Hammond

Home to roughly 78,000 people, the city of Hammond stretches south from the shore of Lake Michigan, right up against Chicago along the state line. Its outline is said to resemble Idaho. After decades of carrying a Rust Belt reputation, the city has bounced back since the turn of the twenty-first century.

Hammond took shape in the late 1800s as a railroad town, an industrial center, and a commercial crossroads. In 1920 an original National Football League team got its start here. Its lively local lore includes Flick's triple dog dare and the claim that John Dillinger never robbed a bank in town because of busy railroad crossings.

The city's fame has also spread through the work of humorist Jean Shepherd, whose stories about Ralphie's hunt for a BB gun became A Christmas Story. Hammond can also claim the secret behind Dairy Queen, groundbreaking CBS sportscaster Irv Cross, the Doublemint Twins, and, perhaps most tastily, Phil Smidt's frog legs.

The city's landmarks include First Baptist Church, the Ophelia Steen Center, the Hammond Public Library, and a Purdue campus. Trains still whistle through the Calumet Region at night, a reminder of the railroads that shaped the place.