The Indiana Toll Road Changed Whiting-Robertsdale

John Hmurovic
June 2024

There was no fanfare on November 15, 1956, even though a major project reached completion. On that date, construction of the Indiana Toll Road came to an end. The last section to be completed ran through Robertsdale. Even today, there isn’t much fanfare associated with the Toll Road. Many people in Whiting-Robertsdale probably don’t give the Toll Road any thought. It’s at the far western end of the community, along the line that separates us from Chicago. It isn’t close to where we live.  Yet, the Toll Road changed Whiting-Robertsdale, and continues to do so.

The Toll Road Made Travel Shorter
To understand how it changed things, it’s important to understand how we traveled before 1956. There was no Toll Road then. The Borman Expressway didn’t exist. There was also no I-65 heading south. The best road east out of Whiting-Robertsdale was U.S. 20. That route would take you through East Chicago and Gary, and then east, passing through smaller towns like Middlebury and Angola. You would slow down as you entered each town, you’d stop at traffic lights, you would possibly get stuck behind another driver on the two-lane stretches of U.S. 20.

To imagine what it was like, drive down Calumet Avenue to Munster, or take Indianapolis Boulevard to Highland: Traffic lights, trains, congested traffic, school zones, and detours. There weren’t as many cars and trucks before 1956, but all the ones that did exist didn’t have the option of getting on the Toll Road. Someone figured that if you traveled across Indiana on U.S. 20 in 1956, you were slowed by 74 stoplights, 18 rail crossings, one drawbridge, 15 school zones, and 20 major highway intersections.

It was a negative that the Toll Road cost money to use, but if you wanted to shop in downtown Gary after 1956, which many people from Whiting did when Gary’s downtown was prosperous, taking the Toll Road was the quickest way to get there.

How the Toll Road Came About
The years after the end of World War II saw a surge in car and truck traffic. Residents who lived near Indianapolis Boulevard in the early 1950s would sit on the front porches of their houses and watch long lines of cars pass by on Sunday afternoons and evenings as Chicagoans traveled U.S. 12 and U.S. 20 to return home after a weekend along the Michigan coast.

Traffic was a nationwide problem. Leaders in Pennsylvania tackled the problem by building a toll road called the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and several other states followed. The roots of Indiana’s Toll Road go back to 1951, when the Indiana Legislature created the Indiana Toll Road Commission. What makes a Toll Road different from other expressways is how they are financed. There is no such thing as a free road. Either they are paid for by taxes, or by tolls. Indiana chose the toll route. Bonds were sold to private investors to get the project moving, with the promise that tolls that are collected will pay off the bonds, with a profit for the investors.

On September 21, 1954, Indiana Governor George Craig climbed aboard a bulldozer some 15 miles northwest of South Bend. Joining him was Ohio Governor Frank Lausche. Together, they broke ground to construct a 280-million-dollar road that would not only connect to Lausche’s home state, but would link Chicago to New York. Governor Craig predicted Indiana would see an increase in “tourist traffic and trade,” and the state would benefit from the gas tax that would come with increased traffic.

Robertsdale Would be the Final Piece of the Toll Road
Almost exactly two years after the groundbreaking, the Indiana Toll Road was officially dedicated on September 17, 1956. The ceremony took place in South Bend. The project was on schedule, but it was not done. On dedication day, the Toll Road only reached the Gary-East exit. There were still 16.1 miles left to build, all in Lake County. What remained was the daunting task of working in the most populated area on the Toll Road’s route and working around Northwest Indiana’s industrial belt. Another problem was the swampy ground of Northwest Indiana. And then there was the challenge of crossing Wolf Lake in Robertsdale.

Choosing the route was a difficult process. Engineers for the state studied nine different routes through Lake County, including one that would have placed the road further south, along what is now the Borman Expressway. Despite it being longer and more costly, the state chose the northern route. At one point along the way, the Toll Road comes to within 200 yards of the Michigan state line. A former State Highway Commissioner, who preferred the southern route, said the state chose the northern route in hope that it would draw more drivers from Michigan.    

They also considered three different locations for the Toll Road to cross into Illinois. One was in Dyer, the other along the Grand Calumet River, and the third was Indianapolis Boulevard in Robertsdale. They chose Indianapolis Boulevard, but not before a number of protests.

Impact on Wolf Lake
Among those who protested the route over Wolf Lake were those who feared it would interfere with boating and fishing. Others, like Howard LaBrant, a Robertsdale engineer, said it was also more costly. He said the best option was an idea from Hammond City Engineer Robert Lippman, to entirely by-pass Wolf Lake with a route that would go south of the lake.  

