Gary Evening Post, Monday, 22 January, 1917

And there are hundreds of Garyites who are fresh air fiends, who are not aware of the advantages afforded at Miller for one of the grandest of outside sports. Now we go back to the dunes region. In the winter these mountain dunes are covered with snow. There, near Lake Michigan, is one of the greatest places in miles around for athletes to enjoy that wonderful sport of skiing and coasting.

Nearly every night and every weekend there are skiing and tobogganing parties to the dunes. The smooth surface, the steep incline and the accessibility of the dunes makes it an important location for those athletes in Gary or in the surrounding territory who care for these kind of sports.

Last winter a number of the experts in this sport made frequent visits to Miller. One day Joe Schillen had a conversation with one of them. This master of the ski told Schillen that if Miller people only knew it they could make that region one of the greatest ski centers in the country. All that it needs is somebody to promote it and arrange for a course where the jumps could be made to the west of the summit in the dunes, where the Gary Boy Scouts established Sand Dunes camp¹ a year ago last summer. The leaps could be made off into what is known best to Millerites as Devil's Hollow² and with the proper interest shown the dunes region could become widely known in the ski world.

There was not even any place "Ogden Dunes" for five more years after the two Miller articles. In 1927-1928, a ski jump was built on Ski-Hill in the new town of Ogden Dunes. It was often referred to as "Gary's" ski jump, as none was ever built in Miller. (The town of Miller was annexed to Gary at that same time.)

²Where is that? Gee, the real estate developers sure goofed when they failed to note that that area (wherever it is) was Devil's Hollow. I don't suppose the people living there now even know they reside in Devil's Hollow. Please, couldn't some Millerite or former Millerite please tell me where Devil's Hollow was, please. I'd also be interested in learning any other Miller natural feature names.

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Carl Lindholm of Hammond, Indiana, a rider of long standing with Harvey Blandford, were at Grand Beach on Sunday, looking over the slide and hill. Interest is keen and the meet will undoubtedly be the best ever.

Ragnar Omdvedt, president of the Grand Beach Ski Club, is expected at Grand Beach on next Sunday, with some of the committee, at which time, they will determine just what should be done, on the hill before the severe winter weather sets in.

These youngsters outjumped veterans, including Lars Haugen, the Minneapolis favorite; Alf Bakken and Olaf Skogan of the Norge club, Jorgen Johansen, Rockford, and Matt Heikinen, the Finn star from Ishpeming, Mich.

A crowd of 8,000 saw the meet. The mild temperature softened the snow on the slide and the skiers were unable to obtain speed for their jump, so none came close to Lars Haugen's record of 134 feet.

Class B jumpers were headed by Herbert Elfstrand of Duluth, who made leaps of 110 and 107, eclipsing by fifteen-hundredths of a point Peder Falstad of Canton, S. D., winner of the Norge Ski club's class B event. Summaries:

Writers have claimed that Ogden Dunes' ski jump "replaced" Grand Beach, Michigan's. Members of the Grand Beach Ski Club did form the Ogden Dunes Ski Club and were behind the new jump in Indiana but the Grand Beach jump existed and was still used after Ogden Dunes' was built. We would appreciate any details of the behind-the-scenes business of Ogden Dunes vs. Grand Beach and the Grand Beach jumpers vs. the ski jump's owner(?) I would also like to know exactly where the Grand Beach ski-jump used to stand. (All I have ever seen were vague directions in relation to the former hotel.)

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Last updated 9th June, 2004. Originally posted before 14th December, 1998.