Foomobile - Starke County Tidbit #62

Foomobile 

Years ago, the blacksmith was the corner of the community.  Take your idea to the blacksmith and he would hammer out that idea.  It could be a new wheel or a new plow.  That is how John Deere started in 1837.  John was a blacksmith.  The blacksmith days are gone, but we still have innovators looking for better ways of doing things in shops and farms around the world.

When I talked about the Space Ship landing in Hamlet, I mentioned that we have fun in Starke County.  Pulaski County has fun, too.   I have stretched the borders of Starke County before, so I thought I would do it again.  Just west of Francesville, Indiana, is a company called Schlatters, Inc.  Pulaski County is just like Starke County in the fact that we are major agricultural production counties in the state - rural and wonderful.  And creative, too.

Bill Holman was a syndicated writer in Chicago for the Smokey Stover comic strip between 1935 and 1973.  In the comic strip, Smokey was a fireman and would drive the fire chief, Chief Cash U. Nutt, to the different fires.  To fully understand the comic strip, you need to click on the following ----

http://www.smokey-stover.com/

Now, to get back to Pulaski County, Pete Schlatter of Francesville was a genius in his ability to build anything.  His son, Ron, is the same way.  Pete created a real live Foomobile - the seemingly impossible two-wheeled car like Smokey Stover's in the comic strip.  I'm not going to tell you how it stays up on the two wheels, but if you really want to know, you can look around on Google and find it.   I have included a photo of Schlatter's Foomobile when Melba and I drove it in a parade years ago.



Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Societyhttp://www.starkehistory.com
http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/

Lincoln Highway - Starke County Tidbit #61

Automobiles were the playthings of the rich until 1909, when Henry Ford produced the Model T- the first car that the average working family could afford. The number of cars manufactured and owned began to take off, but unfortunately there were few good places to drive them! For over half a century, long-distance travel in the United States had been accomplished by rail, and few roads suitable for the new horseless carriages existed. If the early cars did not break down on their own, it was very likely they would get stuck in mud on the dirt roads outside of cities and towns.

A grass-roots effort began, backed by car companies and related industries, to pull the country out of the mud. The Good Roads Movement championed named auto trails on the best available roads and advocated for government involvement in building hard surfaces on the public highways of the country. The first named auto trail to be marked from coast-to-coast was the Lincoln Highway.  Only the Yellowstone Trail, the Lincoln Highway, and the National Old Trails Road were transcontinental in length and notability, out of the 250 named Auto Trails of the era.

As you probably know, there were two Lincoln Highways through Northern Indiana.  The original one (1913-1928) was north of Starke County and went through Noble, Elkhart, St. Joseph, and La Porte Counties into Valparaiso.    Later, the route was straightened to a more direct route through Kosciusko, Marshall and Starke Counties.   This was because U.S. 30 was established in 1926, which led to the changing of the Lincoln Highway to a more direct southern route in 1928.

The Boy Scouts placed concrete Lincoln Highway markers at 5 different intersections in Starke County as well as across the nation.  The following is from the Boy Scouts Council meetings:  DP means direct or straight ahead post.  RP means Right Turn.

DP main crossing Grovertown (Ind. 23) No. 630
RP 300 yds, E of Highway Gravel Loading Plant No. 631
DP main crossing (600 N) Hamlet No. 632
DP crossing roads (550 E) about ½ mile W of Hamlet No. 633
DP at Junction with Road No. 29 (U.S. 35) No. 634

I can find only one of these markers which is still displayed, although it has been moved from its original location.  It is north of the main intersection in Hamlet – Old 30 and CR 600E on the west side of 600E.  There is also a modern metal marker on a tall post on the northeast corner of the Starke County Co-op’s grain elevator lot in Hamlet.

The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association is developing a corridor management plan.  If you know of any other markers or information about the Lincoln Highway, give me a call – 574-772-4311.

Jim Shilling

Starke County Historical Society

http://www.starkehistory.com

http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/

Center vs. Knox - Starke County Tidbit #57

Lots of things have happened in my short lifetime.  One thing of interest is that school rivals could join together in a reunion to celebrate graduation.  On July 10, 1982, a class of the Center Township School and a class of the Knox High School jointly held their 50th class reunion.  Each group had graduated in 1932.

Now, for some of you who may not know, the Center Township School (for students living in Center Township outside the city limits of Knox) was located just west of Knox on the property where the White Flyer Company is now.  The Knox High School was in town.  The two schools were only a mile apart, but were strong rivals in sports.   The "Blue Streaks" (Center) and the "Knox Redskins" would always battle very hard in basketball (the sport of the day).  The Center School burned in January 1942, so the "country bumpkins" had to join together with the "city slickers" to form the Knox Community Schools.  And that is why the official colors of the Knox Community Schools are now Red, White and Blue.

The news article about the unique reunion relates how each person shared memories about living conditions in the great depression and how different things were "now" (in 1982).

It is interesting in 2014 to read about corn selling for 10 cents a bushel and a cup of coffee selling for 5 cents in 1932.  The news article lists other items subject to inflation over the years (now 82 years ago).  Fascinating where time has taken us.

Attached is the article with picture of those "rivals" who put aside differences to celebrate together.   (Maybe folks in the Middle East could take a lesson?)   You may have to enlarge the article to be able to read it better.

Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Society

http://www.starkehistory.com
http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/

Small Man arrested !!!!! - Starke County Tidbit No. #56

Most of you remember the stories about Che Mah, the smallest man in the world who retired from the circus and lived here in Starke County.   But did you know that he was arrested in New York?   A friend of mine sent this news clipping that I hadn't seen before.   I thought you would enjoy it.  It is small print, so you may have to enlarge it some.

