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Michigan City history
Michigan City company history timeline
1800 – Indiana Territory is formed, with Vincennes as its capital (May 7).
1816 – The State of Indiana is formed, with Corydon as its capital.
1825 – New England settlers form the first congregation in the area.
1828 – A group of surveyors sent by the state of Indiana determines that the mouth of Trail Creek is ideal for a harbor and shipping port.
First in Town – The 160 acres of land for the City was purchased by Isaac C. Elston in 1830 for a mere $200 (around $5,120.85 in today’s money). Elston made a fortune down south in Crawfordsville and moved north.
1832 – Michigan City’s first mayor, Willys Peck, is elected.
1832 – Michigan City loses its bid to be county seat to La Porte.
1833 – The plat for Michigan City is recorded at the La Porte County Courthouse (September 17). In the fall, the population of Michigan City is about 50 people.
1834 – A survey for the purposes of creating a harbor is begun, but funding is insufficient to complete it (October 10).
1834 – Joseph C. Orr opens a tannery.
1835 – Congregational Church is built.
1837 – The first harbor light is installed.
The School closed in 1841 for lack of funds.
1844 – The first Congregational Church is completed.
A Gothic-style church was built on the 6th & Franklin lot in 1850.
The Haskell & Barker Car Company, established in 1852, quickly became the city's largest employer.
1852 – Saint Ambrose School, the first parochial school in Michigan City, opens at 2nd and Washington Streets.
1855 – John Barker, Sr. buys into Sherman, Haskell, Aldridge & Company, a freight car and wagon firm.
The congregation was formed May 14, 1856.
1856 – The Monon freight house and depot are built.
Two lighthouses are also in the park; the Old Lighthouse (1858), one of the first on the Great Lakes, is now a museum.
1859 – St Mary’s Catholic Church is established at the southwest corner of 4th and Washington Streets.
A Civil War Hub – When the war began in 1861, droves of Michigan City men ran off to enlist and join the Union fight, with the city serving as a major shipping point for troops as well as a producer of war goods for the effort.
1861 – The Civil War begins.
1862 – The original school at Fourth and Pine is replaced by a two-story brick school called the Union School or the First Ward School.
1867 – The upper harbor is dredged for the first time, allowing the area to become a lumber port and shipping harbor.
1869 – The city forms a drum and bugle corps, the Ames Second Regiment Band.
1870 – Saint Ambrose School moves to 4th and Washington St St Ambrose Academy, a boarding and day school, opens in the mansion of Chauncey Blair.
1871 – The Zorn Brewery is opened.
1874 – The east pierhead light is moved to the west pier.
1877 – Mozart Hall is built on the south side of E. Michigan St near Franklin.
1880 – The Roeske Mill is built by Christopher and August Roeske.
He becomes president of the firm in 1883 and oversees an era of unprecedented growth for the company.
1884 – The East Pier is built.
1885 – Park School is founded in a rented building.
1888 – The United States Life-Saving Station (later called the United States Coast Guard station) is completed at the mouth of Trail Creek.
1889 – The German Methodist Church is built.
1890 – Mayor Martin Krueger successfully lobbies the state legislature for a law that allowed city governments to buy, sell, and trade park land.
1895 – The Michigan City Library Association is founded.
1896 – The Central School at 8th & Spring is destroyed in a fire (January 9) and rebuilt the same year.
The hotel is expanded in 1898.
Michigan City's fortunes began to recede after 1900.
1902 – Michigan City and La Porte are connected by an electric interurban line.
1904 – The current pierhead light (referred to as a lighthouse), east pier, fog signal tower and catwalk are built.
1904 – A fire damages the second and third stories of Mozart Hall.
Club disputes led to falling membership, and the property was sold around 1905 to pay its debt.
1905 – The Michigan City Yukons, the city’s first semi-professional baseball team, debut at Donnelly Field.
1905 – Oscar Wellnitz builds a cottage at Sheridan Beach, the beginning of development of the Sheridan Beach area.
1907 – The Michigan City YMCA is formed as a result of a citizen meeting organized by Mr. and Mrs.
1908 – The first South Shore train arrives in Michigan City from Chicago, under the name “Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad.” The first South Shore train runs between Michigan City and South Bend (June 30). The South Shore is the oldest remaining interurban train in the United States
The bank’s first location at 505 Franklin opened on May 3, 1909.
1909 – The old Elston School is built at Spring and Detroit streets, and serves as the high school.
