Chesterton Tribune, Thursday, 28 September, 1911
TO PERPETUATE OLD DETROIT TRAIL
MOVEMENT TO REESTABLISH HISTORIC ROUTE MAY BE STARTED.
Suggestion That It be Made a State Road and Rebuilt by Prison Labor is Made.
The recent movement to perpetuate the old Detroit-Chicago stage route through Lake, Porter and Laporte counties is receiving a great deal of attention from the road building authorities of the three counties these days.1 The movement has progressed so far that surveys have been made in Lake county and an estimate made of the probable cost of making it a broad, macadamized boulevard leading east from Gary through the town of Miller to the state line.2 The city authorities of Gary, Miller, Porter and Chesterton are interested in the movement and are anxious for a revival of the historic thoroughfare. This route was one of the first great highways of the state. It was opened when this region was yet a wilderness and the city of Chicago but an Indian trading village. The old trail was established in 1831 when a stage coach route between Detroit and Chicago was started, making three trips a week. Over this road a mail route was established, the mail being carried in pouches on the backs of soldiers, two of whom were regularly detailed for this service. The first contractors on the stage line were men named Converse and Reeves and through them the creek passing through Chesterton, was given its name, Coffee Creek. On one of their trips while crossing the creek, a sack of coffee was lost and from this happening the creek was given a name.3 The trail is of great historic importance and a movement to perpetuate it should receive every encouragement not only by reason of its early history but from the commercial importance such a thoroughfare would have throughout the northern part of Indiana.

One difficulty in the way of an immediate improvement has arisen from the fact that the townships in Porter county through which the old route passes would be unable to issue bonds for a sufficient amount at the present time. Each of them have a heavy gravel road indebtedness and until some of this is paid off, or the valuation greatly increased, no extensive improvements are possible. It is said that neither Portage nor Westchester townships will be able to consider any improvement of this kind for at least another year, and possibly longer.

It has been suggested, and the plan seems to have some very good features, that the building of this highway across Lake, Porter and Laporte counties would afford an excellent opportunity to try an experiment in the use of the convicts in the state prison in road building. The proposed thoroughfare is more than a mere county road. It is of state wide importance. The question of using the inmates of the state institution in making public improvements, instead of selling their labor on the contract system, has been openly advocated among prison officials and labor unions. The plan has met with remarkable success where it has been tried in other penal institutions. In Colorado hundreds of miles of fine roads have been built by the state, at no greater expense than the bare cost of the material used. There the experiment has resulted in not only establishing one of the finest systems of the highways in the world, but in a marked improvement in the health and conditions of the inmates of the penitentiary, by reason of the outdoor labor.

The use of prison labor in rebuilding the old Detroit-Chicago trail would afford an opportunity for a thorough trial of the idea in this state. In fact, a better opportunity could hardly be secured.

Just what steps would be necessary to secure this are not clear at this time, but if the newspapers and the road building authorities of the three counties would unite in a vigorous effort to secure it the thing is not impossible.

Michigan City Evening Dispatch, Thursday, 17 August, 1916
Marking Auto Routes.
St. Joseph Press: The automobile route between Chicago and this city is being marked by the Chicago Motor club, whose car with the crew who have charge of the work arrived here yesterday.

Steel signs 10 by 20 inches are being used along the route, which passes through Michigan City, New Buffalo, Three Oaks, Baroda, Stevensville and on the lake shore into this city.4 The route will later be marked on through to South Haven.

The work has been completed between Chicago and Michigan City, and the crew start from St. Joseph today working back. There is an almost complete drive of stone road now through Berrien county to the Indiana line and will be finished when the present road contracts are completed.

1There are several different Chicago-Detroit Roads through this area. This is presumably the one which passes through Tolleston, which is a part of Gary. Even this particular one had changed since 1831 but that is ignored here. The Dunes Highway did later follow this route west to Shadyside, at the Westchester/Portage Township line in Porter County.
Some recent local histories, which claim that the Dunes Highway follows an old Indian trail through Portage Township, are totally wrong. It had been proposed that the Dunes Highway follow what is now known as Stagecoach Road but instead a completely new roadway was built. The plan change is not what caused the error though. That was due to an incredibly sloppy misinterpretation of earlier histories of the Dunes Highway to the east, that mistake then being repeated by more blind dullards. [Dunes Highway is built on a long dike across the middle of a lake.]

2I sure would like to see a copy of that survey.

3That was all true, except for the popular story of how our Coffee Creek (and every other Coffee Creek in the U.S.) got its name, which is a total crock.

4Boy, I'd sure like to see one of those signs or a photo or even a description. South of the Michigan state line, this road later became the Dunes Highway.

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Posted 2 January, 1999. Last updated 11th October, 2004.