South Shore Line Museum Project
Brand, website, content architecture, and ongoing site management for a nonprofit preserving the story of the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Railroad, one of America’s earliest electric interurbans, on its way to becoming a museum.
- Client
- South Shore Line Museum Project
- Organization
- Indiana 501(c)(3) nonprofit
- Collection
- 12 railcars and 45 years of archives
- Result
- The museum, open online at southshorelinemuseum.org
A museum’s worth of history, still waiting for its building
The South Shore Line Museum Project has spent 45 years collecting the rolling stock, hardware, and paper trail of the South Shore Line: twelve railcars, a 174-foot truss bridge, more than 10,000 images, 82 classic art posters, and over a thousand blueprints.
Before it can gather all of that under one roof, the project needed a home online: a place to tell the railroad’s whole story, from Jazz Age glamour to Northern Jim Crow, show donors and partners what’s already been saved, and invite the public aboard.
Brand
The round South Shore Line Museum Project logo, built to sit comfortably beside the railroad’s own classic emblems and posters.
Website
Designed and built southshorelinemuseum.org with director Mark Petrakis: one continuous ride through the mission, team, history, project, blog, ways to participate, galleries, and contact, framed in the line’s own archival photography and signature orange.
Content architecture
Shaped a book-length history into a timeline and 13 chapters, alongside the origin story, strategic goals, a proposed visitor experience, and a downloadable roster of every South Shore Line car from 1903 to 1984.
Interactive collection
Paired-image sliders for every car in the collection, each linking to its own history and interpretive plan, plus galleries of SSL photos and classic posters.
Fundraising & engagement
PayPal and Venmo giving, a mailing list, a contact form, and social links, so visitors can become supporters of the 501(c)(3).
Site management
Ongoing care and upkeep: updates, new blog posts and gallery additions, and keeping the site running smoothly as the project grows.
Delivered as director Mark Petrakis’s white-label design and development partner.
The project’s people, plans, and collection now have a public home, where donors, partners, historians, and folks who grew up riding the line can explore the South Shore Line story and help bring it under one roof.
“Our vision is to use the South Shore Line railroad as a portal for the exploration of history, technology, culture, and the evolution of life in Northwest Indiana.”
