Had a great time again with our Hess Express Barrel Train at Munster’s 27th Annual National Night Out Against Crime Celebration on August 2nd. Thank you to the Munster Police Department and Officer James Ghrist for inviting us to be part of it. And to top it off, the train made it into The Times newspaper, too, with member Craig Hoot driving it!
Open House at our Franklin Center Museum, followed by our first Historical Walking Tour.
September 11th – 6 pm
Join us as we tour Broad Street’s 100 N and 100 S blocks to learn about some old-time businesses, the railroads and early Griffith citizens. This is a first for us, but a couple more tours are planned in coming weeks.
The Hess Express is running at the Fall Harvest Craft Festival in Central Park.
September 28-29 – 10 to 5 pm, weather permitting.
The Hess Express is running at Griffith’s Octoberfest in Central Park.
October 4, 5 & 6 – weather permitting. Friday – 4 pm to dusk; Saturday and Sunday – 1 pm to dusk.
A new Fun Fall event coming in late October. More details coming soon.
December – Santa dates To Be Announced in November.
If it’s late spring, it must be time for The Hess Express barrel train to start running at Central Market!
Central Market begins on May 10th, and our train will be there then, and every week until September, weather permitting. Rides cost only $2.
So bring the kids and grandkids to ride the train, and maybe buy a few Super 7 Raffle tickets, too!
The raffle is so named because it runs seven months, from now to mid-November and whatever we collect, we will split with the winner.
Tickets are $2, or 3 for $5, and will be available for purchase at our Central Market booth every Friday the train is running.
We will also be selling Super 7 tickets when the train runs at:
It’s been a busy summer for us, especially with The Hess Express, now pulled by our new tractor we’ve named SC’s Engine in honor of Sarah Cundiff who donated the funds for it! The train has been at Central Market most Friday nights, the Blues & BBQ event at Central Park the end of June, and the 4th of July parade up till now. Upcoming events str Labor Day’s Rock & Railfest, Public Safety & Community Day and for the first time, we’ll be running the train at the Fall Harvest Craft Festival the last weekend in September.
The dedication of our bronze plaques up at our Depot Museum on June 10th turned out wonderfully thanks to the hard work of so many people. Ken Karlstedt coordinated acquiring the plaques, which were funded by Griffith Operation Spotlight and The Legacy Foundation, and arranging for their placement on a brick pedestal. The plaques signify that both buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places and the Indiana Register of Historic Sites and Structures.
We are still working to digitize information on our artifacts, including photos, down at our Franklin Center museum, and we now have more than 8,000 searchable entries into our computer cataloging program. Our Franklin Museum is open on the first and third Saturdays from 10 till 2, (enter Door G) and if you have photos, articles or other documents you would like to share with us, bring them down. We can scan them, get the information about them, and you can take them back home with you.
To contact the Griffith Historical Society, email [email protected].
Griffith History Museums 