LaPorte County, Indiana - Chapter 22: Communication, 1904

Man cannot live alone, he must communicate ' with others. We are parts of a great organism. So it is with communities. The time came when the railroad and telegraph brought them in closer relations with each other ; but even from the first there was communication with the outside world, for absolute isolation is impossible. At first there were no railroads leading out from eastern cities across the great valley of the Mississippi. The mountain ranges and dense forests were great barriers between the east and Indiana and Michi¬ gan territory. There was a canal from Troy to Buffalo, there were a few steamers on the great lakes, and there was a short horse car railroad running out of Toledo. There were no roads, but in place of them there were Indian trails When in the seventeenth century white men first explored the region in which LaPorte county is now situated, they found and often used an old Indian trail which almost exactly correspond¬ ed with the watershed between what they called the Lac des Illinois or Lake Michigan and the Riviere de Theakiki or Kankakee river. This was the old trail made by the Sac Indians in jour¬ neying from their eastern to their western limit, and as the course was well chosen it became the line, occasionally straightened in the years of ad¬ vancing settlement, for the main eastern and western thoroughfare between Michigan and Joliet. The French missionaries, coureurs des bois and soldiers of fortune were the first repre¬ sentatives of civilization to use this trail. This trail had* been used by the red men for genera¬ tions, and the remains of numerous camp fires along the line of it testified to its popularity.

So far as we have any account, no civilized person ever set foot in what is now LaPorte county before about the middle of the seventeenth century. After that the region near the southern, extreme of Lake Michigan began to be visited by French missionaries and traders. Father Hen¬ nepin, who in 1769 was present when LaSalle built a fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph river, and who spent several months laboring among the savages along the lake southward from that point, probably traveled the old trail and camped on the banks of our inland lakes. Chevalier Henry de Tonty, the man with the iron hand, who came to Canada with LaSalle and went down the Mississippi twice and finally died in Mobile, probably traveled the old Sac trail. French ad¬ venturers of various types passed to and fro through this region in their restless wanderings, until they were interrupted by the wars begin¬ ning in 1689; and their dominion was undisputed until Great Britain wrested it from them in 1763, by the peace of Paris. There is little record of the explorations in northern Indiana during that interval. Father Chardon was in 1711 stationed at a mission where Niles now is, and as he trav¬ eled to the foot of Lake Michigan it is probable that he did so by way of LaPorte. At about this time the post at Detroit was established, and the Sac and Fox Indians of Illinois and Wisconsin began using the trail in their journeys to and from that point, and thus the route acquired the name of the Sac trail, by which it was afterward known until it was obliterated by the early settlers.

In 1778 occurred the capture and turning over of Kaskaskia to General George Rogers Clark. Shortly after this Tom Brady, a dashing young Irishman, one of the Kas¬ kaskia revolutionists, in aid of General Clark's conquest of the Illinois country, journeyed with a congenial band of braves, attacked the British at Fort St. Joseph, which stood where Niles, Michigan, now is, captured the garrison and stores, paroled the prisoners and started by way of the mouth of the Chicago river back to Cahokia, whence he and his little force had set forth. He was pursued by a British company from Detroit, overtaken near the portage to the Desplaines river, seized and carried a prisoner to Canada. Surely the course of these hostile bodies of men must have led them through what is now LaPorte county.

It was a grand dream of the French to estab¬ lish a line of forts up the Mississippi valley from St. Louis to Detroit and the St. Lawrence river. They established mission stations, and built small stockade forts and trading posts to protect the fur trade. One was built at the mouth of the St. Joseph river as early as 1679 J others at Detroit, Mackinaw, Fort Wayne and Vincennes in 1700, and the old Sac trail was the natural line of com¬ munication between Detroit and Vincennes, and between Fort Wayne and the west.

By the Revolutionary war the United States gained control of this region and was left to con¬ tend with the Indians for possession. The treaty of Paris, at the close of the Seven Years' war in America, settled forever the question whether LaPorte county should be French or English. After the conclusion of the war of 1812 the In¬ dians of Indiana were rapidly brought under treaty relations with the whites, and settlers were ready for every tract as it was opened up. The old Sac trail then became a wagon road and was much in use for military, commercial and other purposes, and the little heaps of ashes at LaPorte were greatly multiplied. One of the notable way¬ farers along that romantic highway was the well known Isaac McCoy, a preacher attached to the old Carey mission near Niles, who passed through LaPorte to Fort Dearborn in 1817 and later. Other missionaries from the same establishment journeyed through LaPorte prior to 1829.

