Fifty years ago, a pair of young Indiana University Northwest history professors watched the beginning of an exodus from Gary and became determined to preserve the city’s history from being lost.
The efforts by the late Ron Cohen and James Lane evolved into the Calumet Regional Archives, a unique history of hundreds of collections documenting Northwest Indiana’s past.
On Thursday, IU officials and supporters celebrated the archives’ 50th anniversary with a fresh outreach pledge to share its stories so the archives can live outside its walls.
Lane remembered the archives’ early beginnings and his own role.
“The archives were Ron Cohen’s idea. I was kind of a sidekick and implementer,” Lane told the audience seated near the archives, located on the third floor of IUN’s Anderson Library Conference Center.
Their first mission took them to Gary’s oldest settlement site called the Gary Neighborhood House at 1700 Adams St.
Founded in 1909 by the Presbyterian Church, it offered newly-arrived immigrants a host of necessities including lodging, nurseries, kindergarten and English classes.
It became a hub for social justice activities in its final years before its abandonment in 1973 because of a lack of funding.
A fire at the building sounded the alert for Cohen, a historian and author who died in 2022. “Ron decided we should go out there and look for papers,” Lane said.
“We found some really valuable things back to Gary’s pioneer days. Had there been any other archives, we would have been happy to cooperate with them. Then, we thought maybe we should try to form something.”
It marked the start of the first collection in 1973.
A short time later, the pair received another call asking if they wanted Lake County land book records destined for the trash heap at the old county courthouse in Crown Point.
They spent a day hauling out the thick, heavy books that would become the archives’ second collection.
Three years later, long-time U.S. Rep. Ray J. Madden lost the 1976 Democratic primary to Adam Benjamin Jr.
Madden spent 34 years in Congress and rose to the chairmanship of the powerful House Rules committee.
His defeat set up another opportunity.
Cohen and Lane asked then-IUN Chancellor Danilo Orescanin to ask Madden if he would donate his congressional papers to the archives.
Madden not only donated his records, but also his office furniture stored in a section called “The Madden Room.”
Soon, Cohen and Lane realized they needed an archivist to organize their growing collections.
Stephen McShane arrived in 1982 for the short-term position and ended up spending another 38 years as resident archivist until he retired in 2020.
“Our motto was you call, we haul,” said McShane. We collected, we collected, we collected.”
Over time, more than 500 collections were preserved by McShane and assistant archivist Peg Schoon.
McShane said one of his greatest accomplishments was the installation of a climate control system to preserve valuable papers.
When the archives established an online presence in the 1990s, McShane said it drew researchers from all over the world.
He also displayed two of his favorite items.
One is a Lake County map from the collection of educator and historian Timothy Ball. Dating back to 1818, it’s the oldest document in the archives.
Its oddity is the northern tip of Lake County’s border didn’t touch Lake Michigan.
“The topographer apparently didn’t get the word,” McShane said.
He also pointed to an original 1920s era South Shore poster featuring a swimsuit-wearing young woman posing under an umbrella on a beach.
McShane decided to find out her identity of the woman in the now-iconic poster.
“We found her in Evanston, she was in her 90s. She confirmed she was the model,” said McShane. “Her name was Audrey. She was paid $25 and said she got a terrible sunburn.”
Heather Calloway, director of university collections, said no other archives in the IU system have amassed such local history.
“I was blown away by the treasures we have here,” she said.
Under IUN’s new archivist Jeremy Pekarek, the mission has expanded.
It recently changed its name to the Indiana University Northwest Archives & Special Collections.
The Calumet Regional Archives will remain intact, but will be joined by an entity called University Records to encourage the donation of faculty and student records.
“I came to stand on the shoulders of giants in Stephen McShane, Ron Cohen and Jim Lane,” said Pekarek.
“My job is to help preserve your stories. The Calumet Regional Archives doesn’t just document it, it celebrates it….
“I have the best job in the world.”
There’s no charge to use the archives, visit its website at cra.iun.edu/collections/regional.shtml
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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