La Porte, Indiana - Quite a nice small city

[rob_1412]

Over the past ten years I've driven through La Porte many times en route to Michigan City to catch a South Shore train to Chicago, but I never took time to stop and look around. Last Tuesday, June 12, I allowed time for that and I'm glad I did. The downtown is clean and pleasant and fairly active, and there are some grand and gracious old homes in the historic district.

Here's a small sampler of what I saw. There are two pages with over a hundred photos here

[Rural King]

LaPorte has a great and vibrant downtown from what I have seen passing through, always a lot of street activity on the square, which is as the pictures show full of great well maintained structures. I think its courthouse is pretty stunning, but then again Indiana is full of stunning courthouses.

Thanks for sharing these great pics Rob!

[frank1431]

LaPorte has a very extensive park system considering its small population and is very nice. However, LaPorte is plagued with unbelievable money problems. On going lawsuits form ADA, a mayor quoted saying the person he would most like to be is the Czar of Russia, employee pay that is the lowest in the three counties on central time and being a city full of people that think they are horribly over tax has created a very tense feeling of citizenship. LaPorte is just a little bit too far off the main path to be something special. The only saving grace that LaPorte can hope for is if the plans for an intermodal facility to be built just south of town go through. Odds are it will not happen because farmers will not sell their very productive land for development. If any thing is going to happen in LaPorte county it will be in Michigan City.

[Rural King]

^ Thanks for the update on LaPorte. I had not heard it was having such bad financial issues lately; but had read where the county was trying to get the inter-modal facility, which would be a great economic asset for county if established. Hopefully it will be. There is a lot of potential for NWIN IMO if things are planned and developed properly in the coming years, as a significant portion of the tertiary economic growth from Chicago seems destined to increasingly push over into the Indiana side of the metro area.

Welcome to the forum frank! Glad to have a NWIN member on the boards! Look forward to hopefully more posts from you about whats going on up there in the Calumet region.

[mgman]

^ Thanks for the update on LaPorte. I had not heard it was having such bad financial issues lately; but had read where the county was trying to get the inter-modal facility, which would be a great economic asset for county if established. Hopefully it will be. There is a lot of potential for NWIN IMO if things are planned and developed properly in the coming years, as a significant portion of the tertiary economic growth from Chicago seems destined to increasingly push over into the Indiana side of the metro area.

Welcome to the forum frank! Glad to have a NWIN member on the boards! Look forward to hopefully more posts from you about whats going on up there in the Calumet region.