In The Shadow of Chicago: The Magic of Marktown

By Lauri Apple in Miscellaneous on Sep 1, 2009 4:00PM

Designed by Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1917, East Chicago, Indiana's Marktown Historic District resembles a northern European village, except with smokestacks instead of windmills in the background. Referred to as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by some, and the "Brigadoon of Industrial Housing Complexes" by others, the neighborhood is named after Clayton Mark — a manufacturer of well points who, like many of us, decided one day that he needed his own steel plant to more fully achieve his goals and dreams. So in 1916, he purchased some land and hired on Shaw to design a community for his prospective proles. Shaw was a star of the architecture world: He had worked for William LeBaron Jenny, designed homes for several rich Chicago families, and collaborated with Ralph Cram on the Fourth Presbyterian Church on N. Michigan Ave. The end result was a 40-acre area built in the English Tudor Revival style.

Marktown has seen better days, as these photographs show. In 2006, it made the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana's Top Ten list of Endangered Historic Sites in the state, and it's not hard to see why: boarded up windows and doors, chipping paint and knocked-down basketball hoops are more likely to provoke tears than ooohs and ahhs. But some houses remain in decent shape. For example, one violet beauty (see photos) might have inspired Indiana Poet Laureate John Cougar Mellencamp to sing about purple houses instead of pink ones.

To learn about Marktown, take a Marktown Preservation Society tour this fall. Or do what we did and take a Sunday drive down with your camera and try to imagine what it would look like with some new paint jobs and window treatments.