Around 1910 – Doll’s Park, a popular picnic grove, sports facility, and dance hall, opens on Carroll Avenue near the southwest corner of Carroll and Michigan Boulevard.
It is destroyed in a fire in 1911 and rebuilt.
1912 – The Michigan City YMCA facility is opened.
1914 – Marquette Hall is built.
1914 – First Baptist Church is completed.
1915 – The Life-Saving Station is adopted into the United States Coast Guard.
1918 – The Long Beach Company is formed.
1920 – The Dunes Highway, the shortest direct route between Detroit and Chicago at the time, is approved by the state.
1921 – The Town of Long Beach is incorporated (July 5).
1922 – The Tivoli Theater opens at the site of the Grand Opera House, showing films for a nickel.
1922 – Haskell & Barker merges with the Pullman Company, which is later called Pullman-Standard.
The Dunes Highway opened in 1923.
1925 – The Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad is bought in receivership by Samuel Insull and organized as the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad.
The company merges on June 2, 1926 to become the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO).
1927 – The Eleventh Street Station for the South Shore Line opens (May). The two-story building cost more than $200,000 to complete.
1928 – The Washington Park Zoo is built.
1930 – Patrolman Charles L. Glafcke is shot and killed by a Chicago man who had fled to Michigan City following a shooting (December 14).
1933 – John Dillinger is released from Indiana State Prison (May 22). On July 16, he begins his infamous crime spree.
Washington Park encompasses much of the city’s lakefront; the zoo (1933) contains a lookout tower visible from Chicago.
1933 – The lighthouse gets electricity and an electronic foghorn.
It was built by the Stauffer brothers, a trio of master gardeners whose exhibit at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair inspired the garden.
1934 – Franklin Street is paved.
1935 – The first Indiana Days festival is held (July 4-7). An estimated 200,000 people visited the city during the 1935 Indiana Days celebration.
1936 – Michigan City donates land for the construction of an armory, to be built by the WPA.
1937 – The Engineer’s castle and observation tower in Washington Park Zoo are dedicated (May 6).
1938-39 – Elston’s Richard “Fuzzy” Stephenson wins the high school state championship in shotput two years in a row.
1940 – Washington Park’s Midway, including games and concessions, is added.
1944 – The last remaining Civil War vet in La Porte County, Benjamin F. Kimbrel, passes away at the age of 100 (Dec.
1947 – Elston’s Jim Weisflog wins the state track championship in 880-yard run.
The plane, a Vultee BT-13, took off from the Joe Phillips Airport and landed at the new airport on December 11, 1948.
1949 – Pine School is built.
1949 – Frank Hobart and Norm Ross win the Indiana State Three-Cushion Billiard Tourney, the first win for the city in the tournament’s 43 years.
1950 – A senate investigation of race betting draws public attention to several Michigan City bookie storefront operations.
1952 – The Rose Bowl bowling alley is heavily damaged in a fire (September 10).
1952 – The Red Devils win the first of 24 consecutive basketball sectional championships.
1953 – The Park and Shop Center, Coolspring and Franklin, is dedicated (November 3). It is the first shopping center in Michigan City and the second in the state of Indiana.
1955 – The old Central Fire Station on West 4th Street is torn down (September 2). A new station is built on the site.
1956 – Michigan City native and New York Yankee Don Larsen pitches the only perfect World Series baseball game in history.
1956 – The Cargill grain elevator at the harbor is built.
1959 – Midwest Steel constructs a $100 million mill at Burns Harbor.
1960 – An explosion destroys the Edgewood Motor Company on S. Franklin St (Nov.
1961 – Elstonian, Elston High School’s yearbook, wins first place in the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association yearbook contest (October 16).
1963 – Work begins on the building of Bethlehem Steel mill, the largest steel mill in the world at the time.
1963 – The City purchases the Old Lighthouse for historical purposes.
1964 – The Franklin Hotel burns down in a fire (Nov.
1965 – Building begins at Purdue North Central.
1965 – South Shore Railroad is purchased by Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
Once a major lumber port, it is now one of the state’s leading vacation spots, near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (1966), and is an industrial centre.
1966 – The Elston Occupations building is constructed at Elston High School.
1969 – Franklin Square, a citypark and pedestrian shopping area covering the 500-900 blocks of Franklin Street, is completed.
1970 – Two days of riots/civil disturbances occur in the city’s North End following the Summer Festival Parade.
He scored a touchdown in Super Bowl V for the Colts, who won 16-13 over Dallas (January 17, 1971). He played in 96 games in the NFL, rushing for 1,249 yards and completing 100 receptions for 605 yards.
