The closest airport is certainly Gary/Chicago International Airport IATA: GYY, but there are a lot more flights coming into Chicago Midway IATA: MDW, which is about a 30 minute drive without heavy traffic.Īn old railroad tower on the IHB railroad cutting through Hammond See Tickets are $4.75 per way.Īmtrak offers limited service with a stop in the Robertsdale neighborhood of north Hammond. The South Shore Line, which stretches from Chicago's East Loop to Indiana's South Bend, has one stop in north Hammond (the first across the state line), and another literally on the East Chicago/south Hammond border. Both lead into the city coming from Chicago in the north, and are a far more interesting drive than the big highways. The biggest north south streets are Calumet Ave (US-41) and Indianapolis Blvd (IN-152). The big highways cutting east west across the city are I-90 and I-80/I-94, both of which head east towards Gary and I-65 towards Indianapolis, and west towards Chicago and its south suburbs. Most visitors will find themselves passing through or on business, but Chicagoans would do well to include it in a close-in Lake County day trip, if for no other reason than to get some good food, perhaps stock up on fireworks and cheap cigarettes, and realize that Chicagoland doesn't stop at the state line! While the industrial economy is not what it once was, Hammond is still in decent shape, with a big new casino, Horseshoe, drawing in visitors from the Chicagoland area. Its history and culture, as with nearly all of Indiana's Lake Michigan coast, is inextricably linked to a big blue-collar industrial workforce. It may come as a surprise to other Hoosiers that Hammond is the state's fifth largest city.

Horseshoe casino hammond from chicago