>> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> ASHLEY: Coming up... >> BRANDON: Learn about the history of firefighting in Fort Wayne.

>> ASHLEY: Come on and do the locomotion with us.

>> BRANDON: And navigate Lake Michigan's nautical history.

>> ASHLEY: That's all on this episode of -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> BRANDON: Welcome to "Journey Indiana," I'm Brandon Wentz.

>> ASHLEY: And I'm Ashley Chilla.

And today, we're coming to you from the La Porte County Historical Society Museum.

Visitors to this eclectic museum can see a wide-ranging collection of artifacts that reflect the rich history of this northern Indiana county.

Whether you are interested in Indiana's automobile history, want to investigate a local murder mystery, or simply want to learn more about life in La Porte County, there's something that's sure to pique everyone's interest.

>> BRANDON: And we'll learn all about this fascinating place in just a bit.

But first, producer Nick Deel takes us to Allen County to heat things up at the Fort Wayne Firefighters Museum.

[ Siren ] >> It's easy to take for granted the speed and efficiency of today's modern firefighters.

Fortunately, visitors to the Fort Wayne Firefighters Museum can get an idea of how this storied profession came to be.

>> It is a museum that chronicles the history of not just the Fort Wayne Fire Department, but the fire service in general from the 1800s up through present day.

What we hope that people take away when they do come in here is to learn a little bit about our history, how far our firefighters have come, what they went through in the early days to get to where we are today.

>> In fact, many Fort Wayne firefighters' paths went through this very building.

>> The building itself was originally built in 1893 as a two-bay station.

And then the west side was added on in 1907, another two bays on the west side.

At its peak, there were 12 horses in this station.

Of course, the motorized came in, the horses all left, and it was an active station until 1972.

♪ >> Strolling through this fire house-turned museum, you can encounter more than 200 years of firefighting technology.

>> So the oldest equipment we have is hand pumpers, which is what the first fire trucks were.

They were hand pumpers that were used from the 1700s into the mid-1800s.

They were pushed to the fire by the firemen.

Ten guys would get on each side and literally hand pump the unit to get the water to flow through.

And as long as they wanted water, they had to pump that hand pumper.

If they stopped, the water stopped.

So then when the steam engines came in, that was a huge advancement in fire service.

They could pump multiple lines.

They were bigger pumps, and instead of having manpower to pump it, it was done by the steam.

So what that allowed was instead of needing 20 to 40 men, like you did on the hand pumper, it only took two men to operate the steam fire engine, which also allowed cities to then create paid professional firefighters because they could afford less men at the fire scene.

♪ Then you start getting into the more modern fire trucks.

They carried a lot more equipment on them.

They went from piston pumps to rotary pumps, and they were more powerful.

They could pump multiple lines, get a lot more water on the fire, carry a lot more equipment, more firefighters.

They were still different from today.

They didn't have roofs on them.

They were open cabs, and didn't really carry as much stuff as we have today.

>> But there's much more to see here than just fire engines.

The alarm room is dedicated to, you guessed it, the history of fire alarms.

>> In the 1870s, they would have been using street boxes.

And this is an example of a street box.

So if you had an emergency, you ran down to the local corner, and you would go to one of these boxes, open it up, flip that, and then wait.

Because the firemen were going to respond to that corner.

Every box had a different number.

And in the station, this would tick out that number, and it would ring on -- on a gong in the station one time, three times, two times.

And then the firefighters would look that number up in their card catalog, find 132, which -- Box 132.

And it told them what street corner it was on, who responded on the first, second and third alarm.

>> There's also a wing of the museum dedicated to advancements in protecting firefighters themselves.

>> Originally, they -- basically, they stood outside and threw water on the building from the outside if they could.

They went in a little bit, if it was just a room, one or two rooms, they could get close, but they threw water in; whereas, today, we go after the fire.

We will go into the buildings, go into the structures and try to find the seat of the fire and get as close to it as we can and get water on it as fast as we can to protect the rest of the building.

>> On top of his duties at the museum, Dennis Giere is a full-time Fort Wayne firefighter, and is in his 35th year of service.

And so, for him, these vehicles and artifacts are a vital connection to the past.

>> Oh, I think it's important, at least for the firefighters to know where we came from, what hardships the previous firefighters had to get us to where we are today, and how the advancements in technology and everything have really helped our -- our service and allowed us to be better firefighters.

As far as the public goes, it's nice to have this history so they can see how far we've come, and a lot of that stuff we have down here at the museum that they can see what we do.

