Michigan City, IN: Monon's Freight House and Sand Dunes

Wayne Hudak posted several historical photos of large sand dunes that used to be near Michigan City with the comment:

SAND SAND SAND and more SAND. NW Indiana sand has been well known for it's great quality for glass making. Photos are the Hoosier Slide. If people had not come along to save the Dunes we might have had no sand left! A great atrocity happened in Michigan City 100 years ago (it was completely gone by 1920) when the well known "Hoosier Slide" was mined out to glass makers, mainly Ball Glass in Muncie Indiana. The NIPSCO power plant in Michigan City now sits where the Hoosier Slide once existed. Another smaller sand mining operation existed until WW2 along the south side of US20 between County Line Rd and Ripley Street in Gary/Lake Station, where the Dunes Drive In sat. The Wabash RR serviced that mine and the area was called "Calumet" by the railroad. Miller's early days sand was heavily mined with as many as 100 railroad cars a day shipped to Chicago.

Mark-Patty Sadowski Wayne Hudak Another location in that area that might have been used for sand.The New York Central ,on the Porter line going through Portage had a spur that left the main line in a area in Portage between Driftwood and Tonia went north almost up to an area around I-94.I can recall going along I-94 in the 70’s and looking down and seeing tracks ending there.I did a search on Historic Aerials for the year 1951 and saw that the line ended in a area north of I-94.There were even railroad cars sitting on the north end of that line.In 1959 the area on the north end was gone.Thanks for another great story.
Wayne Hudak I remember when the "sand spur" was still there in the 80's. It served the Samuelson sand company. Usually Conrail gons sat at that location just north of Rt20. The line had been planned to connect with the SShore and NYC along Rt12 but, of course, never materialized. Wished I had taken photos!
Mark-Patty Sadowski Wayne Hudak Many Thanks.I assume the train crews would have come out of Gibson
Wayne Hudak Mark-Patty Sadowski I remember seeing CR push gons across Old Porter Road heading north as there was no runaround track on that spur. When trains came out of Gibson, they ran around the cars just east of Willowcreek. There were 2 runaround tracks there. (115 CAR SIDING)

The comments indicated that a lot of sand was mined from the south shore because the dunes were all along the south shore. If the sand had not been removed, there would have been no place for industry and towns. But I'm glad they preserved at least one dune. One advantage of having kids is that we visited Mount Baldy, at least a couple of times, long before a kid fell into a sink hole created by rotted tree trunks. The kids, and I, had fun going up and down that pile of sand.

One photo is of particular interest because Wayne shows where the Monon freight house was.

Wayne Hudak posted

Looking at a 1952 aerial photo, the freight house was about where Mateys is now.

William Shapotkin posted
Areal photo of Michigan City, IN looking south in 1967. Is that not the MONON station at left? (From facebook page "michigan city in .. a place to call home.")
Bob Lalich The building with the white facade facing Franklin St is the Monon freight station.