I found a glass negative among a box of old Michigan City, Indiana, photos. It had no description or identifying information. It was a basketball game.
As I peered through the glass, I thought, what a strange gym, and wondered, where was it? The hunt began.
With no information to go by, I started with old Michigan City Elston yearbooks, narrowing down the uniforms that matched the ones in the photo then trying to identify the players. Fortunately the two players defending the basketball in this scene had distinctive hair and that gave me an assist, but it required a lot of hunting, guessing, and comparing different years to narrow down. The next step required a scan of two separate newspapers’ microfilm archives (the “Evening Dispatch” and “The News”) from November 1936 – March 1937, scrolling through every page of every day, hoping this image was used for a story. Eye strain and a sore wrist set in, and then, there it was.
When I finally found it, the result couldn’t have been more rewarding, or surprising–this game (Michigan City Elston vs. South Bend Washington) was played in the Studebaker Athletic Association club rooms on the fourth floor of a factory inside the Studebaker Automobile Company’s manufacturing complex. There’s even a passing reference to Coach Johnny Wooden.
Read Elwin Greening’s account of his trip to the gymnasium below–he found his visit that night just as interesting as I would have. (Michigan City Elston had a brand new auditorium completed just one month earlier).
The images and articles here represent hours of work to discover and share with you. Enjoy, and if you don’t already have one, please consider buying one of my books: https://matthewawerner.com/books/