“If we could get the Toll Road Commission to run that highway around Wolf Lake instead of through it,” LaBrant argued, “we will end up with a 240-acre…sailing and boating area, plus another 240-acres of fishing and swimming water on the Indiana side of the lake.” The Toll Road Commission rejected that plan, saying it needed a half-mile area of land for curves designed for 70-mile-per-hour traffic, and that the bypass route around Wolf Lake didn’t provide that.

The Commission did concede one point. Their plan was to locate the Toll Road 1,200 feet further west than it now stands. That would have put it much closer to the lake’s current shoreline in Robertsdale. Their change of mind came after Robertsdale residents, and Hammond city officials, made it clear that they wanted to make improvements to Wolf Lake Park so it could be a better recreation area. That would have been difficult if the Toll Road ended up close to the lake’s eastern shoreline. The Toll Road divided Wolf Lake, almost in half. But if the original plan had gone through it not only would have impacted recreation on Wolf Lake but would also have significantly reduced the chance of ever seeing a nice sunset over the lake.

The City of Hammond also negotiated with contractors working on the Toll Road project. The contractors wanted to use sand from the bottom of Wolf Lake to shore up the Toll Road. The city gave them permission to take the sand, on the condition they dredge the lake to make it deeper, and provide money for improvements to Wolf Lake Park and Forsyth Park.

The contractors agreed to the conditions. To get to the sand, they drained Wolf Lake. Their dredging changed the depth of the lake and got rid of some of the weed beds in the water. While the dredging was in process, and the lake was drained, there were deep pits left behind. Hammond Parks Director John Higgins said the deep holes were dangerous and pleaded with the public to stay out of the lake. A week after his plea, ten-year-old Joseph Francis Roy was in the water playing “tag” with his sisters. The pit they swam in was knee-deep ten feet from shore, but suddenly dropped to a depth of 35-feet. Joseph apparently stepped off into the deep-end. His body was found 21 hours later.

How Hammond’s Parks Benefited from the Toll Road
In exchange for using sand from Wolf Lake, the contractors working on the Toll Road, agreed to make $200,000 in improvements to Hammond’s parks. They constructed a dike south of what is now the parking lot at Wolf Lake Park, and another one from 119th Street to just south of Roosevelt Drive. Both dikes are now a part of the trail along Wolf Lake.

They also leveled the area where the baseball fields in Forsyth Park are now located. They also built a road from 119th Street into the park. At that time, the only road into Forsyth Park was the entrance at 117th Street. They filled and graded the land where The Pavilion on Wolf Lake is now located. They also built two boat launch areas and dredged the lake to create areas of deeper water. All of those changes have, more or less, lasted over the years. A few others did not.

There was an ice-skating rink created with the contractor’s money. It’s still there, just east of 117th Street and Caroline Avenue. It is a slab of concrete with a small curb around it. Nowadays, weeds grow from cracks in the concrete. It hasn’t been used for skating for many years.

With the money, the city created a swimming beach on Wolf Lake, just east of the 121st Street and Calumet Avenue intersection. Early plans were for the beach to extend beyond the current shoreline. In the end, the beach was a narrow strip of sand, with a trim of grass. The beach no longer exists, and swimming is no longer allowed in Wolf Lake. Also built was a bathhouse and concession stand near the beach, but it no longer exists. There were plans to build a causeway to the small island on Wolf Lake. There was also a proposal to build a rustic bridge to the island. Both plans were dropped.

Overall, Wolf Lake Park and Forsyth Park benefitted from the improvements financed by the contractors in exchange for the sand needed to build the Toll Road across the lake. But not everyone benefitted from the Toll Road.

The Toll Road Hurt Some Small Businesses
Before the Toll Road, residents of Whiting-Robertsdale had to travel through small Indiana towns to get to Ohio, and the same held true for drivers from Chicago. The first small Indiana town they’d come across was Whiting-Robertsdale. In the years before the Toll Road, Robertsdale’s Five Points (the intersection of U.S. 12 & U.S.20 with U.S. 41) was one of the busiest intersections in the world. Just down the street, the intersection of Indianapolis Boulevard and 119th Street was so busy that policemen were sometimes stationed there to manage the congestion.