Hunters, trappers, and Indian traders from Chicago ranged through what is now LaPorte county at a very early day. They knew the mouth of Trail creek and the Kankakee river route and used the old Sac trail. When Harrison was governor of Indiana territory he frequently sent confidential messengers to the Indians in the region between Lake Michigan and Niles. They took the trail north across the Kankakee to where it joined the Sac trail, and then passed east or .west as desired.

In 1803 Captain John Whistler was ordered from Detroit to build a fort at the foot of Lake Michigan. He and his family sailed in a schooner to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, and then finished the journey by canoe, while the soldiers, consisting of one company commanded by Lieu¬ tenant Swearingen, marched overland, arriving in August. They followed the route by way of Michigan City and the shore of the lake.

In the spring of 1804 John Kinzie, who had done some previous exploring with Niles, Michi¬ gan, as his center, passed through LaPorte coun¬ ty, and brought his family to Fort Dearborn. They followed the old Sac trail through LaPorte.

On August 15, 1812, after the opening of the war with England, wThen the evacuation of Fort Dearborn was ordered and the massacre followed out of sixty-eight men and thirty-two women and children, but twenty-five men and eleven women and children escaped, and the fort was burned. The fugitives fled to Detroit, through LaPorte county by the old Sac trail. In July, 1816, Cap¬ tain Hezekiah Bradley, having been ordered to rebuild the fort, arrived with soldiers, probably by the same route, by this time the best traveled road between Detroit and that point. The same route was used from Niles to Du Chemin or Hud-

When the widow Benedict and her family and Henly Clyburn, nearly the first settlers in the county, came to New Durham township as related in Chapter III, they came by the old .Sac trail from the west ; when the Eaharts and others joined them from Niles, Michigan, they came by the old Sac trail from the east. And so we might go on showing that each of the early families who entered the county from east or west came by this trail. In short, many things are related in history in connection with this route, all of them interesting, some curious and even amusing. Hunters, trappers, soldiers of different nations, missionaries, traders, droll travelers and adven¬ turers all passed through La Porte county, for it was the main line of communication east and west. The trail ran along about where State street is in LaPorte; and could that ground re¬ call the past and utter its voice, it would be most interesting to hear.

There were other trails besides the Sac trail ; trails coming up from the south and crossing the Kankakee. One of them crossed where the Lemon bridge was afterward built, another at Tassanong, in Porter county. In previous chap¬ ters we have given an account of some of the early settlers who came from the south. They did so by means of the old trails. And then there were trails from one part of the county to another. Indian point in Noble township was so named be¬ cause there the Indian trail left the main land and led off into the marsh and timber. The county was not trackless, even from the first, but had communication with other localities.

Other early communication was by water, both on Lake Michigan and on the inland streams. The latter wrere much in use. Canoe travel on the rivers wras LaSalle's great reliance. He wrould go up one river, portage across the water-shed, and down another. Dunn, the historian, after a careful examination of the original documents, concludes that LaSalle passed through northwest Indiana bv way of the Kankakee in 1671 or 1672. The Kankakee was his usual route. During the winter of 1682-3, LaSalle was all through Illinois and Indiana, forwarding his schemes, and he had at least twenty-twx) Frenchmen with him. After his assassination in 1687 French missionaries, traders and government messengers vrere con¬ stantly passing and repassing through LaPorte county. In 1679 LaSalle and Tonty met at the St. Joseph river, ascended it, portaged across to the Kankakee, and thence down to the Illinois. In 1680 he went again to the Illinois river, probably by the same route. In 1681 he was on the St. Joseph river and made that journey for the third time. His record of 1679, however, leaves the matter in no doubt. He and Tonty and their messengers probably made that same Kankakee journey several times, but the route taken is not ahvays specified; still, the Kankakee route was the only one they knew.

In 1831 Jerry Church, in his adventuresome and almost fantastic journey through this and other counties, passed Trail creek which he calls "Dismaugh creek," probably confounding the name with Dismaugh lake wrhich the Indiana Gazetteer for 1849 says is a beautiful lake in the northeast corner of the county, derived from Des Moines ; that is, the monks. It was called Du- Chemin in the early maps. Church visited it on his journey.

Lake navigation was an important factor in the development of the county. The first w^heat shipped from the county wras by the schooner Post Boy, Captain Hixon. The printer's outfit for the first paper in the county came that way. This wras the usual wav of passing to and from Chicago. Thus wre find Abel D. Porter coming from Chicago to Michigan City on the Ed. Sackett in 1834. In 1835 freight on a bushel of wheat to Rochester, New York, was \2]/2 cents. Before the time of railroads in northern Indiana, Lake Michigan furnished the only avenue open to the markets of the wrorld, and the grain produced on all the farms for fifty miles around was trans¬ ported to Michigan City on wragons and sold to the proprietors of the elevators there. Occasion¬ ally there W'ould be a combination of the boats at Buffalo to increase the rates of freight. Then the cry would be raised that the boats were "try¬ ing to gouge everybody/' But when the rail¬ roads were completed to LaPorte and Michigan City, combinations for higher freight rates were effectually stopped. Before the advent of the' railroads the lake city was considered the all im¬ portant point for transportation, and great was the rejoicing and many the comments in the papers when navigation opened in the springtime. On this account great effort was made to improve the harbor. The people felt great confidence that the government would do this work, but after a few puny attempts the government disappointed them. Then they formed a harbor company to do the work themselves, and accomplished much until the company turned its work over to the government. The treatment which the govern¬ ment gave Michigan City in those early years was very discouraging and even exasperating. The Indiana Gazetteer for 1849, page 317, says, "Had the improvement of the harbor continued as was contemplated, Michigan City would have become the great emporium of the northern trade of the state. There were good prospects of its becoming a large and flourishing city, where busi¬ ness to the amount of millions would be trans¬ acted. Instead of this vessels can now be loaded and unloaded from lighters and in pleasant weather.,, The losses to the owners of lots alone were no doubt fourfold the expense of making a harbor and to the public the loss of wealth, capi¬ tal and facilities for business is very large. But the lake town has become quite a large and flourishing city nevertheless. The Iroquois Transportation Company is a Chicago concern which hails its boats from this city to take ad¬ vantage of the Indiana marine tax laws. One of its directors is a resident of Michigan City. This company a few months ago filed papers with the secretary of state increasing its capital stock from $30,000 to $50,000 with a view of enlarging its business.

Another means of communication by water is furnished by the Indiana Transportation Com¬ pany, which has recently had built at the Craig ship yards in Toledo an elegant new steamer to run between Michigan City and Chicago. The steamer has been launched and completed and is making her regular trips to Chicago; and as the electric line to and from LaPorte runs its cars to make connection with the steamer, this makes a pleasant, convenient and economical way of going to Chicago, as long as navigation is open, even for LaPorte people, enabling them to leave home in the morning and giving them a full day in Chicago, or less as they choose, and if they elect the former enabling them to reach home at a seasonable hour at night.

After the year 1790 Indiana began to fill with settlers very rapidly, and the Indian trails put on more the appearance of roads or cart paths. It was over such roads that Lewis AWilkinson and his brother Barton traveled by stage to Detroit after visiting LaPorte in 1835. and determining to make his home in the county. It was over such roads that the Castle family, accompanied by young Polaski King, traveled from Detroit to Michigan City in 1835. It was over such roads that D. W. Closser came with ox teams from Indianapolis to Door Prairie in 1834, bringing his family and goods and con¬ suming twenty-one days on the journey. It was over such roads that Joseph McLellan came from White Pigeon, Michigan, in 1834 and took up¬ land in Cool Spring township. It was over such roads that Hon. James Forrester drove his ped¬ dler's wagon from Detroit through LaPorte county as far as Ottawa in 1831. It was over such roads that all the early overland settlers came. The constant wear of these roads ne¬ cessitated that they be repaired, and they served well and steadily improved until the section line roads were made ; and some of them remain yet, not following the section lines.

The Michigan road has been mentioned in a foregoing chapter. This was a state road. By the treaty of October 16, 1826, the Pottawottomie Indians ceded to the United States a strip of land one hundred feet wide through the state of Indi¬ ana for the purpose of making a road from Lake Michigan to the Ohio river. On March 2, 1827, Congress granted to the state 170,582.20 acres for the purpose of making the Michigan road. For years afterwards the road was a bone of con¬ tention. According to the treaty it was to termin¬ ate "at some convenient point on the Ohio river" to be fixed by the legislature. This involved the choice of routes and the people in many different towns on the possible line of the road wanted it to pass their way. Madison was finally selected by a somewhat circuitous route. Commissioners were selected by the legislature to survey and mark the road, select the lands, etc. The road has been a great thoroughfare and is still, espe¬ cially on some of its portions, as for instance from LaPaz through Plymouth to Rochester. In La¬ Porte county it runs from Michigan City in an east by southeasterly direction through Michigan; township to its southeast corner, through Springville and Springfield township to its southeast comer, through Rolling Prairie and Kankakee then through a corner of Wills town¬ ship and a comer of Hudson township east by northeast into St. Joseph county. The history of the Michigan road is well worthy the labors of the patient investigator; it is a great subject as any one will find who enters into an ex¬ haustive study of it. No doubt the road has been very serviceable in the development of the state and county.

The following table may be of service : - Lands selected by the commissioners of Michigan road lands for the construction of Michigan road in LaPorte county: the Yellow river road leading from Marshall county to Michigan City, and authorized Matthias Redding to keep a ferry where this road crosses the Kankakee, no bridge as yet having been built. This road and ferry did much to ad¬ vance the county in population, as it made Michi¬ gan City the market for all the country as far south as Logansport. The records of the county commissioners are full of accounts of petitions for roads, the appointments of road viewers, their reports, and the establishment of roads. Most of the leading roads of the county were laid out by the Hon. Charles W. Cathcart. He ran the first level of any considerable length that was at¬ tempted in the county; that is, from LaPorte to Michigan City on one hand, and from the same point to the head of the nearest stream running into the Kankakee on the other. The first ended the project of a canal from Lake Michigan to LaPorte, the second proved the feasibility of the drainage of Clear lake, a ditch for utilitarian pur¬ poses being the result. Mr. Cathcart did thorough and satisfactory work both on roads and on the subdivision of lands.

During a wet time many of the roads have been bad, so that a traveler returning from jour¬ neying west, when asked if he had been through Indiana replied that he did not know for sure but thought he must have been nearly through it in some places. Latterly, however, there has been an agitation for good roads. The subject occu¬ pied considerable time and attention at the Colum¬ bian exposition in 1893. The country is waking up all along the line to the importance of having good roads. The general government is taking a special interest in this matter. Several of the states have started out in the good road cause, and good road congresses have been held in many of them. While it costs a large sum of money to build and keep in repair a good road it is as nothing to the cost of a poor road. There is no greater drawback to the development of a coun¬ try than poor roads. They keep back a good country and they are death to a poor one. If farmers were fully to realize how much they would gain by improving their roads to town they would not rest until they were put into fair con¬ dition. LaPorte county has been doing some¬ thing in this line for some years. Construction of macadam roads has been made for miles out of Michigan City and LaPorte, and work was commenced in 1903 in New Durham township. Indications are that the good roads movement will spread over the county. An unhappy litiga¬ tion has interfered with this movement so that some of the roads remain unfinished and very difficult to travel, but on the whole a great im¬ provement has been wrought, and the difference this has made in the transportation of produce to market is wonderful. Now farmers living along or near the line of these roads can come to town with all that their wagons can hold up, with com¬ fort to their teams and themselves. These roads have been the means of opening many good farms where before was a wilderness, and the value of lands has greatly increased. Of course they have cost in the aggregate a good deal of money, but the increase of values by these improvements fully repays those who have to bear the expense. It was improved roads that made possible the change from ox teams to horses, and again from wagons to buggies ; and how do we know but that in a few years the roads will be so hard and smooth in all weather, and automobiles will be so improved, that the farmers will go speeding into town with their crops loaded in a motor wagon? It certainly looks like it.

Good bridges are a part of good roads and the county has been careful to provide them. At first there were only ferries across the Kankakee, and rude bridges across the smaller streams ; but gradually the ferries gave place to bridges, and the rude structures spanning the smaller streams gave place to better, safer and more beautiful ones; at first wooden bridges and latterly, in many cases, stone and iron ones. The first bridge is said to have been built by John Dunn in 1831 or 32. Major John M. Lemon rebuilt the bridge over the Kankakee river about 1846 and kept it as a toll bridge for many years. At the early ferries they also had canoes and made the horses swim longside.

