A development project will displace the Mascot Hall of Fame in Whiting. Staff photo by Joseph S. Pete
It's game over for Northwest Indiana's largest, splashiest and furriest museum.
The $18 million, 25,000-square-foot Mascot Hall of Fame and Interactive Children's Museum near the lakefront in Whiting will close for good this fall after being displaced by BP's plan to redevelop the area into offices.
"It is with sadness in our hearts that we must announce that the Mascot Hall of Fame will be closing in Whiting for good on September 14th," the museum posted on social media. "We have made quite a family in the 5+ years since we opened our doors. We have had the pleasure of sharing in hundreds of your special days and birthdays. We've had thousands and thousands of students visit for field trips. We've been able to fill gaps in the community with free and reduced programs, food banks, blood drives, backpack giveaways, sensory days, reading programs, and so much more. It has been an honor."
The three-story museum at 1851 Front St., Whiting employed five full-time workers and a dozen part-time workers who helped out during the busy summer season when it brought in many visitors headed to the beach or on road trips to nearby Chicago. All were employed by the city of Whiting, which spent around $700,000 a year to run the museum
Executive Director Karen Anaszewicz will move to another city position but the other employees have been offered severance. Anaszewicz said the museum and city were working to help them find new jobs, including helping high schoolers land new part-time gigs.
The festive Mascot Hall of Fame, an unmissable landmark in Whiting, occupies a modern glass-and-steel building with a giant googly-eyed face with a giant booger big enough to smoosh a Buick hanging from its nose and a hand holding up a Jumbotron television screen displaying upcoming events there. It drew visitors from all over the world since opening in late 2018 and was one of the Calumet Region's most heavily promoted attractions that hosted countless birthday parties and field trips from local schools. It got Northwest Indiana national media attention, including from ESPN, Sports Illustrated and local television stations from across the Midwest.
Founded by the original Phillie Phanatic David Raymond, the museum celebrates mascots like Globie from the Harlem Globetrotters, Lil' Red from the University of Nebraska, Lou Seal from the San Francisco Giants, Jaxson de Ville from the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Jazz Bear from the Utah Jazz.
"And the mascots! How lucky are we to have worked with the mascot community — such talent and kindness! It is magic when a mascot visits the MHOF. We will certainly miss the confetti! The Hall will go on! Until a new location is secured, the MHOF will continue online as it has always been," the museum posted on social media. "Let's not be sad, let's celebrate our years at the MHOF! Because just closing our doors would be boring... So, come to the MHOF on September 14th and celebrate 5 years of community, camaraderie, and confetti!"
The museum is bringing is Chris Cakes of Jeffersonville, which has been featured on the Food Network and set a Guinness World Record, for a pancake breakfast before the farewell bash on Sept. 14. More than a dozen mascots, including some from Chicago professional teams, will make appearances from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 14.
"We're not going out quietly," Anaszewicz said. "We're going out with confetti."
The Mascot Hall of Fame started out as an online-only hall that honored mascots in basketball, baseball, football, hockey and other sports, giving standouts the same immortality the most exceptional of the athletes they cheer on get in hallowed places like Cooperstown and Canton.
It operated online for years, enshrining new inductees like the Suns Gorilla, the Famous Chicken and Brutus Buckeye every year at a ceremony in Philadelphia. Former Former Mayor Joe Stahura brought a brick-and-mortar version to Whiting as part of a museum campus that was also supposed to include the Chicago Baseball Museum and a local history museum that focused on the Standard Oil Refinery.
But his vision never materialized after he was charged with tax fraud and left office, leaving the Mascot Hall of Fame on its own at the edge of downtown between the BP Whiting Refinery and the Whiting Lakefront Park. The city entertained BP's redevelopment proposal in part because the museum never became self-sustaining through sponsorships, memberships and admission fees.
Mayor Steve Spebar said the project would add a significant amount of assessed valuation to the small lakefront city of about 5,000 residents and could safeguard its fiscal future.
Raymond owns the intellectual property and is expected to revert the Hall of Fame to an online-only operation after the museum closes.
The museum was just named USA Today 10 Best's No. 1 Pop Culture Museum in the United States a few months ago and was described by the Indianapolis Star as "a piece of Disney right in Indiana."
"We're so proud of everything we've done for the mascot community," Anaszewicz said. "We're going out with happiness. We're going to have a balloon drop like you've never seen. We're going to celebrate and reminisce about our accomplishments."
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