UNION, Ill. – White Castle restaurants and railroading would not appear to be linked, but volunteers at the Illinois Railway Museum are working to incorporate the famous White Castle facade into a 1950s street scene the museum is recreating. When volunteers realized that the oldest active Chicago-area White Castle restaurant in Whiting, Ind., was closing to be replaced by a new building on the same property, they sprang into action to ensure the piece of Americana wouldn’t vanish.
White Castle was the first national fast-food chain. Founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kan., by Billy Ingram, the chain spread across the Midwest by the early 1930s. Its business model included standardized restaurant designs, consistent branding, an emphasis on cleanliness, and low cost.
In 1935, the chain opened Whiting No. 1, the city’s first White Castle restaurant, on Indianapolis Boulevard at 119th Street. The building featured the typical castellated styling and newly developed prefabricated porcelain panels on the exterior. For its first five years, streetcars ran right past the door on their way between South Chicago and downtown East Chicago. It was remodeled in 1956, but it retains its porcelain-clad exterior. It closed at the end of March and will be replaced by a newly built structure on the same property.
Over the past five years the Illinois Railway Museum has begun creating a historic streetscape on its rural property, a streetscape that will someday have streetcars running down the center of the street. The goal is to create a typical 1950s “Main Street” with a variety of storefronts and other historic structures.
“When we learned that the White Castle in Whiting was being replaced, we thought about a way to adaptively reuse and display the facade of this iconic American scene,” said Dave Diamond, the museum’s Facilities General Manager. “It fits perfectly with IRM’s late-1950s Midwest Main Street project, and we have an immediate location for it to be recreated.”
Museum volunteers are working with White Castle to carefully remove the restaurant’s porcelain panels after it is decommissioned. The museum plans to rebuild the facade of the structure on its historic streetscape as time and funding permit. This will take place along with other additions to the streetscape, including the just-finished building housing the archives of the Chicago & North Western Historical Society and the planned construction of a large visitors center.
For more information, visit the IRM website.
If only for a White Castle on museum opening days….
White Castle brings back memories of having worked 3rd trick at E-L Rwy’s Croxton Yards P.D., CA1969, as they were open 24 hours then (now?), driving over to Tonnelle Ave. (U.S. Rte 1 & 9) for those mini burgers.
Saving history.
Streetscape is one thing, how about making it a functional White Castle on weekends when the vistors come? Grab a sack and jump on the passing trolley to the car barn.
Great idea! Especially as food at IRM is an on and off thing.
I have stopped at that White Castle numerous times when called to recrew trains for Amtrak. We would munch on them while sitting at the Hammond/Whiting station. Great news from IRM!!!!
They’re all over the place if you know where to look. When I lived in Boston in the late 80s there were no White Castles active anymore. But someone opened another restaurant in a former one replete with little fake ramparts. It was a middle eastern place called Moody’s Falafel Palace.
OMG. It’s STILL there with a different name.
https://boston.eater.com/2019/3/19/18272461/moodys-falafel-palace-aleppo-palace-changes-cambridge
My grandfather who worked for the PRR in Indianapolis but commuted from Seymour, IN, would bring a bag of White Castles home to my father, after his shift. I wonder how many railroaders frequented White Castle in the past?
Great job IRM!
“White Castle restaurants and railroading would not appear to be linked…” You are kidding, right?
This “streetscape” approach is used at the superb Crich Tramway Village in the UK. It is much less commented on than the myriad of steam preservation lines there, but it is a jewel! Details go to: https://www.tramway.co.uk/
Used to grab a few sliders from that location when I fired for Bill Patterson on the Penn-Central Whiting job 204 back in the late 60’s – early seventies, switching the refineries.
Cheers to IRM.
What a cool idea!