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In November of 1909, on the night a Halloween party had apparently been held in the Kaske home, a small fire slowly spread as the family slept. The alarm was raised and the family escaped, saving some of their furniture including their piano, now in the possession of the Munster Historical Society. However, the sixty-year old landmark was totally destroyed. The old barn, located south of the home was not damaged. The next year, a new home, set further back from Ridge Road than was the old inn, was built by the neighboring Kooy brothers (members of the Society, upon digging in the dirt that was the foundation of the old inn, found pieces of pottery and nails).
The Kaske's daughter, Helen Bieker, who was to inherit the home and property, continued the family tradition of community involvement. Besides teaching at Hammond Technical High School and the University of Chicago, Mrs. Bieker was very active in the American Association of University Women and the Indiana Save the Dunes Council. Helen's husband, Lawrence, served a short term on the Munster Town Board.
As the town of Munster grew from 543 residents in 1910 to 20,000, sections of the farm were sold to provide space for housing and buildings serving the growing town. In spite of the fact that the inn was gone and the property was used as a private residence, the site's historical significance was not forgotten. In 1926, two years after Ridge Road was designated U.S. Highway 6, the Julia Watkins Brass Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution placed a historical marker at the site of the old Brass Tavern. The marker, a bronze plaque affixed to a granite boulder, was placed next to the sidewalk parallel to Ridge Road and rededicated in 1952. |
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At the turn of the century, the Stallbohm Inn stood in the middle of a growing Dutch agricultural village stretching along Ridge Road from Landing in Illinois eastward to Griffith in Indiana. Sixty or more families spaced themselves along this road comprising what 1900 historian T. H. Ball called a "Happy Valley." By 1909, Munster was a two-year old town and the Kaskes were active citizens in this thriving community. Hugo Kaske served as a judge, town clerk, member of the town board, and served on several town commissions. Wilhelmina's sister, Caroline Stallbohm, moved to Chicago where she worked as a personal secretary to social reformer Henry Demarest Lloyd. Her personal effects, found under the front porch by Brownie Scouts in 1989, included many photos and correspondence such as letters from Jane Addams (founder of Chicago's Hull House), Helen Keller, and dozens of Chicago-area and national reformers.
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