January INDIANA February PRESERPRESERVVAATIONISTTIONIST 1989 Marktown: a breath of fresh air amid the mills When the Calumet Region of Indiana experienced Shaw’s worker houses included six-room single an industrial and manufacturing boom during World cottages; four, six and seven-room duplex; and four War I, hosing for workers was in short supply in the and five-room quadruple houses. The seven-room area. Industrialist Clayton Mark figured this plan into duplex was intended to serve as a boarding house for his plans when he ex- six to twelve workers on panded his Chicago-based the second floor with the Mark Manufacturing host family residing on Company by erecting a the first floor. The steel mill in East Chicago architect achieved variety in 1914. in the designs by alternat- In order to fill the ing between hip roofs and need for housing and gable roofs, and by shopping facilities for his variously orienting the employees, Mark com- gable ends. missioned architect The original plans for Howard Van Doren Shaw Marktown had everything to design a model town. a small country village The result is Marktown, might need: houses, an area now listed as a stores, schools, a market historic district in the square, a garage complex, National Register of boarding houses, and Historic Places. even natural elements. Not many architects However, “industrial win the challenging expansion has eliminated opportunity of designing the fields, forests and an entire town, and the lake that once surrounded result of Shaw’s efforts the community,” accord- inevitably expresses his ing to Marktown resident views of industry and the Paul A. Myers, who has technological advance- spent years enthusiasti- ments of the day. In cally researching his contrast to his contempo- community’s history and raries Louis Sullivan and Shaw’s body of work. Frank Lloyd Wright, “Because Clayton Mark Shaw had no interest in sold his Indiana holdings creating an architecture in 1923, the plans for which would express the realities of twentieth-century Marktown were not fully realized,” Myers explains. life. Instead, his design for Marktown represents a “While only ten percent of the plans were executed, retreat to another country and another time. He at- 100% of what was built still exists today -- 100 tempted to create a gracious English country village in buildings containing 200 housing units and 3 commer- the rising shadow of East Chicago’s steel mills. cial buildings.” Before completing the Mark assignment Shaw The units have been privately owned since 1942. studied European worker enclaves, and a strong Perhaps their longevity is the best testament to the European feeling prevails in Marktown. The architect continuing validity of Shaw’s 1914 instincts about designed houses in five basic building types, all in the what makes a place truly liveable. Tudor Revival style. (continued on next page - reprinted with permission) d Unlike some of his innovative contemporaries, Shaw Hoosier ouevre preferred quieter, more traditional designs. His fundamen- Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw tal conservatism is reflected in houses such as the (1869-1926), designer of Marktown, is particularly Fairbanks Mansion in Indianapolis, which he created for known for the imposing mansions he created for U.S. Vice President Charles Warren Fairbanks in 1912 Midwestern industrialists and businessmen. The largest extant collection of his work may be found in Lake Forest, Illinois, a north shore suburb of Chicago. Shaw’s work in Indiana is not limited to Mark- town, however. His 1912 design for the Fairbanks Mansion at 20th and Meridian Streets in Indianapolis strongly resembles the larger Lake Forest home he built for Clayton Mark in 1913. The home of Charles Warren Fairbanks, U.S. Vice President from 1905- 1909, is now the headquarters for the Indianapolis Life Insurance Co., a corporate member of Historic Land- marks. According to Marktown resident Paul Myers, other fine Indiana examples of Shaw’s work include: Houseman Residence (1908), 3148 North Pennsylva- nia Street in Indianapolis; Schaffer Residence (1920) and Borely Residence (1926) at 1237 and 1329 East Jefferson Boulevard respectively in South Bend; Bell Plain Residence (1922), 7109 Knickerbocker in Hammond. Houseman Estate - Indianpolis, Indiana Schaffer Estate - South Bend, Indiana Del Plain Residence - Hammond, Indiana Erskine Estate - South Bend, Indiana November INDIANA December PRESERPRESERVVAATIONISTTIONIST 1997 The view from Cline Avenue Marktown is the partially realized Bridge in northern Lake vision of Chicago industrialist Clayton Mark, whose goal was to provide a County affords a feast for the humane and progressive quality of life eyes of those who recognize for employees of the adjacent steel