Our Current Projects

Many of the projects listed below are in need of volunteers. Please consider offering your time.

Obituary Project.
Our society will be working on the years between 1930 and 1938 of the "Times." We need to have one group of people to help extract the obituaries from the papers and another group to enter the data for us. Anyone interested in working at home on this project will need to have the program Microsoft Excel. If you live nearby and would like to get out of the house one day a week or more, you can help extract. This might be a project you might consider. You must remember back in the 1930's there was no Obituary column so the whole paper must be read. We have found this very rewarding and have found some of our family and friends list in the paper. You might just learn about your family history with this project.

If this sounds like a project you would like to help with, then please contact Marlene Polster at 219-663-1434 or email  Marlene for more information.

Lake County Marriage Book Project.
We have a very short time to index the marriage books at the government center before they send them down to Indianapolis to have them stored at the state archives. We were told that we could index them; the government center is now in a rush to get them down there. We are need of as many local volunteers that we can get together to spend some time at the government center indexing these books. We have at least one hundred books that need to be done quickly. I will give out the forms and assign a book to each person to work on. You will be able to go to the government center any time you would like between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm. We have enough room for three at any given time. If you are available for this project please email Marlene Polster so she can start a list of volunteers and meet with you to get you started. Thanks for any help you can give us on this very important project.

Gary Screw & Bolt Project.
The Gary Screw & Bolt Company was a well known early employer in Gary. Founded in 1911 by a group of Pittsburgh Screw & Bolt Corporation executives, the local company was located on 20 acres of vacant land along 7th Avenue. With a workforce of less than 100 when it opened in 1912, employment grew to 700 by the 1940's and totaled over 900 by the mid-1950's.

As an important defense contractor during WWII, monthly production reached as much as 4,000 tons of finished bolts, nuts, and rivets, as well as threaded rods and special fasteners. In 1947, a major fire resulted in a 40 percent reduction in plant output; however, by 1951 the company directors authorized a $1  million modernization and expansion at the Gary plant complex.

Gary Screw & Bolt was acquired by the Modulus Division of RBS Industries. Unfortunately, by the 1980's the economic decline resulting from international competition resulted in the company filing for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The plant officially closed on December 31, 1986, and the equipment was sold to a liquidator.

NWIGS is in the process of indexing the names and information included in the employment records from 1915-1949. This index will be useful to those who have family members employed during this period.

Please contact Martha Latko if you are interested in learning more about the project details and/or volunteering to assist with data entering and proofing.