GARY, Lake Ind., the seat of the largest steel industry in the United States, and the largest as well as youngest city in the northwestern part of the State, is situated at the extreme southern end of Lake Michigan, 10 miles east of the Indiana-Illinois State line, 26 miles southeast of the heart of Chicago and 163 miles northwest of Indianapolis. The city of Gary was founded in April 1906, when the site was an almost impenetrable wilderness of swamps and sand dunes. The population in 1910, according to the Federal census, was 16,802; in 1916, 40,000. The city limits em brace a territory extending along the shore of Lake Michigan a distance of seven miles and extending inland a distance of five and three fourths miles. The general elevation of the site occupied by the city is 30 feet above the lake, the entire site being covered with a layer of fine sand to a depth of 80 feet, once form ing the bed of Lake Michigan when that body of water extended four miles south of the present shore line. The site of the city is traversed from east to west by two rivers, the Grand and Little Calumet, both of them sus ceptible of being converted into vast inner lake harbors, having 28 miles of water frontage. Gary has 70 miles of improved. streets, 100 miles of cement sidewalks, 60 miles of main and lateral sewers, 34 miles of electric street railway tracks, two interurban railway lines passing through the city, two other inter urban lines entering the city and making it their terminus, with a total of 455 miles of tracks, seven trunk lines of steam railroads and two belt and terminal lines connecting the city directly with the 32 trunk line railroads entering the Chicago-Gary region. In addition there is a splendid harbor accommodating the largest ore vessels on the Great Lakes, con structed by the Indiana Steel Company —(a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corpo ration) and used in conveying iron ores from the northern mines to the Gary furnaces and in carrying the steel and coke output of vast local industries to all parts of the United States and Canada reached by water trans portation.
Equipment.— In 1916 thie city of Gary pos sessed seven banks with an aggregate capital of $575,000; surplus, $139,500; deposits, $4, 230,000, 24 churches, three hospitals, a Young Men's Christian Association building posting $250,000, a public library building costing 05, , two of the finest and largest public school buildings in the Middle West, aggregating in cost $475,000, three other schoolhouses cost ing $150,000. Broadway, Fifth avenue and Washington street, the principal business streets of the city, are lined with handsome business blocks, Gary Theatre, banks, hotels and public buildings, while the residence streets and ave nues are graced with hundreds of handsome homes and beautiful churches and schools, both public and parochiaL The city is splendidly equipped with auto patrol and fire engines used by the metropolitan police force and the fire department of the city. Water for domestic purposes and drinking is drawn from Lake Michigan in inexhaustible quantities, while all other public utilities, such as gas, electric lights. and tele ihone service, are adequate for a city of 250,i t 1 inhabitants.
Expenditures.— Gary was founded by the United States Steel Corporation, which, up to 31 Dec, 1916, had expended $85,000,000 in build ing steel furnaces, coke ovens, rail mills, axle mills, merchant mills, sheet and tin plate plants, structural steel works, pumping stations, elec trical power plants, benzol works, Portland cement works, ore docks, machine shops and foundries and a corporation hospital, which, when fully equipped, cost nearly half a mil lion dollars. In addition to this expenditure, the corporation, through its subsidiary concerns, expended in five years the sum of $15,000,000 on the improvement of the city and in con structing homes for its officials and employees. A further appropriation of $40,000,000 has been made by the steel corporation for extensions and improvements of its various local plants.