NEWS
Marktown Celebrates 100 Years
A quaint English village is about the last thing you’d expect to see in the heavily industrial landscape of northwest Indiana.
A Model Factory Town
Sandwiched between East Chicago’s hulking steel mills and refineries, the quaint anachronism called Marktown originated in 1917 as a planned community for workers. On August 19, past and current residents gathered to celebrate the unique neighborhood’s centennial.
When Chicago industrialist Clayton Mark opened a steel plant in a mostly undeveloped area of northwest Indiana, he realized that providing quality housing for workers would be an issue. Until that time, industrial workers’ housing was owned and controlled by manufacturing companies, generally characterized by cramped quarters with few amenities.
Mark’s solution was to build an entire town for his workforce, including schools and parks. He commissioned noted Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw to design a model community near the shore of Lake Michigan.
The architect put immense thought into the design, creating a neighborhood of narrow streets and picturesque stucco homes that is both pragmatic and aesthetically pleasing. He used only five different building designs, mirroring them on alternating streets to break up the monotony of typical workers’ housing. He varied the positions of the houses on similar sized lots to create shared yards residents could view from open porches, and he made sure vistas at the end of each street looked onto buildings rather than views of the surrounding industry.
Each spacious unit – designed for single families to either rent or purchase – incorporated practical features, like hooks on the frames of windows facing the shared yards, intended for hanging clotheslines. Shaw drew elements of English Tudor Revival architecture from his own high-style home in Lake Forest.
Shaw’s original plans for Marktown provided housing for 8,000 people, but World War I forced a halt to construction. Only four of 30 sections were completed.
(Photo: Lee Lewellen)
Marktown is listed in the National Register of Historic Places based on its unusual Old World architecture and the snapshot it provides of young industrial America. The buildings were converted to private ownership in 1941. Today, a quarter of Marktown’s homes are vacant, and well-preserved cottages alternate with dilapidated ones.
Preserving Marktown and its history faces many challenges, including pressures from the adjacent BP oil refinery and demolition of some original homes. The Marktown Preservation Society, led by resident Paul Myers, is trying to save the historic community. Indiana Landmarks holds preservation easements on 12 of the original houses.
In spite of the challenges, Marktown remains an active community, and a stroll around the neighborhood still has a distinctly European feel. But be careful—the original plan called for residents to park on the sidewalks, so be sure to walk in the streets.
For more information on Marktown, including information on tours, visit the Marktown Preservation Society website.
On August 19, residents of Marktown gathered to celebrate the community’s 100-year anniversary.
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