Pioneer History by Richard C. Schmal
Strange, Unusual, and Interesting Facts No. 8
(from the May 30, 2000, Lowell Tribune, page 16)
- DID YOU KNOW THAT:
Lowell's first electrical power (circa 1900) came from a steam-powered generator on Liberty Street, north of the post office?
The Hall brothers of Shelby claimed that they trapped over 40,000 muskrats in the Kankakee swamp during 1912?
The historical photographs which once graced the walls of one of Lowell's fast food restaurants are now hanging in a place of honor in the Lowell Town Hall council room?
The city of Crown Point was first named "Lake Court House" by early pioneer and founder Solon Robinson?
The log house on the hill near the "back 40" at Buckley Homestead Lake County Park was donated to the Three Creeks Historical Association in memory of Harold H. Dinsmore? The Association, in turn, donated the building to the Lake County Parks and Recreation Department.
The Nichols elevator and mill, which stood for years near the northeast corner of Washington Street and Liberty Street in Lowell, was demolished in September 1994?
The old bell now proudly displayed on the lawn of the Lowell Church of Christ on Burr Street came from the belfry of their 1870 church, which once stood on Castle Street?
A Baptist Church of masonry construction was built on the corner of Mill Street and Main Street by Lowell's founder Melvin Halsted in 1856? It was demolished in 1905.
This year of 2000 is the 125th anniversary of the founding or the Lake County Historical Society?
The restored covered windmill on the "old Meyer farm" northwest of Lowell was erected about 1904? It is now the Grelck farm.
There once was a horse racing track near the west border of the town of Lowell?
The new street lights proposed for Lowell's downtown business district will no doubt bring back memories of the years when older ornamental lights brightened the way along Commercial Avenue?
Some townspeople will remember when the only bridge going north from Lowell was the one on Clark Street?
The highway going west out of Lowell once went over the railroad tracks at North Hayden?
A very old United States Engineers map showed a depth of 45 feet in a channel near the west shore of Cedar Lake?
Steam boats cruised on Cedar Lake, as well as a sailboat 100 feet in length?
For many decades, the east boundary of the Town of Lowell was near the cemetery and the west line was Nichols Street? For years the population was stable at 1,200.
A present downtown hardware store building was once the Ritz movie theatre?
The Cedar Lake Theatre stood for many years on the north shore?
The present Belshaw Road through the Buckley Homestead Park was once a "state" road?
Many one-room school houses once stood about every mile along Belshaw Road?
The Old Timer is constantly reminding everyone that the Town of Lowell will celebrate 150 years in 2002?
The circular flower garden in Lowell's Olde Towne Square was once the foundation for a 100-foot high water storage tower for the first water system?
The restored Rexall Drug sign on a corner building at Clark Street and Commercial Avenue in Lowell was first painted in the 1920's by Frederick Viant?
Jabez Clark, 1837 pioneer in the Lowell area, donated part of the land for the Olde Towne Square and also land for the school on Main Street?
The 1969 school on the east side of Lowell is the fourth high school in the town of Lowell?
In the 1920's there was no gym in the Lowell High School (now Middle School), and the basketball team donned their uniforms at school, then ran down to the old Opera House in all kinds of weather for their games? The Opera House was upstairs in a building at the northeast corner of Mill and Commercial, which burned down in 1976. (It was Fry's Department Store.)
The first post office in the Lowell area was in the Sanger family home, which stood on the lawn of the present high school? It was called "Outlet Post Office," since Cedar Creek is the "outlet" from Cedar Lake.
Before the course of Cedar Creek was changed in downtown Lowell, there was a bridge on Halsted Street? A nearby blacksmith shop also spanned the stream.
To the north of The Lowell Tribune office, now the site of the Southern Baptist Church, once stood a large masonry building, the Grand Theatre, with its large balcony and box seats.
Early in the 1900's two telephone companies had their exchanges in Lowell? -- the Lowell Telephone Company and the Northwest Indiana Telephone Company.
Many old abstracts of the Lowell area show "Wabash and Erie Canal Land"? It was government land to be sold to finance the building of the canal down in the Wabash area. A canal was never planned for Lake County.
In 1884 the wet land of the Kankakee Valley in Lake County covered an area of over 60,000 acres?
At the time of the Cobe Auto Race in 1909, the Indiana Trophy Race was also featured the same weekend? The course began at Crown Point, to Cedar Lake, to Lowell and back to Crown Point on Indiana 55, the "nine mile stretch."
Mill Street in Lowell was so named because Halsted's first grist mill was on the west side of the street, near Jefferson Street? Water from the dam on Main Street rushed down a wooden trough on stilts to power the mill.
In the early 1900's many Chicago residents would ride the Sunday morning passenger train to Lowell, enjoy an old-fashioned family style chicken dinner at one of the local hotels, and go back to the city on the afternoon train carrying jugs of Lowell's sulphur water?
An ornamental horse tank once stood proudly in front of a downtown bank building in Lowell? The site is now an antique shop/restaurant between Clark Street and Mill Street. Horses drank on one side, humans on the other.
The Alyea Hotel once stood at the southeast corner of Mill Street and Jefferson Street. The hotel had a livery stable nearby.
DID YOU KNOW THAT?
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