IF I HAD KNOWN 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 GAmY 
 
 IN 19 O 9 
 
Class I - ^- 
 
 Copyii^ht^J" 
 
 COPVKIGIIT DEPOSnV 
 
(4 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN" 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 GARY 
 
 IN 1909 
 
 By Will H. Moore 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 BARNARD & MILLER PRINT 
 
1- b :> > 
 
 Copyright, 1909, 
 
 Will H. Moore, 
 Chicago. 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two CoDies rtsceivcd 
 
 JUN lU lUUi^ 
 
 Copyrirm 
 
 CLASS A AXc N 
 ' COHY B, 
 
TO THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WIDE-AWAKE, SELF- 
 BETTERING PEOPLE INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECT 
 OF THIS BOOK, IT IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
FOR SOME OF THE DATA USED HEREIN, THE WRITER IS 
 UNDER OBLIGATION TO SOME OF THE OFFICIALS OF 
 THE STEEL COMPANY, BUT THEY ARE, TO NO EXTENT, 
 
 SPONSORS FOR THE ISSUANCE OF THIS VOLUME. 
 
THK ELI'X'TRIC BUILDINCi (in May, 19I)S). 
 The monster structure housing a quarter mile length of electric power engines. (See frontispiece.) 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY." 
 
 The true story of Gary is unbelievable. In the hope that the 
 reader may, after reading this book, have some degree of belief in the 
 facts, the writer here prepares the reader's faith by asserting that the 
 one (now operating) steel mill of the United States Steel JJo. at Gary (not 
 including the other vast plants there) is the largest enterprise of the human 
 race in all history unless it he the Krupp Gun Works in Germany, which 
 have been two generations coming into their prese?it pay roll of 45,000 
 employes. That this steel mill's capacity is seven-eighths of the total 
 capacity of all of the United States Steel Co.'s other mills in the United 
 States put together. That at this mill steel can be produced at less cost 
 than it has ever been produced or can be produced at any other mill now 
 existing. That these things mean that if for any period through les- 
 sened demand the United States Steel Co.'s production should fall off 
 one-half, all of the steel they make will be made at Gary, and all their 
 other steel mills in the country closed down until the demand increases. 
 
 That these things, with the resulting, uninterrupted pay-roll of over 
 a million dollars a week, and other existing conditions at Gary, further 
 mean the sure, swift and marvelous oncoming there of a second Pitts- 
 burgh — but smokeless, clean and attractive. 
 
"IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 Anotlier mai-ked peculiarity of Gary 
 is that few people know about it. It 
 is so near Chicago that it can be 
 reached in about an hour on any one 
 of perhaps fifty trains a day at a cost 
 of only a few dimes, and yet probably 
 only one Chicago man in ten thousand 
 knows about Gary and perhaps less 
 than one hundred knowing at all fully 
 about it. 
 
 By a peculiar contradiction of hu- 
 man action, Chicagoans would invest- 
 igate and know more about Gary if it 
 was a thousand miles away. It is so 
 near that they say on Tuesday, "We 
 will go Thui'sday, " and on Thursday, 
 "We will go Saturday," and they have 
 not gone. Scores are, however, now 
 interesting themselves in real estate 
 and business at Gary every week. 
 
 In the first months of Gary's exist- 
 ence the writer's attention was called 
 to it by friends and clients, interested 
 there, seeking his advice. He entered 
 upon investigations to qualify himself 
 to advise them, little thinking that it 
 would lead him to years of exhaustive 
 study of the most interesting subject 
 in his experience. He was favored by 
 having had thirty-five years of con- 
 stant experience in real estate in all 
 its phases. He found that among the 
 many officials of various corporations 
 that had most to do with the founding 
 of Gary, he had many personal ac- 
 quaintances willing to favor him with 
 valuable information, not generally 
 given. 
 
 He has had from the start a growing 
 conviction that Gary in its industrial 
 and municipal development and growth 
 is the phenomenon of the age. In 
 spite of increasing selling values of 
 real estate and his sharp lookout for 
 the development of boom conditions, he 
 has remained convinced that no such 
 condition exists or has existed. 
 
 He became so thoroughly posted, so 
 full of tlie subject, and found that so 
 
 many, even in Chicago, were so 
 astounded and interested in hearing 
 the facts, that he was easily persuaded 
 by his friends to the course he is now 
 taking. Though having much invested 
 at Gary, he has nothing there that is 
 for sale. 
 
 THE GARY OP THE PRESENT. 
 
 The reader will quickly realize that 
 in this book the writer aspires to no 
 literary reputation. Whenever he 
 could give the reader something better 
 from others he has done it, and if his 
 work is partly a compilation, the 
 writer is satisfied so long as it is doing 
 the best thing for the reader. 
 
 The Gary situation, as now assured, 
 is a steel mill built and owned by a 
 corporation known as the Indiana Steel 
 Company, which is one of the sub- 
 ordinate companies of the great United 
 States Steel Company. 
 
 Also the Steel Company's town site, 
 about a mile wide north and south, and 
 about two miles wide east and west. 
 
 Also the Steel Company's, about ten 
 thousand acres of land (see map), out 
 of which space has been provided and 
 purchased for the American Car and 
 Foundry Company, of over two hun- 
 dred acres ; also for the American 
 Bridge Company of about the same 
 amount; also about the same amount 
 for the American Steel and Wire Com- 
 pany and recently the Steel Company 
 has sold of its holdings 130 acres for 
 a site for the new mills of the Amer- 
 ican Locomotive Works. The extent 
 of these separate works and the forces 
 they will employ is set forth later. 
 
