West Beach Historic District

Portage township has three postofficcs, located at Crisman, Dune Park and McCool. The first two are money order offices. Crisman was laid out by B. G. Crisman, after which it was named. It is located on the Michigan Central railroad in the eastein part. The postoflice was established there in 1871 and the first pusliiiaster was Isaac Crisman, who was also the proprietor of the first stoi-c in the place. After a short time he sold out to Charles Seydel, who in turji was succeeded by Joseph Bender and Joseph White. For many years this was the only store in the township. The town has never grown to any considerable proportions and in 1910 had a population of about 75. McCool, named after the pioneer family, is located in the triangle between the Baltimore & Ohio, the El^in, Joliet & Eastern, and the Wabash railways, and apparently, like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, it "just growed." The railroad junction attracted a few small business enterprises, whose proprietors built dwellings in the immediate neighboi'hood, others followed, and in Ijy^O iMcCopl and Crisman were about the same size. Dune Park is a small station on, the Lake Shore & Michigan Soutlicfii rairoad, about a mile and a half south of Lake Michigan. It takes its name fi-om the saiid dunes in the vicinity. In October, 1891, Frank A. Turner, of Valparaiso, filed in the recorder's office a plat of a town named Fairview, located on section 34, township 37, range 7, in the extieme northwest corner of the county. The plat is rather pretentious in character, sliowing some six

Passage source: History of Porter County, Indiana : a Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People and Its Principal Interests, published 1912.

Probably no township in the county, unless it be Center, can show a better system of public highways than Portage. More than thirty miles of fine macadamized roads traverse all portions of the township, and good bridges span the streams. Jjike some of the other townships of PtJrter county, the population of Portage has been rather variable during the last twenty years. In 1890 it was 954. Ten years later it had increased to 1,014, but in 1910 it was but 959.

Passage source: History of Porter County, Indiana : a Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People and Its Principal Interests, published 1912.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Portage Township - 8,499 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.