1972 – The Tivoli Theater closes (November 30).
1973 – The new post office at Washington & 4th St begins operation (October 22).
1975 – First-Merchants National Bank, 515 Franklin Square, is constructed.
1976 – Johnny Cash’s “Michigan City Howdy Do” is released on the album One Piece at a Time.
1978 – A fire causes $100,000 in damage to the Rogers High School auditorium (June 16).
1978 – The John G. Blank Art Center opens.
1980 – The former Kubik South Side Hardware building is destroyed by fire (May 22).
1980 – The first Michigan City In-Water Boat Show is held.
1980 – United Steelworkers Union goes on strike against NIPSCO.
1981 – Amtrak begins making scheduled stops in Michigan City.
1982 – Three businesses at 11th & Franklin are destroyed in a fire (February 2-3).
1984 – The catwalk (elevated walkway) to the east pierhead light is placed on the National Register of Historic Places (February 17).
1985 – Michigan City teachers strike for the first time (February 19). The strike lasts 18 days.
1987 – Construction begins on the bridge on United States 12 over Trail Creek, replacing the Second Street Bridge.
1988 – The Coast Guard station is rebuilt.
1990 – The Michigan City Downtown Boosters are formed.
1992 – Elston High School basketball player Charles Macon is named Mr.
1993 – Elston High School girls’ cross country team wins the state championship.
The newly-combined Michigan City High School opens on August 25, 1995 with 1,612 students.
1995 – Ames Field is rebuilt and used as a football stadium and site for drum and bugle corps.
1996 – Crescent Dunes is purchased by the National Lakeshore from NIPSCO.
First-Merchants was formed from a merger of First National Bank and Merchants National Bank in 1962. It was renamed Horizon Bank in 1997.
1999 – The Marquette Blazers win the first of nine state volleyball championships in eleven years.
2001 – Bethlehem Steel files bankruptcy.
2003 – The Art Center moves to its current location on 2nd Street and is renamed the Lubeznik Center for the Arts.
2004 – LaPorte County-based 113th Combat Engineers and 938th Military Police are deployed to Iraq.
2007 – Blue Chip Casino begins construction of a hotel tower and events center.
2009 – The organization overseeing the South Shore proposes realigning the tracks and removing the embedded tracks in 11th Street, provoking discussion and criticism.
2010 – The Oasis Splash Park opens in Washington Park (May 28).
2010 – Michigan City is ranked #1 in the Culture and Leisure category in Forbes “Best Small Places for Business and Careers.”
2012 – The City purchases the East Pierhead Light Tower (lighthouse).
The Michigan City Redevelopment Commission donated the Warren Building to ArtSpace in 2013.
2015 – The North Pointe Pavilion in Washington Park opens (September 26). The pavilion replaces the Jaycee stage, which was demolished.
2016 – Daniel Armstrong of Michigan City High School finishes first in the high jump at the Indiana State finals.
2016- Lake Hills Elementary becomes first STEM Magnet School in Northwest Indiana.
2017 – JROTC drill team wins first place in Armed Platoon category.
2017- Star Center moves into new headquarters at 422 Franklin St The operation is a collaborative space for La Porte County nonprofits the Unity Foundation, United Way, Drug Free Partnership and Healthy Communities.
2018- Safe Harbor Robotics Team wins first place at Robotics State Championship.
2019- Sullair begins a $30 million expansion project, including a new 80,000 square foot facility.
2020- Interfaith Community PADS renovates Sacred Heart Church to open its first permanent site.
2021 – The MCHS Wolves football team wins the regional championship against Valparaiso 31-28 in double overtime, capturing its third regional title (November 12).
2021 – The Singing Sands Trail opens.
In 2022, eligibility for the scholarship is expanded to include students residing in rental properties and graduates of Marquette High School.
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Michigan City competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tufco Technologies | 1974 | $99.3M | 200 | - |
| Crown Solutions, Inc. | - | $24.0M | 350 | - |
| Outlook Nebraska | 2000 | $50.0M | 40 | - |
| Golden County Foods | - | $133.4M | 200 | - |
| NoRTEC | - | $540,000 | 6 | - |
| Universal Recycling Technologies | 2003 | $76.4M | 71 | - |
| West Point City | - | $650,000 | 9 | 22 |
| Louisiana Association for the Blind | 1927 | $50.0M | 59 | - |
| Armor Express | 2005 | $7.2M | 115 | 3 |
| Clover Leaf Solutions | 2005 | $8.5M | 150 | - |
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