Duneland Historical Society

10/11/2025

Bailly Homestead is a National Historic Landmark that is managed by the United States Department of Interior's National Park Service. Locate...

10/30/2024

What do you remember from the site at 2nd Street & Broadway in Chesterton?

The Central House Hotel was moved to this location from New City West in the 1850s. According to Charles Jeffrey, the building housed only a residence on the first floor when he arrived in Chesterton in 1890. In the early 1900s, it was the location of Arthur Nickel's drug store and then the Central House Hotel (not to be confused with the three-story brick Central Hotel that sat in the 100 block of Broadway and burned down in 1908).

In the 1940s, Ray and Martha Eschenbach opened their restaurant in the building and remained there until 1955, when Youngblood's Country Store opened.

The building was torn down in 1958, and the lot has been vacant ever since.

09/18/2024

John Drury wrote and published the following passage about Indian Boundary Line in 1956:

“If, on a map of Indiana, you draw a line eastward from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan (which would be at Gary) to the state of Ohio, it would correspond to the Old Indian Boundary Line of the Hoosier State's early days. As may be seen, this line passes through what is now northern Porter County and through the towns of Porter and Chesterton.

Had it not been for some far-seeing members of Indiana's first state constitutional convention, this line might have become fixed as the new state's north boundary, which would have meant, of course, the cutting off of Indiana from any frontage on Lake Michigan. Quick to see this, the constitutional framers in question set the new state's boundary line ten miles north of a line drawn eastward from the lowest tip of Lake Michigan. And thus, it came about that Gary, Chesterton, Michigan City, South Bend and Elkhart grew up in Indiana instead of Michigan.

Although this ten-mile strip was set up by Indiana when it was organized into statehood in 1816, yet the land itself properly belonged to the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians who then lived on it. And so it remained until the Treaty of Mississinewa, signed in 1826, when the Pottawatomies sold it to the government. Thereafter it became known as the Ten Mile Purchase. A few years later it was thrown open for sale to settlers. The south line of this strip has since then become popularly known as the Old Indian Boundary Line.”

09/03/2024

08/12/2024