Anybody remember traveling I-94 before this "missing link" was completed and having to exit/get back on the expressway at U.S. 421 in Michigan City or having to exit/get back on the expressway at Ripley St. in what was then called East Gary (The City of East Gary, Indiana was renamed Lake Station in 1977.)

I stopped in at the T/A travel center in Porter at U.S. 20 and I-94 a while back and they had a mural painted on the wall of a historical time line documenting our area highways. U.S. 12 was completed in 1925, U.S. 20 was completed in 1931 and the Indiana Toll Road was completed in 1956.

Actually the original "missing link" ran from Exit 1 in New Buffalo, MI to Ripley Street in Lake Station. The flow of traffic went from I 94 in New Buffalo straight south on Highway 39 where the traffic would then enter the Indiana Toll Road at the La Porte exit/ entrance. Traffic would be backed up, on summer holiday afternoons, for miles.

I can remember when I was a young child growning up in Portage and I could hear the jack hammers and construction vehicles from my front yard building the missing link.

My dad worked in Gary and had to take I-94 to/from Grant St. and was elated when he didn't have to go to/from Ripley St. in Lake Station to catch the expressway anymore.

I found this scan from the 1970-1971 road map, before the missing link was finished eastbouund I-94 terminated at Burns Harbor and westbound I-94 terminated at exit 1 in New Buffalo:

I found this scan from the 1970-1971 road map, before the missing link was finished eastbouund I-94 terminated at highway 249 in Portage and westbound I-94 terminated at exit 1 La Porte Road in New Buffalo: