Pioneer History by Richard C. Schmal

Many names and places the pioneers and early settlers knew are rarely mentioned now;they are only memories, or perhaps never heard of today. The purpose of this story is to bring back the memories of those places that our ancestors knew: (A few readers will remember.)

SANGER'S CORNER was at what is now the corner of Ind. 2 and Holtz Road. Pioneer James H. Sanger's home ("Outlet Post Office") was on the site of the present construction for the Lowell High School.

KLAASVILLE was just south of the village of Brunswick, founded by the Klaas family about 1850. There was a blacksmith, general store, school, church, cemetery, and several homes. In 1904, several families left the village to form a farm colony at Gluckstadt, Mississippi. Now, 100 years later, there are a few neat homes and the pioneer homes and the pioneer cemetery (St. Anthony's).

TINKERVILLE is shown on an 1876 map on what is now Morse Street and 155th Avenue. It was founded before 1850. There was a store, post office, blacksmith, school, and family cemeteries. In 1876, a few years before the nearby railroad was built, the village was moved west a half mile to the new area called Creston.

PINE GROVE was an early community near the south junction of U.S. 41 and Ind. 2, where there was a one room school, and the Pine Grove Church, near Sanders Cemetery on what is now 205th Ave.

CASSVILLE, shown on an 1876 map of Lake County, on what is now Ind. 231, between Crown Point and Hebron, began before the 1860's as a shipping point on the railroad. Many decades ago the name was changed to Leroy.

History books say that "village life" at HANOVER CENTER began about 1855 at the present intersection of U.S. 41 and 133rd Street. In the early 1900's the new railroad station was named "Cook." The area is now a part of the Town of Cedar Lake.

PLEASANT GROVE, a large farming community, had its beginning in 1835, when the pioneer Bryant family arrived near the corner of what is now Holtz Road and 161st Avenue. The Grove stretched from the present Lake Dalecarlia area to the eastern section of the Town of Lowell. The Pleasant Grove Cemetery is now a part of the Lowell Memorial Cemetery.

WIGGIN'S POINT was a village in a wooded grove founded in 1838 by J. Wiggins near an ancient Indian dancing floor. In a few years the name was changed to Centerville, now a part of the Town of Merrillville.

EGYPT was an area close to the one room Egypt School house which was located on what is now Joe Martin Road and south of Belshaw Road. Farmers joked about "going to Egypt."

DEWITT'S CROSSING was a milk stop for the Monon trains at the Belshaw Road crossing, south of Lowell and near the Egypt community.

FULLER ISLAND, also called "Moon Island," was one of the largest islands in the Kankakee Valley, near the present intersection of Ind. 55 and 203rd Avenue.

INDIAN TOWN, a community of farmers near an Indian village at the southwest corner of Porter County, became the town of Hebron about 1844 when the first lots were laid out.

GERMAN HILL, the first block of Commercial Avenue west of the railroad, was so called in the early days of Lowell history because of the many families of German decent in the neighborhood.

LINEVILLE, about a mile east of the Illinois State line, west of the present Town of Schneider, was on the '3-I" (Ind., Ill., & Iowa) Railroad, a station shown on a circa 1900 map.

DEVILS RACETRACK, shown on the old map, was about two miles east of Schneider, a crooked circle formed by the old Kankakee River before it was dredged. The community of BLUEGRASS was on the south of the stream in Newton County.

RIVER RIDGE was a wooded area about a mile east of Schneider near the "Old Haskell Place." FRENCHMEN SLOUGH was on the south side of the river in that same area.

Also shown on the old map was GALE STATION, east of Schneider near a crossing on the "3-I" Railroad, was named after Gale Island (or Grove), a short distance to the north.

INDIAN GARDEN was on Range Line Road west of Lowell and south of the Kankakee River (across the stream from Grand Kankakee Marsh Lake County Park). It was the site of a hunting lodge at the time the Kankakee Valley was a hunter's paradise.

DEFRIES ISLAND was an early fishing resort east of Schneider and became the site of the Mohawk Club years later. The Old Timer remembers a high pedestrian bridge decorated at the center with a wooden Indian.

WATER VALLEY is shown on an old map to be the area of Shelby that is near the north shore of the Kankakee River Bridge.

GRASSMERE, a few miles north of the town of Shelby, was a milk station on the Monon Railroad, and near the Brown Ditch. LITTLE GRAPE ISLAND was a short distance to the east, and SKUNK KNOBS to the south.

ORCHARD GROVE POST OFFICE was shown on the old map at the east junction of Ind. 2 and Ind. 55, the site of the Kenney Store for decades.

NORTH SWIMMING HOLE was a wide place in Cedar Creek, deepened years ago by the overflow from the mill dam on Main Street, near the railroad. A tall cliff on the east bank was a challenge for the young divers who hoped that they were running fast enough to hit the water instead of the short beach below. The SOUTH SWIMMING HOLE, a few hundred feet south of the old bridge on Oakley Avenue, was deepened with a rock dam by decades of young swimmers (Old Timer included).

WORLEY POINT was west of Joe Martin Road (Colfax St.) and south of 205th Avenue, near the pioneer home of the Worley family.

LAFLER'S LAKE, named after 1837 pioneers Abraham and Margaret Lafler, is a small, deep body of water directly north of the Lowell High School property. A woven-seated chair, made by Abraham Lafler before 1869, can be seen at the Historic Halsted House Museum, open the first Saturday of every month, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., or special tours by calling 696-9234.

LEW SHURTE'S MARSH, a name used for decades for the body of water now called REDWING LAKE, was in the northeast Lowell area and the site of New Shurte's Fox Farm for many years.

WONDER LAKE was a name often used in the late 1920's and early 1930's for the present Lake Dalecarlia. Wonder Lake's Development Company was the builder.

ARMOUR, a village in the northwest area of the Town of Cedar Lake, had its beginning soon after the railroad came to the area in the 1880s and was well known for its ice cutting industry.

PAISLEY, another early community at Cedar Lake, was in the southwest corner of the town, so-named in the early 1880's, and was connected to Creston to the south with a plank road built through a deep marsh.

BRIDGEPORT, in the northeast area of the City of Crown Point, was in the old railroad district, where two rail lines brought freight and passengers to Lake County for many decades.

WEST POINT was a village platted in 1839 by pioneer Benjamin McCarty near what was known for years to be COLEMAN'S CORNER on the eastern shore of Cedar Lake. His goal was for the Lake County seat to be held there instead of Crown Point.

NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLEMENT. During the years of 1855 and 1856, a small community in the Lake Prairie area in West Creek Township was settled by members of the Gerrish, Little, Ames, Peach, Plummer, Wason, and Morey families.

CONRAD, a nearly forgotten village two miles south of Lake Village, platted in 1885 by George and Jennie Milk Conrad, was a thriving little community for a few decades, with several homes, a school, church, post office, depot and business places until the 1930's when it began to become a ghost town.

NICHOL'S CORNER was at the present intersection of Commercial Avenue and Nichols Street in Lowell. The large home of Horatio J. Nichols, son of 1837 pioneer Abram Nichols is still standing on the northeast corner, and many of the blocks west of the railroad were platted as the "Nichols Addition to the Town of Lowell."

SAND PIT, a tall sand cliff that once was at the present site of a town garage and water tower on the east side of North Liberty Street, was a challenge to young climbers for many decades. The old 'cob house,' a part of a long gone grain elevator, was in the valley below.

CASTLEBROOK GOLF COURSE was a nine-hole course with hills and a winding stream, now the site of the Veteran of Foreign Wars Post. It was opened in the 1930's by Ed Brownell and his son Castle Brownell; the property sold soon after World War II.

OAK GROVE, in pioneer times called "School Grove," is the first wooded area north of the present Town of Schneider, between U.S. 41 and Parrish Avenue, in the area of what is now 219th Avenue, which was part of the old route of U.S. 41.

If you remember only a small percentage of these places of the past, you must be an "Old Timer" too.