The town of Munster was incorporated as a community in 1907.

But the history of the landscape and earlier settlers dates even further.

It started with a small inn and tavern at the corner of Ridge Road and Colombia Avenue around 1845, operated by Allan and Julia Watkins Brass. The couple knew weary travelers made their way to Chicago along Ridge Road and needed a resting place and hot meal as a welcome respite from their journey.

It was first a simple structure originally operated as a small one-room tavern, built around 1837 by David Gibson. In 1845, the Brasses moved from New York and purchased the property to build the new, larger two-story inn on the south side of Ridge Road, branding the existing gathering area already popular with customers as “The Brass Tavern.” The couple credited their brisk business and the frequency of traffic on Ridge Road to the neighboring Dutch farmers who attracted truck drivers delivering produce, especially onions and seed onions, plucked from the fields and farms across the Illinois state line and “taken to the city.”

Today, the pub and bar area located off the lobby of The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster across Columbia Avenue and Kaske Homestead, is named The Brass Tavern in honor of the early roots in sipping success.

A robust business is the planted seed of future success for any new community. In 1925, the Munster Chamber of Commerce was born as a way to unite and support both existing businesses and new establishments.

Over the weekend, the Munster Chamber of Commerce is celebrating its 100th anniversary at the organization’s annual dinner and dance gala held in the main ballroom of The Center for Visual and Performing Arts. As a longtime journalist, I’ve written about Munster since my college days at Valparaiso University, including when I wrote about the opening of “the new Center for Visual and Performing Arts” ready to be unveiled in 1989.

My faith and ongoing interest in community history and preservation tied to my journalism credit are among the reasons I’m pleased and honored to be recognized as the 2025 “Citizen of the Year” by the Town of Munster and the Munster Chamber of Commerce.

Whether it’s my writing features, columns and stories to educate, inform or just inspire recollections and nostalgia, or it’s my marketing director duties at The Center for Visual and Performing Arts when welcoming dining and theater guests to escape to our beautiful world of art, music, fine dining and entertainment, I’m grateful for a role that encourages smiles and fond memories.

Each year, the Munster Chamber of Commerce dreams up a clever theme and imaginative décor idea for the annual gala. In the past, themes have included the 1920s era of “The Great Gatsby,” “City of Lights” Paris, and New York’s disco destinations of the 1970s Studio 54.

Once before, in January 2017, I found myself accepting an award at this same gala event. It was the annual community “beautification” award plaque and it was presented to The Center for Visual and Performing Arts for the recent addition of the new Woodside Terrace outside patio adjacent to the ballroom. My supervisor, the late Mylinda Cane, asked me to attend and accept the award.

In 1989, philanthropist and real estate visionary Don Powers was named “Citizen of the Year,” and one of my arts advocate mentors and predecessors at the CVPA, John Mybeck, was bestowed that same honor in 2006, and couple Cal and Cathy Bellamy received the honor in 2003.

In recent years, Pat Popa (2020), Wendy Mis (2021), Damian Rico (2022) and Brad Hemingway (2023) have accepted the same distinction.

For 2025 recognition, Sherry Sink of Superior Air-Ground Ambulance Service has been named “volunteer of the year.”

Gourmet Goddess entrepreneur Katie Sannito is the current president of the Munster Chamber of Commerce. For more information about Saturday’s event or the Munster Chamber of Commerce, call 219-836-5549 or go to www.munsterchamber.org.

Philip Potempa is a journalist, author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center.

pmpotempa@powershealth.org