- Here's a place where you can still catch one of Samuel Insull's interurbans, Millennium Station.

(upbeat music) It's the South Shore Line and it takes you across northwest Indiana all the way to South Bend.

Man, we are flying.

(upbeat music) Samuel Insull would be happy about this.

(upbeat music) The South Shore Line's Jason Glass describes what made interurbans special in their heyday and today.

- You know, growing up in northwest Indiana, you don't feel like you're part of the big city, you know, like Chicago.

But you could just hop on the train and go there.

You don't have to fight traffic, you don't even have to have a driver's license.

You can see the sights of Chicago.

- [Geoffrey] It was also a way for Chicagoans to see the sights of Northwest Indiana.

That was Samuel Insull's big idea when he bought the line in 1925 and launched a campaign with glamorous posters promoting the region.

- Come out and hike, come out and have picnics, and then ideally come live here and buy his power while you're at it.

(chuckles) - Right, 'cause he ran the electric utility.

(train horn blaring) The South Shore Line's Nicole Barker met me at the Beverly Shores Station in the Indiana Dunes.

He was pretty crafty about, you know, he wasn't just interested in transportation.

- Sam Insull was interested in making money and in developing this area to help him make money.

- [Geoffrey] He built stations in this charming Spanish Mediterranean style.

This is one of only two that survive, and the only one still used as a train station.

In Michigan City, Indiana the train used to run right down the middle of the street, another quirk of the interurbans, which were sort of a cross between street cars and trains.

- So the train had to go really slow through town so that we could make sure everybody could get out the way before we went through.

- [Geoffrey] The Great Depression ruined Samuel Insull and his investors.

But it was the automobile age that doomed the interurbans.

The Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin abruptly shut down for good in the middle of the day on July 3rd, 1957, stranding commuters who had taken the train downtown that morning.

- We're really the last interurban railroad across the country.

(upbeat music) - A little bit of pride in the history of it?

- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get that a lot when you work for the South Shore in this area.

You wear a South Shore shirt out somewhere to the grocery store somewhere that everybody recognizes it.

Everybody wants to talk to you, ask you questions.

- The only other place you can ride an interurban today is at a museum.

Some beautifully restored Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin cars still run on an actual remnant of the old line owned and operated by the Fox River Trolley Museum.

(train cars whirring) (train wheels clacking)