In those years, all along the route in Whiting-Robertsdale, businesses thrived because of traffic from Chicago. The stretch of road from the state line to Five Points was dotted with restaurants that appealed to travelers and locals alike. At Five Points itself, there was Margaret’s Geneva House, a restaurant where the Horizon Bank branch not sits; there was Art’s Drive-In, the kind of 1950s style drive-ins you mostly see in the movies these days, on the lot where Purple Steer restaurant is located; there was a gas station, one of the busiest in the nation at one time, on what is now an empty lot. Less than a block away were restaurants like Phil Smidt’s and Vogel’s that drew heavily from out-of-town customers, and Madura’s Danceland, a popular dance venue.

All of the old businesses dried up after the Toll Road arrived. The story was the same further down the route. It’s not fair to say the Toll Road caused them all to vanish, but by diverting traffic off Whiting-Robertsdale streets, it played a role.

Illinois’ Reaction to the Toll Road
The Indiana Toll Roads westernmost point is in Robertsdale, in the section of town that used to be known as Roby. Starting with construction of a Wal-Mart, the area along the state line has changed a lot in recent years, as retailers hope to benefit from Chicago customers. On the Chicago side of the state line, there has also been significant change since 1956 and the construction of the Toll Road.

The final 16.1 miles of Toll Road that needed to be built, including the part that passes through Robertsdale and over Wolf Lake, was completed on November 15, 1956. The biggest problem its completion caused was something Chicago had to deal with.

When drivers from the east reached the endpoint of the Toll Road in 1956, they had to exit onto Indianapolis Avenue in Chicago, right at the state line. There was no Chicago Skyway at the time, so the Toll Road gave drivers no other option than to exit. That caused huge traffic congestion problems on the streets of Chicago’s East Side.

The city and the State of Illinois knew the problem was coming, so work was already underway to build the Chicago Skyway. It opened in April 1958, nearly a year-and-a-half after the Toll Road was completed. Once the Skyway was built it connected directly with the Indiana Toll Road. Drivers heading for Chicago could simply continue on without exiting at the Toll Road’s western end.

Adjusting to Something Different
It’s hard for us to imagine these days, but the Indiana Toll Road was something very different for drivers and passengers. There was a major concern that drivers would not be able to stay awake. Driving the 16 miles from the Illinois state line, for example, took about 15 minutes on the Toll Road. Traveling on city streets, drivers had to deal with 35 traffic lights and ten railroad crossings, so it took 35 minutes. All of that might be annoying, but it kept drivers awake.

There was also a concern over hitting animals at high speeds. A fenced right-of-way was supposed to keep most animals off of the roadway, but one year’s totals showed that 300 dead animals were killed, 250 of them deer.

Before it opened, state officials said the Toll Road would be a safer way to drive. Two months after its first stretch opened, 66-year-old Julia Gramza of South Bend became the first traffic fatality. Before the year ended, five more were killed.

There was also concern about running out of gas, even though there were rest areas all along the Toll Road. In fact, before the first year ended, about 1,500 drivers did run out of gas. And some drivers ran out of money. In the first months of the Toll Road, more than 20 drivers said they didn’t have enough money to pay their toll.

A North-South Toll Road Never Materialized
When they opened the Indiana Toll Road, it was often referred to as the Indiana East-West Toll Road. The extra words were added to distinguish it from the Indiana North-South Toll Road. A north-south toll road was on the back burner in Indiana. The east-west road came first. But while the east-west road was being built, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. That changed plans in Indiana.

The Highway Act authorized the spending of $25 billion (equivalent to about $215 billion today) to help the states build what became the Interstate Highway System. One billion of that money went to Indiana. It was an offer too good to pass up. For drivers, Interstates felt like a free ride, compared to digging in your pocket for change as you approached a Toll Road exit. In reality, though, it was either pay now by taking the Toll Road, or pay at tax time to finance the Interstate.

Indiana abandoned the north-south toll road plan and built I-65 instead. There was a big push by the City of Hammond and others for I-65 to run near U.S. 41. That plan never materialized because of the cost and complexity of buying up multiple parcels of land in urban areas. Purchasing land in rural areas was simpler and less costly. Work on I-65 began in 1960. The northernmost portion of the road is in Gary. That section, from 15th Avenue to U.S. 30 in Merrillville, was finished on June 27, 1968. The entire I-65 did not get completed until 1972.

Just like the Indiana Toll Road, I-65 resulted in numerous changes. One of those, is that it made it much easier for people who worked in Whiting-Robertsdale to live further away from their jobs. They could move away from here, with our small homes, older homes, and small lots, and buy a brand new, bigger house, with a bigger yard, in places like Merrillville, and commute to work. That helped to shrink the population of Whiting-Robertsdale. But that is another story.