Also, more on Che Mah can be found on our website -http://www.starkehistory.com/index_files/Page1263.htm

Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Society
http://www.starkehistory.com
http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/

Snow - Starke County Tidbit #54

Tidbit No. 54

Snow - I suppose most of us have had enough of it by now, but the headline from the newspaper below tells of times past.

1913

A snow blizzard created drifts up to 6 feet high closing roads and stopping trains in their tracks.

I remember as a kid, lots of snow - of course I was shorter then and it may have seemed like bigger drifts than they really were.  But in my youth, I had fun in it, like the children of today.  I suppose to my dad it wasn't as much fun, trying to get around to feeding the livestock on the farm.

I believe it was in 1978 that the northern part of Indiana got hit by some really big snow drifts.  The Army Corp of Engineers hired many of us excavators in the county to use our dozers to push snow drifts off of the county roads.  Jim Falk and Warren Bickel helped clear some of the roads in North Bend Township, southeast of Bass Lake.  Extreme caution had to be used, because it was hard to know if a 10 foot snow drift might be hiding a car inside of it.  

Attached are two photos of snow conditions in years past.  The first one shows train engines (I think there are four engines) pushing snow off of the tracks near Boone Grove in 1917.

The second photo shows the south side of Lake Street and the corner of Pearl Street in Knox with lots of snow in 1910.  All of that snow was piled up by hand.

Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Society

http://www.starkehistory.com

http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/

Klopot Studios - Starke County Tidbit No. 53

Over the years, Starke County has had several Photographic Studios - example:

PW Needham    Knox & North Judson   1895
Horn, C. W.    Knox, North Judson   1890's
Barnum's Studio    Knox    1890's
Whipple    Knox    1890's
Henning, W. R.     1890's
Myers     Knox      1890's
Klopot, Sigmund     Knox, North Judson, Bass Lake   1895-1912
Ewing, George D.    North Judson    1900
Klopot, Clara & Bonner, Stella     Knox, North Judson, Bass Lake   1912-1970
Coffins, N. M.    Hamlet    1916-1917
Lavery, P. J.    Bass Lake     1916-1917
Warren Studio     Knox 

But few of them have stayed very long or have done so much for the history of Starke County as Klopot Studios.   Sigmund and Clara were photographers in Chicago  in the late 1800's and moved to Starke County in 1896.  Their daughter, Stella, was born in 1894 and helped her mother for years after her father died in 1912.  Later, she took over with the help of her husband, Matt Bonner.  Matt was also Knox City Court Judge at one time.

Stella Bonner was also Starke County's first state appointed Starke County Historian.  Many years ago, she made a recording about their photography business in Starke County and how they had businesses going in Knox, North Judson and Bass Lake.   The following is a transcript of that recording:

"Now about a trip to Bass Lake; my mother and father were both photographers and I handled a camera at a pretty early age, too ...It was quite a thing to have a branch store. Gus Reiss, the clothier, had a store in North Judson and one in Walkerton. My folks branched out, too. They had moved to Knox from North Judson, and they kept a little studio there after they moved. They went over there one day a week and took what pictures there were to be taken - one parent would go over there while the other would stay in Knox. They decided that there was quite an untapped reservoir of business at Bass Lake - there were bathing girls coming out from Chicago and it was the only chance on earth a girl had to show a leg in those days, and they loved to have their pictures made. Pop had an old tintype outfit he had used in Chicago, so they built a little studio on the lakefront, near where a Mr. Brown had a sort of second-hand store ...the lake is down low from the road there and that's where they put up a fragile, little frame building ...they just set it up on some cement blocks. In the summertime my dad would go out there and stay all summer photographing the bathing girls, and babies, too. Father didn't have very good health and he  thought that air was better for him. Mother was busy in Knox, but on Saturday, the day for North Judson, we closed the studio and Mother took me and the old suitcase and we walked down Lake Street to what was called the Three-I depot and took the train at seven in the morning to North Judson. We had about six or seven blocks to walk from the depot to our little studio. Mother minded the shop all day and I played with the neighbor kids. I even went across the tracks to watch a dear lady do her Saturday baking, with my chin over the edge of the table.

Come five o'clock, Mother locked up the studio and we walked down to the Union Station in North Judson. We had come in on the Three-I and now we waited for the five o'clock train on the Erie which came out of Chicago. It was gay, full of excursionists, you see. There were weekend excursions from Chicago to Bass Lake. People dressed up to go on the train then ...the city girls had newer clothes than we country girls did - it was really quite a fashion show on the train.

The Erie ran down to Bass Station and then there was a spur that extended along where the highway now is - all the way from Bass Station to the very edge of Bass Lake. There was a huge pier at the end of the railroad spur and one of those big express wagons was there, and the festive crowd got off the train, and their trunks were unloaded. You needed a trunk even for a weekend in those days, and a lot of people wanted to stay. So, the baggage was put on the old express wagon and trundled down to the pier where the steam boat was waiting. Sometimes a band would be playing on the boat. "All Aboard" on the boat and away we went around the lake.

It usually went to the west side first and there was the elegant Brabrook Hotel with its beautiful two-story porch all the way around, and the Taggert  Hotel and on around to what is now the Shore Club, that was the Bestview Hotel. Oh, and before we got to that was the Chiddick Hotel - it was considered quite aristocratic. And, all around until we got to the Odessa Nook, which was the hotel on the bank back of where my father's studio was. That was where we disembarked from the steamboat, and on the pier Daddy would greet us. We spent the night and Sunday, usually finding some children to go swimming with on Sunday.

Monday morning old Mr. Scott, the driver of the hack, would come around (it was a surrey with a fringe on top but the fringe had worn off). We would get aboard and had our ride back to Knox on Monday morning and that was our typical weekend at Bass Lake in 1904".               

     


Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Society

http://www.starkehistory.com
http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/