In 1861 it was seen that a bridge at Chambers Landing on a line between Knox and LaPorte was a necessity, and the matter of building one was agitated. Both Starke and LaPorte coun¬ ties were mutually interested. Business transac¬ tions between the two places were almost entirely cut off, but if a bridge was built a large portion of the trade of Knox county would be turned to

LaPorte. To reach LaPorte the people of Knox must go by way of Walkerton, or else to Porter or other points west around by Burch's ferry. On the other hand if a thoroughfare was opened much of the travel to the west that entered the state at Fort Wayne and went to Chicago by wav of Goshen and LaPorte, would take the nearer route by way of Knox and thence to Chicago bv way of Valparaiso. And so it was argued that Hanna Station and Union Mills would receive much trade from the northern part of Knox county, and that Knox would receive an influx of people from the east. There was much agita¬ tion of the subject and the papers of both coun¬ ties strongly advocated the building of a bridge at Chambers Landing.

Funds were subscribed in both counties and the LaPorte county commissioners at their March session, 1862, appropriated $100 and agreed to pay the balance not made up by subscription. An experienced man was appointed to view the site of the bridge which in due time was built. This is a fair type of the progress of bridge building across the Kankakee.

The spring of 1904 was a severe one for the bridges of the county. On account of the great mass of snow which melted, the water was very high and the currents strong. In February four bridges were washed away ; including the Barnes bridge, one crossing Trail creek near the Gould farm, and two near LaCrosse. Others were rendered unsafe. On this account the county commissioners gave their attention to building several new bridges, and the work was soon in progress.

In a fair consideration of the means of com¬ munication which the county has employed, the stage-coach must be included - the old "twice-aweek" stage-coach. It was a slow mode of travel, but the passengers had a good time. The rate of speed in pleasant weather and with favor¬ able roads was perhaps seven or eight miles an hour and the average cost was perhaps five cents a mile. The vehicles have been forgotten as completely as the days they represented. When the steam horse which at first plowed the waters took to land in the east, the finest of the stages were taken west and some of them as far as "the Rockies." But what has become of the less pretentious ones which were not worth trans- ferring? No one knows; they have simply dropped out of existence. But what memories cluster around them! How the people at the taverns, yes, and all the villagers, looked and longed for the coming of the stage-coach ! What a bustle there was on its arrival ! what hand shak¬ ings! what greetings! what interchanges! what life! The stage brought the latest news from the outside world, brought the newspapers, brought the mails. But the uncertainty and ir¬ regularity connected with all this were very un¬ satisfactory. In 1844 there was but one mail each week between LaPorte and Union Mills. A LaPorte paper of February 5, 1848, says, "The stage from the south arrived last evening but we are still without the Indianapolis mail. We receive the Wabash valley papers regularly, not so those from Indianapolis." The same paper of February 19, 1848, says, "There was no mail last evening from the east or south, hence there is nothing from the legislature." In another issue the paper says. "We are compelled to go to press without our mail because the road be¬ tween Logansport and Indianapolis is almost im¬ passable for the stage. It should have been packed through on horseback. Such negligence is unpardonable." In its issue of January 6, 1849, the same paper says, "We are at a loss to know what has become of our southern mails. We have not received the Daily State Journal since the 22nd of December nor any thing else from Indianapolis. There are reports of great storms." All this gives us an idea of life in those days, which hardly seems real to us how when we have railroad trains, electric cars, frequent and fresh mails, the telegraph, and can stand in La¬ Porte and hear a watch tick in New York city.

As intimated in previous chapters, the time came when there were great efforts to improve the lines of travel, and as the most available means plank roads came into use. These sustained about the same relation to the roads of that day that our new macadamized roads do to those we have been using. There were plank roads from LaPorte to different points, and the same was true of Michigan City. Samuel B. Webster finished the plank road between LaPorte and Plymouth. These roads greatly facilitated com¬ munication.