 The writer hopes that the reader will 
 feel enough compensated for buying 
 and reading this book to pardon a page 
 or two, somewhere herein, about the 
 writer's personal touch with the sub- 
 ject, in which some of the readers may 
 be interested. 
 
THE GARY OF THE PRESENT 
 
 In the year 1907 the author of this 
 book wrote as follows : 
 
 "I hereby submit a statement of facts that 
 will surprise and interest you. It is abovit 
 the wonderful — amazing conditions, present 
 and prospective, at Gary, Ind. — a business 
 enterprise unequaled in combined size, speed 
 and permanency in the world's history. 
 
 I have no real estate to sell there and rep- 
 resent no one that has, but I want to be 
 widely known as one well informed about 
 Gary and vicinity, and whose advice is of 
 value. 
 
 Thousands of men in and about Chicago are 
 investing largely in Seattle, Los Angeles, 
 etc., not knowing that right here at home, at 
 a location the corporate limits of which are 
 only five miles from the corporate limits of 
 Chicago, are combined investment and specu- 
 lative probabilities svirpassing probably any 
 that ever existed in the United States. 
 
 The United States Steel Company, at a cost 
 of over six million dollars, has quietly ac- 
 quired for permanent ownership and use 
 about 8,000 acres of land fronting on the 
 Southern shore of Lake Michigan for about 
 nine miles and extending back over a mile 
 and a half. 
 
 On this land the company is well started 
 in the outlay of over $100,000,000 for mod- 
 ern, permanent buildings for many of its nu- 
 merous constituent companies, and in the last 
 few months many thousands of men have been 
 at work and millions of money expended in 
 preparing topography of sites, extensive 
 cement foundations, cement-constructed har- 
 bor surroundings, canals, sewers, docks, rail- 
 ways and getting under roof numerous im- 
 mense buildings (at a reported cost of over 
 $10,000,000) for the Indiana Steel Company, 
 which will handle 5,000,000 tons of ore a year 
 and 2,500,000 tons of steel. Of the steel rails 
 alone the product will be 900,000 tons a year. 
 The portion of this one plant equipped for the 
 manufacture of rails will cost $2,500,000. 
 
 The extensive production at Indiana Harbor, 
 west of Gary, is from seven furnaces; the 
 Indiana Steel Company alone is building at 
 Gary one hundred furnaces. 
 
 Every advance known to science and iu- 
 dvistry will have its mark on these steel mills, 
 destined to soon be the most extensive in the 
 world in Ihe manufacture of steel and the 
 making of everything in which steel is the 
 prime factor. The machinery in the works 
 is very largely to be operated by electricity. 
 
 The harbor slip for the Company's lake 
 fleets, with their cargoes, is being completed 
 a mile long and will have a water depth of 
 twenty-five feet and will be two hundred and 
 fifty feet in width. The contract for the 
 harbor and docks alone is $1,500,000. 
 
 a capacity suflicient for the needs of the 
 entire works, is the only one so equipijed in 
 the Chicago district. Its location is east of 
 the Indiana Steel Company's plant. 
 
 This is not to be a smoky city; modern 
 methods enabling the extraction from the 
 smoke of all gases and fumes, which are used 
 again as fuel, the residue being practically 
 invisible. 
 
 The ore comes from the company's north- 
 ern mines, in the company's boats, and is un- 
 loaded at the company's extensive docks at a 
 cost of only a few cents a ton, and carried to 
 any and all parts of the works as desired. 
 
 This immense plant is only one of a group 
 of very large manufacturing plants to be 
 rapidly housed and provided with all modern 
 facilities. Among these are the American 
 Car and Foundry Company, which at Gary 
 alone will have a capacity of about 40,000 
 finished railroad cars annually, or one com- 
 pleted ear every six minutes, employing thou- 
 sands of men. 
 
 This company's plant will occupy two hun- 
 dred and twenty acres immediately west of 
 the space occupied by the Indiana Steel Com- 
 pany and farther west on the Steel Company's 
 premises, is to be built the plant of the colos- 
 sal American Bridge Company, and adjoining 
 it on the west is the location of the American 
 Steel and Wire Company, and next is the 
 Steel Company's Universal Portland Cement 
 plant. They produce seventeen thousand bar- 
 rels of cement daily. 
 
 These companies are expected to give em- 
 ployment to something like 50,000 workmen, 
 which is said to mean a population of over 
 150,000, besides the many thousands employed 
 by numerous adjoining independent com- 
 panies (many of which use large quantities 
 of the Steel Company's finished products), 
 and other thousands of trades people, railroad 
 operatives and the army of mechanics that 
 are building these unparalleled works and 
 this wonderful new city — to be larger than 
 Indianapolis, Milwaukee or Seattle, and built 
 in the shortest time in which any city of its 
 size was ever built so largely and permanently 
 of stone, brick and iron. 
 
 There are even now many miles of sewers, 
 an extended water supply system already in 
 use, and miles of substantially paved streets 
 and wide cement sidewalks. 
 
 The average natural ground level of the 
 Steel Compan3''s holdings, and thousands of 
 acres of adjacent property, is about fourteen 
 feet above the lake level, which is fully as 
 high as at Oakland, Kenwood or Hyde Park, 
 in Chicago. 
 
 Electric lines enabling the workmen to re- 
 side some miles from the works are so certain 
 that a livelj' fight is on as to who shall have 
 the franchises. 
 
 The company 's extensive coking plant, with The residence section is being converted 
 
10 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 from stretcnes of sand to black dirt and ela.y 
 sub-soil for grass and trees. The Steel Com- 
 pany's men in charge of this are said to have 
 reported this soil alone would cost one million 
 dollars and were told to go ahead. One con- 
 struction company has contracts for five mil- 
 lion dollars' worth of residences, costing from 
 $2,000 to $15,000. On the business . streets 
 only brick and stone can be used, and fire 
 ordinances are in force. City buildings, school 
 buildings, churches, clubs and public parks 
 are all being provided for. 
 
 that it will about double the Steel Company's 
 production for the entire United States. 
 
 June 1st of this year ended the Steel Com- 
 pany 's most prosperous year, and yet they 
 then reported on hand unfilled orders for 
 7,603,878 tons, being nearly a million tons 
 more than on June 1, 1906; and despite the 
 very large output for June and July of this 
 year, the unfilled orders are reported at over 
 seven million tons. 
 
 Within the last two years the Vanderbilt 
 
 JACKSON STREET NORTH FROM EIGHTH .\VENUE_IN NOVE.MBER, 1908. 
 
 Broadway, extending from one of the prin- 
 cipal entrances to the works, over two miles 
 south, is one hundred feet wide, with thirty- 
 foot alleys, and the paving and sidewalks are 
 not surpassed in Chicago. All underground 
 pipes, etc., are in the alleys. For the most 
 part, this development is being paid for by 
 the Steel Company through its subordinate 
 Land Company and the cost has been added 
 to the price of lots. 
 
 The water system, pumping works, sewer- 
 age, gas and electric light plants start with 
 a capacity for a population of three hundred 
 thousand people. 
 
 The company, at large expense, is straight- 
 ening and expanding the ' ' Grand Calumet ' ' 
 river, and it is expected that soon it will be 
 a ship canal, extending possibly to the Gulf. 
 This river is within the company's holdings 
 for about six miles. This location is geograph- 
 ically the "neck of the hour glass" through 
 which must pass most of the rail traffic be- 
 tween the great West and the East. 
 
 The vastness of this industrial plant is such 
 
 roads have purchased at Gary, wholly for local 
 railroad purposes, over 700 acres of laud and 
 the other railroads passing through the vicin- 
 ity have bought nearly as much. These pur- 
 chases are exclusive of what land has been 
 bought for expanded rights-of-way, and the 
 development and equipment of them alone rep- 
 resent a larger investment than that of some 
 entire manufacturing towns. I am reliably 
 informed that in the Gary vicinity the local 
 railroad lines, side tracks, etc., exclusive of 
 vast freight yards, are being increased 225 
 miles. 
 
 The railroads traversing this locality include 
 the trunk lines of the Baltimore & Ohio, the 
 Lake Shore, the Pennsylvania Lines, the Mich- 
 igan Southern, the Wabash, and also the In- 
 diana Harbor road, Chicago, Lake Shore & 
 Eastern, Indiana Harbor Belt Line, Gary & 
 Western, Chicago & Calumet Terminal, and the 
 Elgin, Joliet & Eastern (the Chicago outer 
 belt line). 
 
 The Steel Company is in no degree seeking 
 to reap the benefits of advancing values in the 
 
THE GARY OF THE PRESENT 
 
 11 
 
 real estate caused by their operations. The}' 
 have no real estate to sell except lots in their 
 town plat within the limits of the town of 
 Gary for a prompt improvement of a stipu- 
 lated use and kind, and withhold the deed 
 until it IS done and the property paid for. 
 
 The company is stimulating the building 
 by outsider of houses for the great army of 
 employes, and say they will build only as they 
 must. About one thousand houses, manj' of 
 them for the higher salaried employes, are 
 being completed. They sell houses to their 
 employes only. The above only applies to 
 the company's property. All other Gary prop- 
 erty is sold as elsewhere. 
 
 There is not, and will not be, any paternal- 
 ism, or corporate dominance of the affairs of 
 the city corporation of Gary, as the Steel Com- 
 pany has only one representative on the 
 Board of Trustees. 
 
 The company does, however, wisely domi- 
 nate the management and development of 
 their town site, and ssem in all things to be 
 surely effecting their evident intention to 
 make Gary in attractiveness to the eye and 
 enjoyment of the residents there the model 
 industrial city of the world. With their own 
 millions they are paving many miles of street, 
 putting in twenty-two inch iron water mains, 
 nine-foot sewers, cement sidewalks, an ex- 
 tensive and expensive pure water supply, and 
 condition all of their lot sale contracts so that 
 nothing but good residences and business 
 blocks can be built, requiring the improve- 
 ments to be completed within an agreed time 
 and withholding the deeds until it is done. 
 
 The owner of about fifty acres nearly a 
 mile south of the Steel Company's land 
 bought it less than one year ago at $363 per 
 acre and has since refused (wisely, I think,) 
 $550 per acre for it. 
 
 Thirty-seven acres located about two miles 
 from the main entrance to the Steel Com- 
 pany's works was bought within two years 
 for $50 per acre, and has since been resold, 
 first at $450 an acre and again at $500 per 
 acre. 
 
 Some fifteen j^ears ago a part of this land 
 was bought by a syndicate of Chicago packers 
 and it was given out that new stock yards 
 were to be built. It reallj' was bought to 
 force an issue with the management of the 
 Chicago Stock Yards, and succeeded. There 
 is, and has been, an extended impression that 
 a boom had existed and collapsed. The facts 
 are, the packers resold their land to the 
 United States Steel Company for about $1,350 
 an acre, being several times what they paid 
 for it, and they never built anything on it. 
 
