Munster & Crown Point, IN

Munster and Crown Point are the Northwest Indiana suburbs where Chicago-area families move for lower taxes and newer houses without giving up the region. Munster, on the state line south of Hammond, is a well-kept town of ranches and newer subdivisions with Community Hospital, Centennial Park’s golf course and the South Shore Line’s new Munster/Ridge Road station; Crown Point, the Lake County seat 15 miles south, has one of the best-preserved courthouse squares in the Midwest, a downtown of restaurants and shops around the 1878 courthouse, and subdivisions spreading in every direction. Both are 30 to 40 miles from the Loop.

Where it is

On the map, Munster sits along Calumet Avenue and Ridge Road at the Illinois line, south of Hammond and north of Dyer; Crown Point is south along I-65 and US 231, between Merrillville and Cedar Lake, with the courthouse square at Main and Joliet streets. The South Shore Line’s West Lake extension opened in 2025 with stops at Munster/Ridge Road, Munster/Dyer Main Street and Hammond’s South Hammond station, about an hour to Millennium Station; Crown Point has no train. I-80/94 and I-65 serve drivers, and US 30 crosses Crown Point’s north side. The Loop is 45 minutes to over an hour by car.

What to know if you’re moving here

Indiana’s tax cap and newer construction are the pitch, and the commute is the cost.

• Housing is ranches and subdivisions built from the 1950s on, with typical prices of roughly $250,000 to $600,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Parking is driveways and garages, and the South Shore stations in Munster have new lots.
• Public schools are the School Town of Munster and Crown Point Community School Corporation, both among the higher-rated districts in Northwest Indiana.
• Indiana caps homestead property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value, and the state income tax is a flat rate lower than Illinois’.
• Munster’s two new South Shore stops changed the commute in 2025; Crown Point residents still drive to I-65 or to a South Shore station.
• The drawback is distance from Chicago, and for Crown Point a US 30 corridor that has become a long strip of traffic and chains.

What to do if you’re visiting

Crown Point’s courthouse square is the walk; Munster’s parks and its two best-known food stops are a short drive off Calumet Avenue.

• Crown Point’s courthouse square around the 1878 Lake County Courthouse has restaurants, the basement courthouse shops, the Lake County Fair each August and, on the south side, Crown Point Antique Mall with about 80 dealers on three floors.
• The Old Sheriff’s House and Jail on South Main Street in Crown Point is where John Dillinger escaped in 1934, open for tours.
• Two blocks off the square, Crown Brewing has been pouring a World Beer Cup gold-medal brown ale since 2008, and Square Roots on Main Street does a burger of the month facing the courthouse.
• Munster’s dinner reservation is Café Borgia, the regional Italian restaurant Mike Jesso opened on Calumet Avenue in 1986, and the morning stop is Munster Donut, frying donuts on a stick since 1969.
• Beer pilgrims still drive to 3 Floyds Brewing on Indiana Parkway for Zombie Dust to go, though the brewpub is closed and only the retail kiosk is open.
• Centennial Park in Munster has a nine-hole golf course, a lake and the town’s summer concerts and Fourth of July fireworks.