the improtance of the Calumet plant operated by the Mark Manufac- Region’s industrial heritage. turing Company. Mark hired promi- nent Chicago-based architect Howard Steel mills and oil refineries Van Doren Shaw to design housing dominate the vistas, but and public buildings for what was intended to be a largely self-contained nesteld amidst the mighty multi-gabled homes which Saw community. expanse of industry is the adapted from rural English and Arts A fraction of Shaw’s design for and Crafts dwellings. fragile, almost precious, Marktown was completed in 1917, but Visiting Marktown today, one residential community of World War I and the sale of steel pant feels a sense of disappointment that to Youngstown Sheet and Tube Marktown the full extent of Shaw’s design for the Company in 1923 effectively curtailed community was never reached. And, the realization of Mark’s vision. Even although time has not been kind to all so, the community survived and of the historic buildings in Marktown, continues to exhibit both tenacity and all of the buildings dating from 1917 charm through its narrow streets (so have survived, offering terrific oppor- narrow that cars are parked on the sidewalks), its open spaces, and the tunities for today’s preservationists. extraordinary stucco-sheathing and ---- Written and photographed by Marsh Davis Director of Community Services, State Headquarters. November INDIANA December PRESERPRESERVVAATIONISTTIONIST 2002 Marktown’s narrow roads and graceful structures situated close together evoke the aesthetic of an English village despite the hulking steel mills and other signs of heavy industrialization that surround it. For more information, contact Paul Myers, president of the Marktown Preservation Society, 219-397-2239. structures divided into single, duplex, and quadruple family homes. Although, Marktown comprises nearly 200 units in five floor plans and Industrial legacy survives in historic 11 different exterior designs, creating a vibrant and varied streetscape. Shaw company town designed the community on an intimate Jim Guelcher, Director, Calumet Region Office scale virtually nonexistent in modern neighborhood design, where homes Today, the idea of living in a house known architect of both residential and turn inward and focus on the desires of owned by your company, sending your commercial structures. Shaw had their occupants. Marktown’s homes children to a school built by your established a reputation building stately facilitated external communication and company, and shopping in a store run and elegant homes for wealthy clients contact, creating a compact and vibrant by your company seems unimaginable, in Chicago’s northern suburbs, and he mixed-use community. if not a bit sinister. But a mere 100 carried many of the same architectural Remarkably preserved -- all the years ago, several company towns styles over into the much smaller buildings erected in 1917 survive -- existed on Chicago’s south side and in workers’ homes, shops, and community Marktown entered the National Regis- northwest Indiana. There, your co- centers of Marktown. ter of Historic Places in 1975, but it workers were also your neighbors, your Marktown’s original plan called faces significant challenges. Mark employer was also your landlord, and for housing for 8,000 employees as Manufacturing sold Marktown to the codes of conduct enforced at work well as a grade school, high school, Youngstown Sheet & Tube CO. in might also apply at home. post office, theater, and large park that 1923, which divested itself of the A remarkably preserved remnant of would buffer the residential enclave neighborhood in the midst of World this time remains in the form of from surrounding industries. War II, giving tenants the option to buy Marktown, a company torn built in America’s entry into World War I the homes they rented. Then, beginning 1917 in East Chicago, Indiana. prevented the full realization of the in the 1970s, many area steel mills Chicago industrialist Clayton Mark plan, but four of the 32 planned closed or downsized, causing an Sr., owner of Mark Manufacturing, saw sections were completed. These economic downturn in the Calumet the need for employee housing when he included three commercial buildings, Region. No longer a company town, built a steel plant in a largely underde- three supervisor homes, and 97 stucco many of Marktown’s homes need veloped area of northwest Indiana. He repair. Stucco is cracking hired Howard Van Doren Shaw, a well- and falling off in some places, and many houses Some industrialists built company need a level of reinvestment towns out of a desire to create that residents cannot afford. ideal communities, where they hoped physically clean living But for now at least, Mark- conditions would yield