 There are, of course, scores of similar illus- 
 trations of increasing values, and yet anyone 
 
 of intelligence, after going there, and consid- 
 ering the foregoing statements, can see that 
 boom conditions do not exist, and that the 
 causes for increasing values are keeping, and 
 are likely to keep, in the lead, and that future 
 advances, rapid as they will be, will continue 
 to be along the lines of conservative, perma- 
 nent values. TTie possible buyer should not 
 hold back an hour on any thought that a 
 ' ' boom' ' has matured and prices are high. 
 
 The average business man, inclined to in- 
 vest in Gary property, will need to do so 
 largely on the advice of someone who has a 
 right to his confidence and who has, with 
 unusual facilities, studied the svibject both in 
 its immensity and in its details. 
 
 This requires experience, mouths, and 
 money. The subject is vast and interesting. 
 There are so many things that affect the pres- 
 ent and probable future values (some' of them 
 difficult to learn, some of them confidential.) 
 
 Studying a map at home without much other 
 information is useless; one's first few visits 
 to Gary are merely bewildering and astound- 
 ing. From the bridge across the ' ' Grand Calu- 
 met' ' at the head of Broadway, the site of the 
 steel mills resembles Jackson Park, the winter 
 before the opening of the World's Fair, 
 
 It is impossible within a week, except 
 through advice, to learn much of significance, 
 and at the end of a week of deliberation and 
 investigation, selling prices have increased, or 
 the property being considered has been sold. 
 
 As quickly as I comprehended the situation 
 I decided to represent buyers rather than sell- 
 ers, confining myself to work on these lines for 
 possible buyers who know me, and whose con- 
 fidence I have or secure. Sellers interests are 
 looked after by scores of keen, well posted 
 agents, who, however honorable, are interested 
 in their side of the business only. Buyers need 
 intelligent advice from one not representing 
 sellers. If I did not feel sincerely certain that 
 I could save or make buyers much more tnan 
 my services cost them, I would not be in it. 
 
 I advise the prompt purchase of well lo- 
 cated acres at the right price, either in five or 
 ten-acre tracts, individually, or by a syndi- 
 cate of friends who can agree on a reselling 
 price. Advice as to lots is equally needed. 
 
 There is little trouble as to titles, as sell- 
 ers usually furnish title guarantees by the 
 Chicago Title and Trust C'ompanj', but a 
 buj'er should have legal guidance, and there 
 are good lawyers in Gary. 
 
 WILL H. MOOBE, 
 Eoom 839, 304 Dearborn St., Chicago. 
 Phone Central 881. 
 
 Chicago, Sept. 15, 1907. 
 
12 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 FOUNDATIONS FOR •■STO\ Ko ' iNo.^. 6 ANU B. 
 
 The above striking picture of construction at the mills shows the foundations of stoves Nos. 5 and 6, near the ore 
 i alongside the harbor. Stoves are always built in sets of fours. The round black foundations are steel T-rails 
 ed close together in order to reinforce the concrete which will continue the construction. In the iDackground are 
 
 pla „ - -- - 
 
 the two open-hearth furnace buildings, and the first section of the electricity building. 
 
 The toregoing was not printed until 
 now, having been prepared for only 
 those known to Avant it, being friends 
 of the writer's and their friends. The 
 very considerable business resulting 
 from it has proven satisfactory to all 
 concerned. In one slightly outlying 
 locality alone in which the writer was 
 among the first to predict advancing 
 values, he has purchased for clients 
 several acre tracts that since, measured 
 by actual offers, have more than dou- 
 bled in value. Some of his purchases 
 have been made for investing clients 
 who have never yet seen the property, 
 having given him the money for the 
 first payment with instructions to buy 
 something he thought good. Another, 
 an entire stranger at first, was, by mu- 
 tual friends, induced to rely wholly 
 and exclusively on the writer's advice 
 and assistance, through months of 
 tedious but successful negotiations for 
 a loM^ price. His investment has dou- 
 bled in less than a year, and will bring 
 
 him thousands more. To these people, 
 and scores of others, including banks, 
 the writer is in position to refer, after 
 a personal meeting or correspondence. 
 Others have come direct from home to 
 the writer's office, arranged for and 
 had his advice, and concluded pur- 
 chases alone. 
 
 For information of those who may 
 come to my Chicago office expecting to 
 advise with me about Gary investments, 
 I should say that whether I am here or 
 not, one of my assistants will arrange 
 and receive pay for an appointment for 
 some hour, that day or the next. This 
 does not api^ly to my personal friends 
 who would invest through me, if at 
 all. If you advise with me it is bet- 
 ter to do so before talking real estate 
 with any seller or seller's agent. After 
 an interview, I generally find myself in 
 position to either take such a client to 
 Gary, or send him with one of my well- 
 posted assistants, without further 
 charge. 
 
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE 
 
 13 
 
 My having nothing for sale at Gary 
 and its being Imown that scores of 
 probable buyers come to see me, causes 
 many owners of Gary property to let 
 me know what they have for sale, their 
 price, etc. 
 
 Where the prices are, in my judg- 
 inent, right, my client is given the 
 benefit of only such of these properties 
 as come within the kind he wants to 
 investigate. Then if he wants me to 
 negotiate a purchase, we can arrange 
 that. 
 
