LAPORTE — He first found fame by inventing a toy that's sold in stores a century later, then as an architect.
John Lloyd Wright, creator of Lincoln Logs, is one of six people who will have their names attached to bridges in LaPorte County. Wright's is slated for Michigan City.
The LaPorte County Commissioners recently accepted nominations from a committee under a program established in 2020 to highlight people with great legacies who lived in LaPorte County.
“It’s a recognition of our history and those who have come before us,” commission President Joe Haney said.
Wright obtained a patent in 1920 for his Lincoln Logs: Notches in the three-quarter-inch-diameter wooden pegs allow them to interlock, letting users make log cabins and other miniature structures.
LaPorte County Historian Bruce Johnson said Wright came up with the idea when he was an architect in training, working with his famous father, Frank Lloyd Wright, in Japan.
Johnson said interlocking log beams designed by the elder Wright were used in the construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to make the building earthquake-resistant.
He said the younger Wright used the interlocking concept in his design of the toy logs, named in honor of the nation’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and grew up in log cabins in southern Indiana and Illinois, where his family migrated.
In 1999, Lincoln Logs were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York.
“What was said to be one of the first toys promoted for both boys and girls became a huge success,” Johnson said.
Wright, originally from the Chicago area, moved in 1923 to Long Beach — 4½ miles northeast of Michigan City — where he was commissioned annually to design one or two buildings in the upscale lakefront community. His residential and public buildings often contained several floors.
“They were built on the hillsides of the dunes or along the shores of Lake Michigan” Johnson said. "His architecture reflected the natural beauty of the dunes with the colors of the sand, stone materials and wood shingles."
His nonresidential structures included Long Beach Elementary School in 1927 and Long Beach Town Hall in 1931.
Johnson said Wright's professional office was in the near century-old Warren Building, 717 Franklin St. in downtown Michigan City.
In 1946, Wright and his third wife moved to Southern California, where he continued having success designing buildings in the San Diego area.
He was 80 when died in 1972.
Johnson said Wright's niece was Anne Baxter, who was raised in Michigan City and shot to fame as an actress in Broadway plays, Hollywood movies and TV shows.
Wright’s name in white letters will be placed on a blue sign that will be fastened to the bridge over Trail Creek on East Street on the north side of Michigan City in the spring.
Eventually, Haney said, information about the people behind the names on the signs will be available on the LaPorte County government webpage.
Among the people honored in the program are Charlie Finley, who owned the three-time World Series-winning Oakland A’s until 1980; and Frederick C. Mennen, inventor of Jiffy Pop popcorn.
Finley died in 1996, Mennen in 1991.
The sign with Finley’s name is on the bridge above the Indiana Toll Road on Johnson Road, near the farm where he used to live just outside LaPorte. Mennen's bridge is on Fail Road over the Norfolk Southern tracks north of Ind. 2 on the city’s east side.
“There have been so many individuals from LaPorte County who have had an impact on the nation and the world itself,” Haney said. "So it’s good to show and recognize that and kind of put a spotlight on that."
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