canals, but sometime it may be connected by a canal to the Wabash river. There is a low water shed between Lake Michigan and the headwaters of the Wabash river, and surveys have shown that the construction of a canal between them is both practical and feasible. In September, 1903, the Wabash River Improvement Association was formed. Fifteen Hundred delegates assembled in Terre Haute, comprising some of the most promi¬ nent men of the valley, assembled to inaugurate the work of improvement. Among those in at¬ tendance were Congressmen James A. Hemenway, Robert Williams, E. S. Holliday, Robert Miers, James Crawley, Messrs. Samuel Mur¬ dock, J. Frank Hanley, ex-Governor W. S. Hag¬ gard, Frank B. Posey, G. V. Menzies, Frank Havill, Manuel Cronbach, James W. Emison, T. H. Adams, Edward Watson and Mayor Rousch of Vincennes. Mr. A. R. Colborn, of Michigan City, is vice president of the associa¬ tion for LaPorte county. Already a commodious lock has been built by the government in the Wabash river at Mt. Carmel, Illinois, a splendid piece of work and large enough to accommodate any traffic for which it might be needed in the future. The Wabash River Improvement Asso¬ ciation was organized for the construction of a ship canal from Michigan City to the Wabash river, and is making a movement to interest peo¬ ple along the route in this great project. Maps of the canal and explanations of the objects of the improvement have been sent to leading men in the counties through which the canal will pass. The officers of the association are Frank O. Fitton, of New Harmony, Indiana; W. H. Dun¬ can of Terre Haute, and Charles Murdock, of Lafayette. The constitution of the association provides that there shall be one vice president of the association from each county traversed by the route of the proposed canal. The length of the proposed waterway is forty-five miles. The route begins at Michigan City and takes a diag¬ onal course through LaPorte and Starke counties to the Tippecanoe river at a point near the divid¬ ing line of Starke and Pulaski counties. This section of the course is a straight line passing near Wellsboro, the head of English lake and Knok in Starke county. Beginning at the Tippe¬ canoe the route passes down that river through Pulaski and W hite counties to the Wabash river above Lafayette in Tippecanoe county. If the plans of the Wabash River Improvement Asso¬ ciation should be realized Lake Michigan would be connected by waterway with the Gulf of Mexico. This is not history, but it is history that these steps have been taken, and it is a great advantage to any nation, both in peace and in war, to have internal water ways so that it can move its shipping with the least inconvenience and danger.

As to railroads, some were given right of way long before they came, and some which never came. The coming of the Michigan Central and of the Northern Indiana, now the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, has been described in another chapter. The former, which is a great trunk line of the Vanderbilt system, affording the best of service east and west, was completed to Michigan City in the year 1850. It has ten miles of track in the county. The latter road reached LaPorte in 1852. It was then called the Michi¬ gan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad. This is also a great trunk line and one of the best of roads in every respect. It was not completed through the county until the year 1853. It has twenty-five miles of road in the county.

The Lake Shore has purchased a large tract of land four miles west of LaPorte for the estab¬ lishment of yards for the coaling and watering of engines. Houses will be built by the company for the quartering of employes and their families, and with the opening of these facilities the coal¬ ing and watering of engines in this city will be abandoned. This move is one of the most im¬ portant steps taken by the Lake Shore in this vicinity in many years. That it will result in the growth of a fair-sized town is unquestioned.

The next railroad to come was the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago, now the Chicago, Indiana and Louisville, or the Monon. It runs north and south through the county, connecting with the Michigan Central at Michigan City, with the Lake Shore at Otis, and with all the roads which run east and west until it reaches the Kankakee river. This, until the Pere Mar¬ quette was built, was the longest road in the county, having thirty-one miles of track.

later called the Indianapolis, Peru and Chicago, now the Lake Erie and Western ; though within a few years it has been bought by the Lake Shore. This road was built between LaPorte and Plymouth in 1856, and a great celebration occurred at both ends of the line on the opening of the road. There were gaps between Plymouth and Rochester, between Rochester and Peru, and between LaPorte and Michigan City. One by one those gaps were filled, the last being com¬ pleted in 1871, giving LaPorte communication north and south. This road has twenty-one miles of track in the county.

In 1857 the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago road was completed, which runs nearly east and west through Wanatah and Hanna. This is a part of the Pennsylvania System, and has one of the finest road beds in the country.

In i860 the Chicago and Great Eastern road was built through the southern corner of the county. It intersected with the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne at Valparaiso, but in the year 1868 the company tore up its track from Valparaiso to section 15, township 33, range 4 west, and built the road upon its present line, entering Chicago on its own track. LaCrosse is the only station it has in the county. It is now called the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, and belongs to the Pennsylvania systerq. It has eight miles of track in the county.

In 1873 the Chicago and Lake Huron road was built through the county. It was sometimes called the Peninsula road. Its eastern terminus was Port Huron and its western Valparaiso. At first it did not prosper, but in 1879 it passed into the hands of the Grand Trunk Company of Can¬ ada and afterwards extended its line to Chicago and took the name of the Chicago and Grand Trunk. The line is constantly improving. It has twenty-eight miles of track in the county, running through Mill Creek, Stillwell, Kings¬ bury, and Union Mills.