 In most cases we can arrange where- 
 by, fairly to you, any charge for my 
 services in negotiating and buying, 
 will be paid by the seller, which is 
 quite customary. In such case, the fee 
 paid is returned. (See last page.) 
 
 This is all in these pages about the 
 writer and his business. He does not 
 claim to be exclusively well informed 
 or reliable. Among those operating in 
 Gary real estate are scores of honor- 
 able, well-informed men, any of whom 
 can freely refer to the writer and to 
 any of whom he is proud to refer. 
 What exceptions there are the writer 
 declines to mention or be asked about. 
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. 
 
 Since the foregoing letter of Septem- 
 ber 15, 1907, was written, among many 
 other things of material and permanent 
 significance that have come into exist- 
 ence, are the following : 
 
 The big steel mill has been completed 
 to such an extent that they are already 
 making steel rails, with a limited force, 
 of course, at first. 
 
 The great harbor slip has been com- 
 pleted, and its $800,000 "turning 
 basin" for the ore boats to turn around 
 in is in course of construction. 
 
 The Steel Company has brought 
 from their own northern iron mines, 
 Avith their OAvn fleet of boats, into their 
 own harbor, and by their wonderful 
 unloading devices, put into some of 
 their immense ore bins (each bin as 
 large as two city blocks) 840,000 tons 
 of iron ore. 
 
 All of the other millions of dollars 
 worth of buildings and their equip- 
 ment, including blast furnaces, gas 
 conservers, a row of immense gas en- 
 gines a quarter of a mile long, open 
 hearth furnaces, etc., to complete what 
 they call the "first unit" of their im- 
 mense production plant have been 
 built. 
 
 They have removed temporary build- 
 ings and prepared a site of nearly 
 forty acres for the buildings and 
 grounds of a $200,300 hospital. 
 
 They have brought shiploads of 
 stone and timbers to construct at the 
 mouth of their harbor slip, the largest 
 and finest break-water on the Great 
 Lakes. 
 
 They have completed the water tun- 
 nel under the waters of Lake Michigan 
 for over a mile to a point where they 
 have constructed an in-take crib and 
 in one of the city parks, have prac- 
 tically completed a water tower and 
 about completed the pumping station, 
 which provides a supply of pure water 
 sufficient for a population of 300,000 
 people. 
 
 They have added to their holdings 
 of land provided for industrial plants 
 nearly 2,000 acres. They have com- 
 pleted the "Kirk Switch Yards," 
 which is probably the largest system 
 of switching and freight tracks at any 
 
14 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 one spot on the Globe, so large that it 
 requires a little town of its own to ac- 
 commodate those who work there. 
 
 Height from toiintl itinn io tiji ot roof, 160 feet, diame- 
 ter 41 feet , circumference at base 125 feet; capacity of 
 water tank, 300,000 gallons. 
 
 Scores of miles of new railroads now 
 grid-iron the extensive industrial tract 
 of the company. Most of these roads 
 are elevated. The main trunk lines of 
 the Lake Shore and Baltimore & Ohio 
 
 railroads have been, for a distance of 
 about ten miles, picked up and moved 
 to the south to accommodate the Steel 
 Companj^'s building plans. Two outer 
 belt lines around Chicago have been 
 brought into Gary and connected with 
 the net work of tracks that run to all 
 of the mills and will run to, and 
 through, all of the future mills. 
 
 Tlie site of the American Car and 
 Foundrj' Company is in the hands of 
 the engineers and surveyors, who are 
 providing the data for the iiguring of 
 contractors to construct the buildings, 
 which it is said will cover almost en- 
 tirely 212 acres and furnish employ- 
 ment for over 15,000 men, and have a 
 capacity for 200 steel cars daily. This 
 plant will be built this year. 
 
 The great American Ijoconiotive 
 Works have been provided with, and 
 have bought, 130 "acres of the Steel 
 Company's land and are preparing to 
 at once construct on it larger works 
 than any they now have, which will 
 employ many additional thousands. 
 Tlie permanent plans of the American 
 Bridge Company and the American 
 Steel and Wire Company are reliably 
 stated to be only in abeyance for a 
 short time, and the construction of nu- 
 merous new steam railroads to and 
 into the proposed sites of these com- 
 panies, confirm all prospects. These 
 also are companies among those which 
 employ the most thousands of skilled 
 workmen of any in the world. 
 
 The Town or the City of Gary has 
 gone ahead in keeping beyond all be- 
 lievable predictions. The daytime pop- 
 ulation of Gary and vicinity has been 
 from the start, and still is, perhaps 
 three times its night population. This 
 is due, first, because the working popu- 
 lation there have, up to now, been 
 
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE 
 
 15 
 
 largely on eoiistruetion and do not 
 feel sure enough of permanent employ- 
 ment to establish homes at Gary, and, 
 second, because there are no habita- 
 tions at Gary that can be rented. 
 Hence these workmen have been com- 
 ing and going by thousands on scores 
 of trains, which permits them to live 
 at Whiting, Indiana Harbor, Ham- 
 mond, South Chicago, Engiewood, Chi- 
 cago, etc. W^hile these thousands and 
 other thousands will be employed in 
 similar construction on work at Gary 
 for years, the Steel Company prefers 
 to confine itself to providing perma- 
 nent homes for its own coming thou- 
 sands of steel workers. As soon as 
 private capital and enterprise realize 
 the great demand for homes by ten- 
 ants, thousands of these workmen on 
 construction can and will also become 
 residents of Gary. The first people 
 who reside in or about Gary (and pos- 
 sibly the only ones) that can be rea- 
 sonably "'expected^"to" cease ' living " at 
 Gary, are the unskilled ; — people mak- 
 ing up what is known as common la- 
 bor. Many of these, as in all such 
 cases, have now, scattered throughout 
 the outlying region of the Town of 
 Gary, homes that do the community 
 little good, and which will be torn 
 down. In fact, the Steel Company, 
 every month, is requiring the destruc- 
 tion of scores of these temporary build- 
 ings, that they permitted to be located 
 on their ground for the sake of get- 
 ting the men's labor. 
 
