This past weekend I got a call from an eastside antique dealer whom I’ve known for over 30 years. You never know what to expect when someone tells you they have some stuff for you, it can be a good thing or a bad thing. Upon arrival, I was ushered over to a few tables covered with boxes of old paper: magazines, letters, programs, scrapbooks, and photos. Yep, photos. Anyone familiar with my columns knows that photos are one of the particular windmills I tilt at.
Among the pile of photos was a small stack of images of turn-of-the-century steamboats of all sorts: paddle-wheelers, propeller-driven, sail-powered, passenger ships, commercial tugs, barges, and early freighters. All from the Great Lakes region of Michigan City, Indiana. Really? Michigan City? As a Hoosier born and raised, I guess I never viewed Michigan City as a port city. I’ve always equated the city as a quasi-suburb of Chicago and home to the Indiana Dunes. But since it borders Lake Michigan, I guess it makes sense to a Circle City landlubber like me.
Michigan City, in LaPorte County, is about 41 miles east of the Chicago Loop and 40 miles west of South Bend. When federal surveyors arrived there in 1831, they saw the low, swampy region as an ideal location for a harbor. At the same time, the Michigan Road was heading northward through Indiana. In 1832 the town was platted with the first settlers arriving the following year. By 1836, the town’s population had swelled to nearly 3,000 (it tops 32,000 today). The railroads arrived sometime in the 1850s. Construction of the harbor didn’t start until after the Civil War.
Around 1867, the Michigan City Harbor Company, augmented by federal funds and manned by cheap convict labor from nearby Indiana State Prison, built two piers and dredged a deep channel between them. The deep channel quickly turned Michigan City into one of Indiana’s largest lumber markets. Industry soon followed, but the boom would be short-lived. Michigan City’s fortunes began to recede after 1900. Indiana outlawed the profitable practice of convict labor leasing, the lumber trade gradually died out, and the railroads moved away. The harbor remained active until World War I, in part due to Michigan City’s newest sensation: The Hoosier Slide.
But wait, I digress; back to those photos. The great thing about a photo is that it captures a moment in time. A well-placed camera, a focused lens, and a practiced photographer can tell a story simply by clicking the shutter as can the greatest wordsmith. These photos were obviously staged by some long-forgotten enterprising photographer, box camera and tripod perched strategically on one of the piers to capture the ships as they moored alongshore. Most of the images were taken off the port side (left or “larboard side” for you pirates out there) and all of them encouraged the crew and passengers to pose for the camera.
Judging from evidence, both in and on them, the photos were obviously commercially themed. Industrious merchants with businesses along the shoreline placed large signs in the background for posterity. The “Sash Doors Blinds and Mouldings Co.” dwarfed signs reading “Eat Quaker Oats” and “Eat Gunther’s Candy and B Happy” nearby. Charles Gunther brought German Caramel to the U.S. and introduced Cracker Jack to the culture. Quaker Oats remains popular, but who knows what happened to the “Sash” guy? Regardless, the signs are there, frozen in time.
As are the names of the ships, proudly emblazoned on the prow. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, SS Escanaba, The City of Duluth, Pere Marquette, SS Soo City, SS United States, SS Pacific, and the SS America sailed alongside those featuring names of long-forgotten figures: SS Chief Justice Waite, R.J. Gordon, W.G. Harrow, John A. Dix, Frank Woods, Joseph Suit, O.E. Parks, A.R. Colborn, and the inimitable Bertha L. Cockell. Michigan City merchants got in on the action too. The photos were sold dockside at photographer shacks, in photography studios, and later, by the Chamber of Commerce and the Lighthouse Museum there.
As the bottom dropped out of the shipping and logging business, the region turned to tourism. The Indiana Dunes, the lighthouse, and The Hoosier Slide. What? You’ve never heard of it? Well neither did I until I saw it in these photos. Sure enough, visible in the background, not far from the dock, is a humongous mountain of sand peppered with people at its summit ready for a ride down the Hoosier Slide. Yes, a mountain of sand that tourists climbed up and slid back down. Can you say ouch y’all?
