Frank Pirosko of Hammond talked about hunting ducks and catching snapping turtles in the marshy, wooded area across from Wolf Lake, along Calumet Avenue. “It was good times growing up here in the ’50s and ’60s,” he said. “There were two freshwater lakes there and we always stayed out ’til dark.”

Sue Ellen Ross, Post Tribune

I did a lot of duck hunting out on Wolf Lake. We had a spit, a spit out on the south end, and did quite a bit of duck hunting out there in the ’50s, in the early ’60s, and we used to do real good. A little bit of trapping, the trapping was done over here [George Lake]. Iceboating, we did a lot of ice-boating, swimming, fishing.

Frank Pirosko, Whiting, IN

Practicing driving and making out (sort of).

Betty Paul, Beecher, IL

“It’s way more entertaining than just sitting in front of a TV.”

Teenager Payton Preboy, Munster, IN

I was here before the [Wolf] Lake was filled in; 70 years ago I was making a living trapping muskrats, and I made more money than workin’, you know. Everywhere you looked used to be marsh. Between Sheffield and Calumet—big marsh—it’s all gone....There was a guy who trapped there....He made fur coats out of ‘em [muskrats] for his mother, you know? It’s different now. Everything’s filled in...near the racetrack, there was Camp Koch; I would see nobody around then--not anybody...Camp Koch was an old guy from WWI and he had his eye shot out. And he lived as a hermit and he rented boats; 15 cents an hour.... Mean guy too. Right here off of Sheffield.
Dead Dog Island? It was right where the pavilion is now by Wolf Lake. That was all swamp and the road and an island. And there was a guy who lived there named Stack. He lived on that island. Then Irene Knish used to rent boats right...where the channel is. [She] was a squatter there that used to rent [metal] boats.

Ed Smutniak, Whiting, IN