 the selling values of real estate, than 
 even the great mills. While it is true, 
 these mifls are the GREAT CAUSE, 
 they are infinitely harder to realize the 
 significance of than the town itself 
 with its great increase in building and 
 population, because the possible in- 
 vestor, coming to Gary, can see the 
 town and comprehend the increasing 
 population and extensive building 
 more than he can the mills which he 
 is not permitted to get into or see and 
 which he could not comprehend if he 
 did see, unless they were in full blast, 
 and they are only starting. 
 
 The electric street car lines which 
 early obtained their franchises and 
 were waiting the income of popula- 
 tion, are now in actual running opera- 
 tion, with large modern cars, good, 
 frequent service, and usual city fares. 
 The quick and inexpensive travel com- 
 munication between Gary and Chicago 
 amounted a year ago to about fifty 
 trains dailj^, but even this has been 
 largely expanded both by new steam 
 and electric lines, and by more trains. 
 Some of this expansion and improve- 
 ment has much increased the accessi- 
 bility and future prospects of some 
 very choice outlying land around Gary 
 Avhere a purchaser of acres can profit- 
 ably subdivide them into desirable 
 residence conditions for the very many 
 who prefer to live away from the 
 activities of the city. 
 
 So while the present population of 
 Gary is about 15,000 people, the great 
 growth and improvement in population 
 and in average character . of the citi- 
 zens and the grade of homes they will 
 occupy, are, with the opening of the 
 great mills just at hand, and it is 
 morally certain that this great incom- 
 ing increase of population during the 
 present year, will do more to advance 
 
 The Illinois Central Railroad has 
 just emerged victoriously from a long 
 and persistent fight to extend its 
 freight and passenger service over a 
 branch line into Gary. In extending 
 this branch (which is called the Ken- 
 sington & Eastern) from near Pullman 
 on their main line to the Indiana State 
 line, they run through the Third and 
 Eighth wards of Chicago, and in the 
 
16 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 final adjustment with the Chicago City 
 Coimeil, they elevated the entire 
 branch and put in street crossing via- 
 ducts. 
 
 through extensive and ample drainage 
 and nuiuy Avise and prudent ordi- 
 nances. Conditions to enforce good 
 order, lawful conduct, and safety to 
 
 Tracks over subway and the north end of Broadway i 
 
 The Chicago, Lake Shore & South 
 Bend road now runs trains from the 
 Illinois Central city depot into Gary 
 every forty minutes with numerous lo- 
 cal stations in the Gary vicinity. 
 
 side the woiks, shewing seme of the auxihary shops. 
 
 life and property, have been amply 
 provided, as well as protection against 
 fire, etc. The spirit and purpose of 
 tlie Steel Company's plans are not 
 more evident in anything than in the 
 matter of schools. In addition to some 
 fourteen modest temporary school 
 houses scattered about the town, one 
 •i^60,000 permanent school house is 
 completed and in use, and the con- 
 struction of the Emerson Public School 
 is well under way. This building, 
 which will cost approximately a quar- 
 ter of a million dollars, is probably not 
 surpassed in New York or Chicago. 
 
 CITY OFFICIALS INSPECTING ONE OF GARY'S 
 SEWERS. 
 
 In addition to expensive provisions 
 for pure Avater, everything that money 
 and good sense can do has been done to 
 make the locality one of the healthiest. 
 
 Tiiere has also been remarkable and 
 satisfactory growth from the stand- 
 point of most present or future resi- 
 dents of Gary in organizations that 
 have to do Avith the religious and so- 
 cial sides of city residence and the or- 
 
WHAT IS BEING DONE 
 
 17 
 
 ganizations that, through public spirit, 
 make for the public welfare of the 
 community. Almost every religious 
 denomiuation that has an organized 
 church society in Chicago has one in 
 Gary. Many of them have built, or 
 are building, large, fine church edi- 
 fices. About all of the lodges, secret 
 societies, fraternal orders, etc., have 
 established branches Avith the usual 
 meeting places at Gai-y. The college 
 men have a University Club of nearly 
 one hundred members. The lawyers 
 have a Bar Association. The real es- 
 tate men have a Real Estate Board. 
 The doctors have a jMedical Society. 
 and the general welfare of the com- 
 munity is forcefully looked after by a 
 strong Commercial Club representing 
 among its active members, almost 
 every branch of business or employ- 
 ment iu the city. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, GARY. 
 
 WHAT IS BEING DONE. 
 
 Broadway, the central business thor- 
 oughfare, has been legally extended 
 and widened to 100 feet in width for 
 another two miles and about $50,000 
 has been appropriated for a new 
 bridge over the Little Calumet River. 
 Broadway has been improved by addi- 
 
 tional brick and stone substantial 
 business blocks until almost solidly 
 built up. At one time during the fall 
 of the year 1908, 1,000 feet of Broad- 
 way frontage were being so improved 
 at one time. Three banks, occupying 
 their own fine buildings, are doing 
 business. 
 
 GARY STATE BANK, BROADWAY. 
 
 The Gary & Western steam Rail- 
 road, mostly elevated, has been com- 
 pleted by the Vanderbilt interests, and 
 is designed largely for Chicago and 
 Gary passenger service with local sta- 
 tions about a mile apart in the Gary 
 district, adding very largely to the 
 number of Gary-Chicago trains. The 
 Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern road's 
 repair shops, employing something like 
 2,000 men, are being comj^leted in 
 Gary. 
 
 The postofilice business of Gary has 
 grown so rajjidly that the office has 
 been jumped from a fourth-class to a 
 second-class office, and free delivery 
 by carriers has been ordered by the 
 Postoffiee Department. This rapidity 
 in development and advance in the 
 rank of the office has no jjarallel in the 
 history of the Department. 
 
 The social and moral phases have de- 
 veloped to a gratifying extent. Church 
 buildings and school buildings have 
 
18 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 multiplied and saloons and saloon li- 
 censes have been wholly wiped out. 
 
 The wonderful subject of Gary has 
 commenced to attract attention from 
 four continents. Magazines and news- 
 papers throughout this country and 
 Europe are writing it up generally or 
 on specific sub.iects. 
 
 CIVIC LIFE AND FORCE OF GARY. 
 
 Lastly, and far from the least, is the 
 fact that the citizens of Gary have de- 
 veloped and manifested great civic in- 
 terest. In and outside of the alert and 
 earnest Gary Commercial Club is the 
 old civic pride, wisdom and energy 
 
 1^1 ^X/^'^'^ 
 
 .j» j^f?i>^' 
 
 rA 
 
 *.'r 
 
 
 m m^ M w^ 
 
 r^r^ 
 
 In, 
 
 N^-' 
 
 FIRST NATIONAL BANK. 
 
 The Steel Company has taken out of 
 the market all of their remaining busi- 
 ness lots on Broadway and Fifth ave- 
 nue, the two business streets in their 
 town plat. The reason given for this 
 shows the wisdom, spirit and intent of 
 the Steel Company in relation to the 
 town and the prosperity of its busi- 
 ness men. They say that they have 
 sold business lots on a basis that com- 
 pelled the owner to at once improve 
 them with business properties, and 
 they propose to protect them in secur- 
 ing successful tenants and sure rentals 
 as against overbuilding. 
 
 that in Chicago, and other cities, laid 
 surely the foundations for great mu- 
 nicipal results. They have not been 
 content to wait supinely on the Steel 
 Company's doings or its millions. As 
 has been written : 
 
 "The citizenship of Gary is well in- 
 formed and alert. It has already 
 shown a disposition to watch care- 
 fully its i)ublic interests. Rightly or 
 wronglj'', it has, on occasion, taken is- 
 sue with the controlling industry of 
 the place. Yet it is a tribute to Amer- 
 ican fair-mindedness that there re- 
 mains on both sides — citizens and com- 
 
CIVIC LIFE AND FORCE OF GARY 
 
 19 
 
 pany — a good spirit of working to- 
 gether. It is hard to find a soul who 
 fails to 'point with pride' at the indus- 
 trial genius which has found expres- 
 sion in the place, and every business 
 man believes enthusiastically in the 
 city's future." 
 
 No town that talks of ' ' yesterday, ' ' 
 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 But straig'ht ahead you take your way, 
 
 Garyland, my Gsryland. 
 And you, pre-eminently grand 
 Through all the centuries shall stand, 
 Because your builders have the sand, 
 Garvland, my Garyland. 
 
 Often when these enthusiastic, force- 
 ful people come togetlaer in conferences 
 or at banquet, their ever existing home 
 city spirit finds expression in singing 
 the following, written for the Gary 
 Commercial Club, by Wilbur D. Nes- 
 bit, the widely known Chicago poet 
 and writer: 
 
 three, four or five stories high. 
 
 So here we drink a brimming glass, 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 
 To you whose glory ne 'er shall pass, 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 
 I'he desert blossoms as the rose, 
 
 And that's the way that Gary grows; 
 
 I 'm mighty happy that I chose 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 
 We lift a song in praise of thee, 
 
 Garyland, mj' Garyland. 
 We know what a great spot you'll be. 
 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 The wheels of progress all will hum, 
 And Gary will be going some 
 Through all the splendid years to come, 
 
 Garyland, my Garyland. 
 
 Not the least among these vital, ever 
 persistent forces, is the Gary Tribune, 
 now a widely read daily, and as able 
 and interesting as any local newspaper 
 the writer has ever seen in any city of 
 100,000 people. 
 
20 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 SOME QUESTIONS DISCUSSED. 
 
 It is natural for a man contemplat- 
 ing an investment, the profits on which 
 depend to any degree on future de- 
 velopments, to question its sureness. 
 In the Gary proposition the writer 
 thinks of but three questions that 
 seem reasonable : 
 
 1. Is Gary going to be a large city? 
 
 2. Probably how soon ? 
 
 3. May not growth in real estate 
 values be hindered or reversed by oc- 
 casional "shutting down" the works 
 through slack demand for their pro- 
 duction ? 
 
 prices on their town lots and all their 
 actions pertaining to real estate, in 
 or about Gary, show that they are not 
 seeking or expecting to make money 
 by buying and selling real estate, the 
 reader must remember that neither the 
 Steel Company nor its predecessors 
 have ever at any point sought to make 
 money out of real estate. 
 