♪ >> BRANDON: You know, I realize that it's probably every young boy's dream to be a firefighter, but looking through that museum, like, even -- even when I got into my 20s and my 30s, like, I still had that desire, but by then I was far too old to start.

So it was really cool to go through and see a lot of the history they have preserved there.

>> ASHLEY: I don't know, Brandon, I think you might have a career as a firefighter ahead of you.

>> BRANDON: Want to learn more?

Head to fortwaynefiremuseum.com.

>> ASHLEY: Earlier, we caught up with La Porte County historian Bruce Johnson to learn all about this interesting place.

>> La Porte County Historical Society was founded in 1906.

And our goal was to preserve the history of La Porte County through documents, artifacts and photographs.

Dr. Peter Kesling was an orthodontist here in La Porte County.

He had 50 different patents in orthodontics, and that's how he earned his fortune.

At the same time, he was collecting vintage automobiles, and he built this building in 1993 for his automobile collection.

There were about 50 different automobiles from different eras.

The La Porte County government was able to buy this building from Dr. Peter Kesling.

He used the money to build a three-story addition in the back of the building so that the top floor would be able to be used for his vintage automobiles, and then the rest of the building would be used for our La Porte County Historical Society Museum.

What's really special about this automobile collection is that several of these automobiles were made here in Indiana.

For example, the Auburn and the Cord automobiles were built in Auburn, Indiana.

Then we have the Duesenberg, which was made in Indianapolis, and the Studebaker made in South Bend.

We have the W.A.

Jones weapons collection here in the museum.

He had a foundry in Chicago.

When he retired, he built a home here in La Porte.

And with him, he brought about 1,000 weapons from his weapon collection that he collected from all over the world.

Bella Gunness immigrated from Norway when she was 21 years old in 1881 to Chicago.

There she was married to Mads Sorenson, and they took in foster children.

Mysteriously, these children were passing away, and Mr. Sorenson also passed away mysteriously.

Because the neighbors were getting suspicious, she decided to buy a farm here in La Porte, Indiana.

And in 1908, there was a fire at her farm.

Her house burned down.

And after the house burned down, it was discovered that there were bodies buried on her farm.

She killed at least 21 people.

When people came here to La Porte to watch the digging for several days, there were between 10,000 and 15,000 people, and they carved their names and where they were from on the buildings on her farm.

And in our exhibit, we have a wall from her chicken coop that shows the names of people and where they were from, from as far as Tacoma, Washington, to Boston, Massachusetts.

One thing that's very special about our museum is our period rooms.

The oldest we have is the pioneer period, which is around 1829, or the early 1830s.

Then we move on to the empire room from the 1840s to the 1850s.

And then we have three Victorian era rooms.

In our 1950s room, we have furniture designed by the famous sculptor and artist Isamu Noguchi.

Isamu Noguchi came to La Porte when he was 13 years old to go to the Interlaken Academy.

After he graduated from La Porte High School, he became very famous as a sculptor and an artist in designing furniture.

His furniture was very modern at that time period, and is still very, very popular today.

♪ What's really special about our museum is that we are not too small, and yet we are not too overwhelming like other larger museums.

We have just the right amount of things to see, from pioneer rooms to vintage automobiles.

And when you leave, you think, no, we've got to come back.

>> ASHLEY: Brandon, after walking around this place, this is like, um, many of the different places that we've visited over the past six years all put into one building.

Wouldn't you agree?

>> BRANDON: Yeah, there's a lot of elements here of history revolving around so many different themes of life that it kind of encompasses a lot of the other museums we've seen.

>> ASHLEY: Absolutely.

Want to learn more?

Head to laportecountyhistory.org.

>> Up next, producer Todd Gould takes us full speed ahead to the Monon Connection Train Museum in White County.

[ Train whistle ] ♪ >> It was the great mystery writer, Agatha Christie, who once penned, "Trains are wonderful.

To travel by train is to see nature and human beings, in fact, to see all of life."

There was a time when towns and townfolk were often defined by the railway.

Places where giant engines puffed noisily through villages on their way to far away destinations.

Some towns grew to be defined by the very nature of the railroad, such as in Monon, Indiana, home of the Hoosier Line, the train that moved people and products from place to place for decades during the early 20th century.

It is in this town, most appropriately, that one would find the Monon Connection Museum.

♪ >> The word Monon is a Potawatomi Indian word, and it means swiftly or quickly running water.