Resembling an enormous pile of snow, in the years before World War I, The Hoosier Slide was Northern Indiana’s most famous landmark. In Gladys Bull Nicewarner’s 1980 history of the city, “Michigan City, Indiana, the life of a town,” she notes that on one day in 1914 six steamers brought approximately 10,000 people to see the community’s attractions, most notably, The Hoosier Slide. Indianapolis author Ray Boomhower noted, “Michigan City merchants offered merchandise and cash prizes for races up the giant sand pile’s slopes and even held marriage ceremonies on its peak. An Indiana State Prison official, hoping to attract visitors from southern Indiana, offered a free marriage license, minister, and excursion to any couple who would be willing to exchange their wedding vows on Hoosier Slide…the towering sand dune hosted hill-climbing contests, fireworks shows, and wrestling and boxing matches. Daredevil youngsters used wooden toboggans and hand-fashioned metal sheets to slide down the hill during winter and summer.”
The Hoosier Slide stood 200 feet tall, dwarfing all of the other sand dunes in the region, and could be seen as far away as Chicago. Originally the hill was dotted by scrub trees and pock-marked by clumps of grass. Locals allowed their livestock to graze the otherwise useless area. In the 1880s the lumber was cleared and the grass disappeared, revealing the glimmering loose sandy surface underneath. At first daring hikers climbed the dune for panoramic views of Lake Michigan. Somewhere along the line, an adventurous hiker decided it would be faster (and more fun) to slide down. The hill proved shallow enough to prevent injury but steep enough for a wild ride. The Hoosier Slide was born.
By 1900, the Hoosier Slide had become Indiana’s most popular landmark. Almost every postcard and ship photo from 1895 to 1910 featured the hulking mound. On Lake Michigan’s particularly windy days, the docks and nearby buildings would be covered in sand from the Hoosier Slide. In time, enterprising locals began melting the wayward sand into glass and discovered that not only was the displaced sand of high quality, but it added a distinctive blue color to their glass creations. Soon locals were taking out wheelbarrows of the especially fine sand to sell for 20 cents a ton ($6.50 today) to local glass factories and middlemen. In the course of fifteen years, an estimated 13.5 million tons of sand were shipped from the site to glassmakers in nearby cities. Author Boomhower calculates that figure based on 50 tons of sand per railroad car and 300 shipping days per year over a 30-year period. The sand was also used as fill for Jackson Park in Chicago, as a easement by the Illinois Central Railroad, and for sand traps at Hoosier humorist George Ade’s private golf course in Kentland.
Word traveled quickly and pretty soon, Muncie’s Ball brothers came calling. They were followed by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company of Kokomo and Cincinnati’s Hemingray Glass Company. The Ball Brothers used the sand to create canning jars, Pittsburgh Plate Glass to make mirrors, and Hemingray for glass insulators. The blue sands of the Hoosier Slide were unique to the region and proved particularly alluring to Midwestern housewives who stored their preserves on shelves for the winter.
The Hoosier Slide was shrinking at the rate of hundreds of tons a day. It began with shovels, buckets, and wheelbarrows and by the time the glassmakers arrived, it progressed to steam shovels and train cars. As The Hoosier slide became smaller and smaller, its days as a recreational destination waned. By the 1920s, The Hoosier Slide was completely mined out; reduced to a flat, sandy-soiled memory. Two companies, the Hoosier Slide Sand Company, and the Pinkston Sand Company had managed to level what had once been Michigan City’s main landmark. Conversely, those blue jars became the foundation of Muncie’s Ball Corporation. The tinted glass wasn’t just aesthetically pleasing; the addition of hue blocked sunlight and extended the life of its contents. The color became known as “Ball Blue.”
The site of the former dune was purchased by Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) and a coal-fired generating plant was built on the land. In September 2018, NIPSCO announced that it planned to stop burning coal to produce electricity. Coal will be replaced with renewable resources such as wind and solar power. The plant is scheduled to close by 2028. Michigan City officials are already talking about the future use of the land. The highest point at the Indiana Dunes is now is 126-foot tall Mount Baldy, which is still impressive, but can’t be climbed without permission.
With the sand no longer available, Ball Brothers stopped making jars in the blue color, making them only in clear after 1936. Today, only postcards, photos, written accounts, and oral tradition survive to tell the tale of The Hoosier Slide. While Hoosier Slide ephemera is hard to find, those blue Ball Jars are everywhere. In basements, at flea markets, antique shops, and rummage sales. They are seldom used for canning anymore, instead, they are used to hold pencils and pens, as centerpiece vases, and farmhouse kitchen decor.
This brings me back to those photographs. Not only did they reveal a long-lost Hoosier tourist attraction, one of them sparked a good old-fashioned ghost story. And it is a humdinger.
Next Week: Part 2 of The Hoosier Slide and Port of Michigan City.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