The next road built in the county was the Baltimore and Ohio, which was completed in 1874. This road takes a straight line through the entire county, entering at section twenty-one in Johnson township and leaving at section six in Clinton township. It runs through Union Center, Tracy Station, Wellsboro, and Alida Sta-

Since 1874 six railroads have been built in the county, seven if we consider the new line of the Pere Marquette into Chicago, but just com¬ pleted as a separate road. There is the New York, Chicago and St. Louis, known as the Nickel Plate, running nearly east and west through Hanna and Cass townships; the New York. Lake Erie and Western, commonly called the Erie, which cuts across Dewey township in the southwest corner of the county ; the Chicago and Eastern Illinois, built as a coal road, running up to LaCrosse from the southwest comer of the county, and the Wabash which runs nearly east and west through the middle of the county, tak¬ ing in Westville. There is also the Chicago, Cin¬ cinnati and Louisville, which has only just begun to run through trains. This road runs through LaCrosse and the southern part of the county. And lastly there is the Pere Marquette, formerly called .the West Michigan, the first line of which was built several years ago, and enters the count}' on the west half of section ten in Springfield township, and takes a crooked southerly course to LaCrosse, running through Springville, LaPorte, Wellsboro, Hanna, and Thomaston Sta¬ tion. It does a large freight business and is the longest road in the county, having about forty miles of track. Quite recently this company has extended its line from New Buffalo to Porter, so as to run into Chicago, excepting terminal facili¬ ties, over its own line from Grand Rapids and the north. A fine station and freight house have been erected on the west side of Franklin street in the southern part of Michigan City, and for some months trains have been running on schedule time. As the two cities are connected by an electric line, this gives Michigan City and LaPorte another line of communication with Chicago. These later railroads aggregate about one hundred miles of track, making a total of about two hundred and fifty miles in the county. Few counties are so well supplied with railroads. Two of them are main lines to the south, the most of the remainder are trunk lines from Chicago to the cities of the east. Chicago is and will remain the great mart of the west where are gathered vast productions, and LaPorte county lies across

As to electric lines, the Lake Cities Electric Railway Company operates a line in Michigan City and gives excellent service. In 1903 its Eastport branch* was opened, since which time its business has increased. In December, 1902, there was a sale under the order of the Federal court, after which the company was reorganized, with better facilities for interior transportation. In March, 1904, the company purchased and put in place a new generator of 250 K. M. capacity, and a new Porter-Alien engine to generate power to operate the cars of its system, since which time the cars have been run with ease. Near the be¬ ginning of 1903 the Chicago and South Shore electric line was opened between LaPorte and Michigan City and did a satisfactory business, exceeding expectations. This is one of the great¬ est benefits the county, especially the two cities, ever received. It has stimulated business, pro¬ moted cordiality between the two cities, and has become a convenience in many respects. It is passing through financial troubles and is now in the hands of Hon. Lemuel Darrow and Fred H. Fitch, receivers; but in March, 1904, Judge An¬ derson of the Federal court granted an order authorizing them to issue receivers certificates to the amount of $35,000, and the money has been used to obtain additional power, new cars, and other improvements. The business of the com¬ pany is increasing, and there is no reason why the road should not be a good investment. Many a new road has to go through this process before it recovers from the burden of building and is placed on a paying basis. The road has fallen into the hands of receivers who will build it up.

It is too early to speak of the electric lines projected to connect Michigan City, LaPorte and other centers in the county with Chicago and eastern and southern towns, but it appears likely that the next few years will witness the opening of several such lines.

The Indians on the war path or on the trail had a way of bending twigs to let their tribes¬ men who followed them know the direction in which they had gone. There was danger of their enemies also reading the sign, but so there is danger of the enemy catching the wireless mess- age of to-day. The Indians had many signs and secret ways of communication by which they overcame time and distance, and which were harbingers of the modern telegraph and tele¬ phone. Time runs in circles, the human race always comes around to the same point again, only higher up; in other words progress is a spiral and not a circle on a dead level.

