Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1912 — Swindlers are Selling Lots in Kankakee Bottom for $500 Each. [ARTICLE]

Swindlers are Selling Lots in Kankakee Bottom for $500 Each.

Lake County Times. Evidences that out of town, real estate sharks are again palming off lots in the Kankakee river bottoms, thirty miles south of Gary, as property in the steel city, have come to light again. . In 1893 a coterie of Chicago real estple swindlers purchased several tracts of land in Eagle Creek town ship and subdivided the stuff. At the time the Chicago stockyards' intended to locate on ground what is now Gary and there was a big boom on property in the vicinity. Hundreds bought lots beneath the waters of the Kankakee only to find that they had been robbed. Of late some swindlers have been operating in Denver selling the same property to unsuspecting buyers and it is said that as much as S3OO and S4OO have been obtained for some lots that are fathoms below water. Some of the subdivisions where lots are being sold are known as Washington Park, Glen Ellyn Park, Riverside addition to Riverside A Tolleston Heights, South Tolleston addition, Elmhurst addition, etc. This property is located in section 34, Township 32, north Range 7. Eagle Creek township, Lake county. The property in question is several miles east of Lowell and at certain times of the year is submerged beneath the marsh waters. It is almost inaccessible.

Today a query was received from Denver wanting to know the value of lots in Ryan’s addition. Optimistic estimates would place the value of the lots at one dollar each and if more than three dollars was paid the buyer was “stung.” Not long ago a Chicago real estate shark sold a poor widow some of these lots, representing them as Gary property, at SSOO apiece.