of varying heights. At night, vaguely outlined by lights, it becomes a thing of beauty. As might be expected in a city largely made up of persons of musicloving nationalities, music is an integral part of community life.
East Chicago, Indiana
East Chicago (610 alt., 32,414 pop.) is only 11 square miles in area, of which one square mile is 'made land.' Adjoining Gary on the east and Whiting and Hammond on the northwest and southwest, hemmed in on the north by Lake Michigan and on the south by swamps and dune lands, it is the most distant from farmland of all the Indiana cities. Nowhere else in the Calumet region is there such a dense concentration of industries, including steel works, blast furnaces, and coke ovens; rolling mills and petroleum refineries; chemical and packing house by-product establishments; railway car and equipment shops; lead, zinc, oxide aluminum, gypsum, silver and gold bullion works; steel fabricating and tin plate mills. These industries, which reach into the inland sections of the city, flank Lake Michigan, the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, and the Grand Calumet River.
East Chicago is divided into two distinct business and residential centers. One, along the shore of Lake Michigan, is commonly referred to as Indiana Harbor; and the other, about two miles southwest, centering about the intersection of Chicago and Forsythe Avenues, is usually known as 'East Chicago proper.'
Indiana Harbor consists of an outer harbor and an inner channel ( Indiana Harbor Canal) to the Grand Calumet River and Lake George, 4.7 miles long. Ocean as well as lake vessels arrive and depart from the port, which has more than five miles of wharves and is served by trunk and belt line railroads, an electric railway, local and through bus lines, and motorized highway freight carriers. Leading exports are steel products, gasoline, kerosene, and fuel oils, heavy shipments being made by Shell, Sinclair, Cities Service, Standard Oil (Ind.), and Socony-Vacuum.
East Chicago has extensive school, church, library, and park systems. With the exception of the Federal building, however, and a few business and school structures, both its residential and business sections are dingy in appearance.
Almost contemporary with the beginning of East Chicago was the advent of the Standard Oil Company in Whiting, where the Rockefeller interests built the world's largest complete oil refinery in 1889. This'plant later was extended into East Chicago. During its first dozen years East Chicago grew slowly. Incorporated as a town in 1889, it had 1,255 inhabitants in 1890; by 1900 the population had reached only 3,411.However, America's industrial growth had created a constantly expanding demand for steel. When in 1901 Block Brothers built a small steel mill here, the lonely, unsettled Indiana Harbor sand dunes to the north of East Chicago suddenly came to life. Since the company needed a harbor to obtain ore shipments by water, work was begun in 1903 on the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. By 1928 the first mill had expanded to 100 times its original size. After the first steel mill was built, related industries soon followed, chief among them the American Steel Foundries and the Standard Forgings Company. At this time, also, East Chicago still housed the employees of the Universal Atlas Portland Cement plant, erected just over the line in the still unborn city of Gary. In 1916 the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, employing 5,500 persons, started a factory in East Chicago. From a population of 19,000 in 1910, the city grew to almost 55,000 in 1930. The development of the automobile industry during the last two decades accounts for much of the expansion in the steel business, and has also made East Chicago an important petroleum refining district.
East Chicago is divided into two distinct business and residential centers. One, along the shore of Lake Michigan, is commonly referred to as Indiana Harbor; and the other, about two miles southwest, centering about the intersection of Chicago and Forsythe Avenues, is usually known as 'East Chicago proper.'
Indiana Harbor consists of an outer harbor and an inner channel ( Indiana Harbor Canal) to the Grand Calumet River and Lake George, 4.7 miles long. Ocean as well as lake vessels arrive and depart from the port, which has more than five miles of wharves and is served by trunk and belt line railroads, an electric railway, local and through bus lines, and motorized highway freight carriers. Leading exports are steel products, gasoline, kerosene, and fuel oils, heavy shipments being made by Shell, Sinclair, Cities Service, Standard Oil (Ind.), and Socony-Vacuum.
East Chicago has extensive school, church, library, and park systems. With the exception of the Federal building, however, and a few business and school structures, both its residential and business sections are dingy in appearance.
