CROWN POINT, IN- In recognition of overwhelming public demand, city officials in partnership with elected representatives of the government of Lake County announced Monday that a permanent memorial to the Burger King on Crown Point’s Main Street would replace the makeshift one that sprung up overnight that has been maintained for over 16 months by residents of the city and neighboring communities.
Consisting at first of a simple orange ribbon and a handful of votive candles, the memorial to the beloved and deeply missed eatery sprung up at the intersection of Crown Point’s Goldsborough and Main Streets alongside the city’s much loved Sherman tank, which serves as a memorial to the Armed Forces of the United States. The memorial for the Burger King appeared within 24 hours of the initial news that a kitchen fire had shuttered the establishment on the morning of October 24th, 2020.
“At first everyone I knew just assumed that they’d repair the damage from the fire and that they’d re-open in a few weeks” local elementary school teacher June Gwatboddle told reporters as she cleared a spray of flowers wilted by the icy February wind to make room for a large arrangement of roses sent by the local locksmith shop. “I think everyone just wanted to be able to do something to know that we weren’t forgetting; that we remembered how things are supposed to be. It only became more important to us when the first rumors started to circulate that it could be closer to the New Year before they reopened.”
“I’m glad the city has finally done something to put these people’s hearts at ease. I just wish we could do a hell of a lot more.”
-Crown Point Deputy DeShawn Morrison
Fire crews from Crown Point as well as Merrillville responded to the fire that would cause the restaurant to ultimately suspend operations indefinitely. A tense time in our nation’s history, the community struggled with the ensuing absence of the Burger King. The small vigil held at first by a handful of local fast-food enthusiasts soon grew to unpredictable size. Tributes, flowers, balloons, and even a local turnip truck featuring an airbrushed memorial mural boasting “home of the Whopper” on the side of its tow bed soon made their way to what would become the center of twenty-four-hour-a-day encampment of mourners, neighbors, former employees, and the media circus telling their story to America.
“We didn’t foresee the traffic issue that we’d eventually have on our hands in the first week or two” local deputy DeShawn Morrison told us, chuckling and shaking his head as he directed visitors to additional parking and detour routes several blocks West of the memorial where we caught up to him to ask him to share his experience with us. “(Local officials) told us we’d have increased traffic for a week at most before the colder winter temperatures would come and people would find something else to do. A new sub sandwich shop was going to open, people were going to lose interest. It just got bigger and bigger. Winter came and went, and still we’re out here. I’m glad the city has finally done something to put these people’s hearts at ease. I just wish we could do a hell of a lot more.”
The intersection, home to a Sherman tank that serves as a memorial to every armed conflict in the history of the United States, features three illuminated flag poles flying the flags of the state, the nation, and a flag in remembrance of our Nation’s Prisoners of War and those who remain missing in action. Morrison told us that’s why he thinks people went there first.
“I think it was something about the flags, the tank. They remind people we’re Americans. They remind people we’ve had hard times and we still made it. I think that’s the spirit these people have been holding on to each day out here.”
The town’s journey from the shock of its loss to Monday’s announcement of the memorial hasn’t always been without turbulence. In the summer months of 2021, a series of protests surrounding the memorial site took place demanding that the encampment be cleared so that Main Street traffic could be allowed to return.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one caller to The Field Notes Report’s tip line told us; “These people are insane. I just want to be able to go to and from work and get home to my family. Now I’m forced to drive five miles out of my way at ten miles an hour twice a day because they’ve got tents in the street. The smoke from all the fire pits they put up bothers my kids’ asthma, the garbage is piling up, and when it gets hot half of them aren’t wearing shoes. Ambulances have been having to have police escorts push them through the crowds. It’s not safe. We have laws against this kind of thing, and it needs to stop. Period.”
An official press release from the City of Crown Point stated Monday morning:
Too long, the people of Crown Point have been trapped in a place of waiting. Unable to return to life as they knew it, yet never given true closure as to the status of the Burger King and allowed to move on with life, this uncertainty has shown us who we are. Some of us have shown the world what it is to dream; To cling to those better angels of our nature and reject the belief that we should be less than our best selves. Others have looked to the future, unwilling to pay the cost of one more second waiting for life to begin again, for a second more of waiting is one less second that we live once more. These are both honorable values brought forth by our friends and neighbors in the spirit of saving this, our hometown.
The time to heal is at last here. With the dedication of this permanent memorial, we shall always remember the Burger King, the times we had there, and the night that took it from us. We shall also remember the brave men and women who fought so hard to keep it for us, both in fighting the fire, in signing the petitions, and surrounding the building in a human chain for several months under the mistaken belief that it was to be torn down.
With the raising of this great monument to this golden time in our past we must place our feet firmly in the soil ahead of us. We must march on to face the future shoulder-to-shoulder in the spirit of unity. We must go forward into the rest of our lives, not as a town unable to agree upon ending or maintaining the occupation of what was once a major intersection, but as one people and as one town.
The Town of Crown Point does not forget. Nor does it forgive. While the investigation into this wicked attack on our dining options has yet to produce any conclusive evidence, we assure you that until the day that justice is done, we shall not rest. Those who’ve struck this cowardly blow against our people will be punished mercilessly and their names blotted from our history.
-Official Statement, as loosely transcribed from a voicemail by iPhone’s e-mail preview
Occupants of the tent city, colloquially known as “Chicken Freiberg,” were given a grace period of six hours to decamp and relocate. At the time of this writing sirens echoed throughout Crown Point’s downtown area and the surrounding neighborhoods, though no arrests had been reported. Residents and visitors are advised to seek alternate routes and avoid the downtown area until municipal services can complete the removal of fires, rubbish, and those who remain chained to large objects in refusal to disperse.