In the forties when Air. Samuel F. Alorse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, was trying to introduce his system and interest capital on is behalf, he made several tours and among other places he visited LaPorte. He set up his ap¬ paratus and miniature telegraph in the old court house and gave a lecture on the electric telegraph, and a practical demonstration of his system. By 1848 the telegraph was completed to Chicago, and then LaPorte received the earliest eastern news by the Chicago Daily Tribune . In April, 1849, the poles were erected to connect LaPorte by telegraph with Chicago, and the people paid their installments to the enterprise. September came and the wires were not strung. This oc¬ casioned no little complaint, but after a time the line was completed and the county was connected with the rest of the world. That marked the end of depending upon the stage coach and heavy roads for the news. From that time onward we find the people, especially on all important oc¬ casions such as political elections, gathering around the telegraph for their news. The right was granted to the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company to erect poles and fixtures in the county as early as 1847. In 1856 the Western Union Telegraph Company was organized by Hiram Sibley and Ezra Cornell, and this company gradually absorbed others, even the extensive Baltimore and Ohio system. The Western Union has offices at every railroad station of importance in the county.

In the spring of 1892 the Postal Telegraph Cable Company constructed a line through the extreme northern portion of the county, parallel¬ ing the Alichigan Central Railroad. On June 6th of that year an office was opened at Alichigan City with E. D. Keys as manager. On July 1, 1894, D. AI. Farnsworth relieved Air. Keys, and he in turn was relieved bv J. H. Keown on June 1, 1898. On November 1st of the same year Aliss Belle Rowland took charge of the company's business, being relieved June 1, 1899, by R. AL Robinson, who is the manager at the time of thiswriting. The Postal also has an office in La¬ Porte, and thus the county has excellent tele¬ graphic communication with the whole world. In the spring of 1903 the Postal was able to an¬ nounce that it would take messages for the wire¬ less telegraph.

One of the most interesting and valuable in- . ventions of the age is that of the telephone, de¬ vised by Air. A. Graham Bell and first put tobusiness use in 1877, after ten years of experi¬ ment culminating in the first public exhibition of the instrument at the Centennial Exposition. Un¬ like their treatment of the telegraph - perhaps they had learned wisdom - the public immediately saw the utility of the new method of communica¬ tion and the business grew with incredible rapid¬ ity. At the close of the first decade of its history the mileage of telephone lines in the United States was nearly equal to that of the telegraph. Five years later it was more than double that of the telegraph.

About 1888 or 89 the Cushman Telephone Company established an exchange in LaPorte,. one, probably the Bell, having been operated a short time before. J. E. Putnam was the Cush¬ man manager, succeeded by W. W. Hans. In 1890 suit for infringement was brought by the Bell company against all subscribers in La- Laporte before Judge Blodgett, Chicago, who ordered all the phones to be burned. Air. Hans shipped them all to Chicago for the purpose. The Stowager Automatic Telephone Company then established an experimental station in LaPorte. While it was in operation an excursion of inter¬ ested people was brought here from Chicago and banqueted. This company after a few years was merged in the present company which is now owned entirely by local capital.

The Alerchants Alutual Telephone Company of Alichigan City was given a franchise on Au¬ gust 27, 1894. The Central Union or Bell Tele¬ phone Company was given a franchise in Michi¬ gan City, December 14, 1891. The LaPorte company has a long distance contract with the Bell to all points, and also has toll stations at Westville, Otis, Condonville, Dewey, Kingsbury^ Wellsboro, Union Mills, Hanna, Wanatah, Tracy, A I ill Creek, Stillwell, Union Center, Rolling

Prairie, and Michigan City. It has about fifty farmers on its line, and applications for new phones come in faster than they can be supplied. Thus Michigan City and LaPorte have communi¬ cation with nearly every village in the county. There is another company at Wanatah having an exchange in that town, with a line to LaCrosse. This company connectes with the exchange at Valparaiso and at LaPorte, and is for the ac¬ commodation of local business. Besides these, Henry Cathcart and Henry Smith are about con¬ structing a farmer's line between LaPorte and Dewev, which will be under the management of the LaPorte company. The farmers in the coun¬ try can talk with their neighbors, or with per¬ sons in their homes in the different towns, and enjoy the benefit of a personal visit. This closes our general view of the subject of communica¬ tion. The wireless telegraph has not come yet From the foregoing it appears that the world is coming to be all of a piece. Once every little community could live by itself, make its own clothes, wagons, tools, and all the articles neces¬ sary for its existence. But with the coming of the railroad, telegraph, telephone, etc., closer re¬ lations were established, and communities and states became dependent upon each other. The same is true in larger form. Once our nation could live by itself and avoid entangling alliances with other nations, but that time is past. Ocean greyhounds and cables have made it impossible. To-day the United States can no more be a na¬ tion by herself than South Carolina could be a state by herself. She must perform her proper part of right and justice among the nations of the earth.