Almost contemporary with the beginning of East Chicago was the advent of the Standard Oil Company in Whiting, where the Rockefeller interests built the world's largest complete oil refinery in 1889. This'plant later was extended into East Chicago. During its first dozen years East Chicago grew slowly. Incorporated as a town in 1889, it had 1,255 inhabitants in 1890; by 1900 the population had reached only 3,411.However, America's industrial growth had created a constantly expanding demand for steel. When in 1901 Block Brothers built a small steel mill here, the lonely, unsettled Indiana Harbor sand dunes to the north of East Chicago suddenly came to life. Since the company needed a harbor to obtain ore shipments by water, work was begun in 1903 on the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. By 1928 the first mill had expanded to 100 times its original size. After the first steel mill was built, related industries soon followed, chief among them the American Steel Foundries and the Standard Forgings Company. At this time, also, East Chicago still housed the employees of the Universal Atlas Portland Cement plant, erected just over the line in the still unborn city of Gary. In 1916 the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, employing 5,500 persons, started a factory in East Chicago. From a population of 19,000 in 1910, the city grew to almost 55,000 in 1930. The development of the automobile industry during the last two decades accounts for much of the expansion in the steel business, and has also made East Chicago an important petroleum refining district.
Hammond, northwest corner of the Calumet region
HAMMOND (598.5 alt., 83,048 pop.) is in the extreme northwest corner of the Calumet region and merges with Chicago on Indianapolis Boulevard. The Grand Calumet River traverses the city from east to west, and Wolf Lake is partly within the corporate limits. The width of a street separates Hammond from Calumet City, Illinois, and it is only two blocks from the dividing line to the heart of Hammond's business district, at State Street and Hohman Avenue. When Calumet City was incorporated in 1893, nine years after Hammond was advanced to the rank of city, the effect was to place a part of what was considered Hammond proper in a city of another State. There are few landmarks in Hammond reminiscent of the past. A network of railway tracks in the downtown commercial district dominates the scene, cutting diagonally through the principal streets. Traffic in the shopping district often waits for a train to pass.
A slaughterhouse, built in 1869, was the beginning of industry in Hammond. Previously called Hohman for an early settler, then State Line, because of its geographical location on the Indiana-Illinois Line, Hammond was finally named in honor of George H. Hammond, a Detroit butcher, founder of the local slaughterhouse and originator of refrigeration of dressed beef for shipment. When the Davis brothers, of Detroit, invented a refrigerator box to ship fish in good condition from Lake Huron and Lake Superior to Detroit, it occurred to Hammond that dressed beef might be transported in the same way, with great economy as compared to the old method of shipping live cattle. He organized a company and in 1869 bought the site where the original slaughterhouse was erected.
With the establishment of the packing plant, butchers, carpenters, and laborers came to the community. The coming of the Erie and Nickel Plate Railroads in 1882 and the Monon in 1883 helped to develop Hammond. As a result it was incorporated as a city in 1884, and by 1900 it was a lively city of 12,000. In 1901 the packing plant was destroyed by fire, and thousands of families moved away. However, in 1903 and 1904 other factories began to arrive and Hammond again expanded, new factories being built even during the panic of 1907. The industrial growth of the entire Calumet region has contributed to the increased importance of this city since 1910.
A slaughterhouse, built in 1869, was the beginning of industry in Hammond. Previously called Hohman for an early settler, then State Line, because of its geographical location on the Indiana-Illinois Line, Hammond was finally named in honor of George H. Hammond, a Detroit butcher, founder of the local slaughterhouse and originator of refrigeration of dressed beef for shipment. When the Davis brothers, of Detroit, invented a refrigerator box to ship fish in good condition from Lake Huron and Lake Superior to Detroit, it occurred to Hammond that dressed beef might be transported in the same way, with great economy as compared to the old method of shipping live cattle. He organized a company and in 1869 bought the site where the original slaughterhouse was erected.
With the establishment of the packing plant, butchers, carpenters, and laborers came to the community. The coming of the Erie and Nickel Plate Railroads in 1882 and the Monon in 1883 helped to develop Hammond. As a result it was incorporated as a city in 1884, and by 1900 it was a lively city of 12,000. In 1901 the packing plant was destroyed by fire, and thousands of families moved away. However, in 1903 and 1904 other factories began to arrive and Hammond again expanded, new factories being built even during the panic of 1907. The industrial growth of the entire Calumet region has contributed to the increased importance of this city since 1910.
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