Hammond to name marina after former mayor
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The city of Hammond and the Hammond Port Authority will rededicate a popular location after the mayor who helped establish it. The Hammond Marina will be renamed after former mayor Thomas McDermott Sr. during a ceremony Friday afternoon.
McDermott was the driving force of the development of the $23 million marina on Lake Michigan in the late 1980s and early 90s. The marina was completed in 1991 with 1,000 new slips.
In 1996, the state awarded the city a casino license to build what is now Horseshoe Hammond Casino along the marine.
“Whenever I’m at the marina I always think about what my dad did up here,” McDermott’s son and Hammond’s current mayor, Thomas M. McDermott, Jr., said in a news release. “All the economic development dollars we have enjoyed as a city, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have the casino and marina. We’ve got my dad to thank for that and I think renaming the marina is a fitting tribute.”
Hammond Port Authority Director Milan Kruszynski echoed that sentiment, saying the city wouldn’t have the economic engine that has helped the city thrive for the past 30 years.
With the rededication, the marina will be known as the Thomas M. McDermott, Sr. Hammond Marina.
The rededication ceremony will take place at the marina at 701 Casino Center Drive at 3 p.m. on Friday.