And so I think as an advertising thing, when they started calling the rail line the Monon, it was because, you know, they were thinking quickly running passenger service, swiftly running freight service.

And then when the railroad became more predominant, it was a better way to travel.

It was a better way to haul things.

It was probably much quicker than trying to travel the other way.

A lot of people didn't have cars and so that was -- that was the way to travel.

♪ >> The Monon Connection Museum is a tribute to a time gone by.

It's packed with full-sized train memorabilia, as far as the eye can see.

The museum is a veritable feast of eye candy for those interested in Indiana's rich railroad history.

All mightily displayed on an acre of land just off U.S. 421, one mile north of the town's only stoplight.

♪ >> We have the largest collection of Monon rolling stock in the country.

We've got a steam-powered crane.

We've got boxcars.

We've got three cabooses on property, one of them that you can -- when the museum is open, it's unlocked to the public, and you can go inside the caboose.

♪ >> There are more than 6500 items here.

Amazingly enough, most of the collection comes from one man, Dale Ward, who once managed a stone quarry in the area.

Ward began buying various pieces of railroad memorabilia for fun, and then just kept going and going and going.

For nearly 30 years, he gathered everything from model train pieces to full-sized train cars and other items that reflect Indiana's rich locomotive past.

♪ >> The reason he started collecting them was because he wanted to maintain history because he saw people throwing stuff away, throwing items away, lanterns, pictures, tickets, all of these items that were a part of the history of the railroad.

♪ >> One of the most impressive items in the collection is a posh 84-foot castle on wheels, the Flagler train car.

Henry Flagler was one of the early American titans of industry who partnered with John Rockefeller to create The Standard Oil Company.

Flagler was also a railway executive who had this car built in 1898 for his wife.

It features a private bedroom and dining car, Tiffany glass windows, a fireplace, and ornate woodworking throughout.

The car was eventually bought by Ike Duffy, a meat packing magnate from Anderson, Indiana, who then sold it to the Hulman family of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway fame.

>> These cars were definitely private owner cars, and these were the wealthy of the wealthiest.

They were referred to as palace cars.

Probably less than 200 of them made in that time period.

And probably -- there's probably less than 50 of them that still exist.

>> It's a warehouse-sized gallery, complete with a small restaurant and banquet room to boot.

The name Monon Connection Museum is perhaps apropos of this giant facility, not only because it traces the history of the connecting rail lines that once ran through Indiana.

It also provides visitors with a true connection to the past.

♪ >> I have multiple people telling me that when they come back a second or third time with other people, well, this must be new.

I didn't see it the last time.

Well, it's because there's so many items, it was probably here.

They just didn't see it the last time.

♪ >> BRANDON: Want to learn more?

Head to mononconnection.net.

>> ASHLEY: Next up, we're staying right here in La Porte County, where it's smooth sailing as producer John Timm explores Michigan City's Old Lighthouse Museum.

♪ >> In the 1850s and '60s, this was a very busy commercial harbor.

A lot of lumber was brought down from Michigan and stored here, put on railroad cars and sent all over the Midwest.

And there was a lot of other supplies that were brought by ship.

♪ This is the only lighthouse in Indiana.

This building was built in the 1850s, 1858.

The light you see at the top was the light for the harbor here.

Now, some people say, well, there's other lighthouses in Indiana, but to be a lighthouse, the lighthouse keepers had to live where the lighthouse was, and the light was here and the lighthouse keepers lived here.

We now have a light at the end of our pier, and everyone calls it a lighthouse, but technically, it's a pierhead light because no one could live there.

It's an empty tin can with a light on top of it.

♪ So this is the only lighthouse in Indiana, and we preserved it.

It's owned by the city of Michigan City, and the Michigan City Historical Society owns the contents inside.

>> Welcome to the Old Lighthouse Museum.

This is a Fresnel lens that you would find in any lighthouse.

It is a fourth order.

Developed by a Frenchman in the 1830s.

He was commissioned by the French government to increase the light of a lighthouse.

Now, this is not a light you would use in a lighthouse, but if you look inside, see how small our bulb is?

If you step back, you can see how it expanded.

Put a large light in there, and it would shine 8 or 10 miles out into the lake.

Every lighthouse in the world has this shape of Fresnel lens.

The largest ones on the ocean, you can actually walk into.

♪ The first one was built in the 1840s, and it was just a wood building, and it survived one year, but the second year, it was blown down during a gale in the winter.

So they built in 1858 the stone structure you see here.

And the light was here until 1904.

In 1904, they had built the pier here in Michigan City, the cement pier, and they had put a pierhead light there.

And the light was moved from here out to the end of the pier.

And then from then on, this was used as a home for the lighthouse keepers, but they would have to walk out to the pierhead one.

♪ The most famous lighthouse keeper in this particular building was a woman.

Her name was Harriet Colfax.

She ran this place from 1861 at the start of the Civil War 'til 1904.

She was responsible for the light at the very top.

Then also at the mouth of the harbor here, there was a small wooden pier with a post and a lantern.

She'd have to walk out and light that lantern, and then walk back, row across to the other side, and on another small pier walk out and light another lantern.

So at night, if a ship came in, they would know where the opening was for the pier.

She was responsible for those three lights.

If during the night any three of those were burnt out, washed out, blown out, she had to go out and relight them.

In 1904, they moved the light from here out to the end of the pier.

And she was 80, and she decided it was time to retire.

She's the longest serving lighthouse keeper, male or female, in one spot.

And she was here for 43 years.

She was an amazing lady.

♪ The Old Lighthouse Museum was the home for lighthouse keepers from 1904 until late 1930s, early '41 or '42, during World War II, the Coast Guard took it over and the lighthouse keepers were let go.

And it set empty for '40s, the '50s.

When I was growing up, it was an empty building.

And finally, the city took it over and the Michigan City Historical Society was given permission to create a museum on the inside.

Now, it was in terrible shape.

It took about seven or eight years to finally get it ready to be used as a museum.

It was in 1973 when they finally were able to open it up.

And right now we're celebrating our 50th anniversary as a museum.

♪ >> This is what we call the navigation room.

Many of the lights you would find in a harbor and on boats and different equipment that is on ships are listed here.

Also we have pictures of what the harbor looked like about 1900 when it was a busy commercial harbor.

Over here is a display case about Washington Park.

It was an amusement park about 1900.

We had sometimes as many as 10,000 people.

♪ This we call the shipwreck room.

This is a map of all the wrecks at this end of Lake Michigan.

This is Michigan City here.

Chicago is over here.

You will notice there are a lot of them right here, and that's because Lake Michigan at this end has a lot of sandbars.

These are a lot of the artifacts that were picked up.

Most of it is metal because the wood does disappear.

Here's a painting of a famous sand dune.

It was called Hoosier Slide.

Here's some photographs of it.

It was over 200 feet tall.

It's not there anymore.

A sand company bought it and they hauled all the sand down to Muncie to make the Ball canning jar.

♪ Here is the actual lens that was in this building and later moved out to the pier.

It's very unusual because of the copper plate on one side, because the light would shine 8 or 10 miles out in the lake, and it also would shine 8 or 10 miles into Michigan City.

And the people at this end of town couldn't sleep at night because that light was burning all night.

We have recreated a bedroom and a parlor the way it would look about 1900 when Harriet lived here.

This would be the parlor.

This would be the stove that heats the area.

We have books that they could read at night.

You can use a stereopticon.

Also we have a pump organ that still plays.

Here is a bedroom.

Very old sewing machine, some dolls, a bed with a straw mattress and rope springs, if you want to call them springs.

♪ We'll go up to where the actual light was that Harriet lit for 43 years.

♪ We are now where Harriet would have had her light, the Fresnel lens here, and she would light it at night.

Now, where the spiral staircase is, for 43 years, she had a straight ladder she climbed every night.

♪ One of our mottos up here in this part of Indiana is there's more than corn in Indiana because we have beautiful sand dunes, a national park, a state park, the Old Lighthouse Museum.

♪ Again, this is the only lighthouse in Indiana.

So we tell people who tour, they visited all the lighthouses right now if they come here.

♪ It was made in 1858, and it's a part of Michigan City history.

♪ >> BRANDON: So any thoughts on being the person who used to live and work in a lighthouse?

>> ASHLEY: Well, now that I have two small children, the idea of living by myself in a very quiet space where I just light candles and light lights, I mean, I think that sounds pretty peaceful.

Want to learn more?

Head to mchistorical.org.

>> BRANDON: And as always, we'd like to encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> ASHLEY: Just head to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

>> BRANDON: We also have a map future that allows you to see where we've been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

>> ASHLEY: Okay, Brandon, I feel like that DeLorean is calling your name.

I feel like we need to go explore.

>> BRANDON: Yeah.

>> ASHLEY: We'll see you next time on -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!