 If the reader, after finishing this 
 book will thoughtfully consider, he 
 must admit that if the Steel Company 
 expected that the population of Gary 
 would only be 40,000 or 50,000 people, 
 they never would have expended their 
 millions as thev have to create even 
 
 GARY HOTEL- 
 
 As to the first, it will be conceded 
 that the officials of the Steel Company 
 come very near knowing the answer. 
 As is well known, such officials do very 
 little talking and give out little ad- 
 vance information, so we must read 
 their knowledge by their actions. 
 While the Steel Company's selling 
 
 -ONE OF FIVE. 
 
 present conditions at Gary, including 
 water, seAverage. etc., for a 300,000 
 population, which population the 
 writer believes to be certain. 
 
 As to the second question, "When," 
 it may be safely answered, within the 
 fewest years such a development ever 
 occurred in the history of the world. 
 
SOME QUESTKINS DISCUSSED 
 
 21 
 
 It is not alone the probable 50,000 
 steel workers who are now sure to 
 come this year and next, but the tens 
 of thousands of merchants, trades peo- 
 ple, professional men, building me- 
 chanics, etc., etc., that are alwaj^s con- 
 nected with, and essential to, a large 
 industrial city, and every city. When 
 you come to think that by the gen- 
 erally accepted basis of count, 50,000 
 heads of families means 200,000 people, 
 and that there must be probably 25,000 
 other citizens, mostly heads of fami- 
 lies, you get the problem and the pros- 
 pects. 
 
 It may be thought that Gary is too 
 near to Chicago to ever be a large city, 
 and yet we nuist remember that in the 
 shadow of Boston, are such large in- 
 dustrial cities as Lynn (90,000), 
 Taunton (40,000), and AVorcester 
 (140,000), and that near at hand to 
 New York City, are Jersey City (250,- 
 000), Newark (290,000), Trenton (90,- 
 000), Paterson (130,000). That the 
 substantial City of Youngstown (55,- 
 000) has grown up near Cleveland ; 
 Erie (05,000) near to Buffalo; Alle- 
 gheny City (160,000) near to Pitts- 
 burg, and that within an hour's ride of 
 Philadelphia have grown up the hun- 
 dred thousand populated towns of 
 Reading, Trenton, AVilmington, Cam- 
 den, etc., and that the above list does 
 not include scores of cities of 30,000 
 or 40,000 people that almost adjoin 
 each of some one of our largest cities. 
 
 The third question is practical and 
 met largely, of course, by the question 
 
 as to whether or not the Gary mill can 
 make steel, etc., materially cheaper 
 than any titlier mill or mills of the 
 Steel Company, or others, throughout 
 the country. Tlie writer here again 
 asserts that the big new mills at Gary 
 Avill not only be of capacity to make 
 one-half of all of the United States 
 Steel Company's production, but can 
 make it at so much less cost that if 
 the Steel Company's orders ever fall 
 off one-lialf, that all of the steel made 
 will be produced at Gary and all other 
 mills closed down until the demand in- 
 creases. 
 
 This is an interesting and startling 
 statement, but after the reader gets 
 the facts and considers that the Steel 
 Company have never in their history 
 made steel except on orders, and where 
 they can make it the cheaiaest and have 
 never run any mill for the purpose of 
 keeping the workmen in any town or 
 locality at work, he must concede that 
 the answer to question three tiirns on 
 whether or not the Gary mills can 
 make steel much cheaper than the com- 
 pany can elsewhere make it. I am 
 justified in here inserting the most able 
 article on that subject that I have ever 
 seen. 
 
 It is also of great interest on the 
 general Gary question. It was pub- 
 lished by one of our most valued maga- 
 zines, to wit : ' ' System, ' ' and was 
 written early in the present year by 
 one" of its able editorial staff, Mr. Dan- 
 iel Vincent Casev. 
 
IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 THE RAIL MILL IN NOVEMBER, 1908. 
 The line of stacks at the right mark the furnaces or "soaking pits" in which the steel ingots are heated before 
 introduction to the first train of rolls in the rail mills. Notice the lofty towers which carry the transmission cables 
 furnishing power to the machinery of the various mills and furnaces of the great plant. 
 
 The Sum of a Thousand Short Cuts. 
 
 Hoiv the economies, the time-saving devices of a hundred plants have been 
 
 concentrated in the luorld's greatest plant at Gary which contains 
 
 cost-cutting and result-bringing suggestions for every business. 
 
 A stereopticon image magnifying a hundred fold the problem- 
 details facing every business man — 
 
 That is Gary. 
 
 Because of its magnitude — the world challenging job of creating 
 a new city, a deep-sea harbor, industry's biggest steel mill — Gary has 
 held the attention of four continents since 1906 ; interest redoubled with 
 the ''blowing in" of its first furnace a few days ago. 
 
 Size, however, is its smallest quality. To the business man its im- 
 perative claims are its efficiency, economy, speed. It is the shrine of the 
 short cut — a composite of the best in power, in production, in saving. 
 
 It is a hundred-million-dollar lesson in the science of making and 
 selling — a demonstration in steel and concrete of the parts foresight, 
 strategy and exact knowledge should play in every business — a public 
 test of the principles you can profitably apply in your factory, your 
 office, your store, however great or small. 
 
THE SUM OF A THOUSAND SHORT CUTS 
 
 23 
 
 GARY is a misnomer. The new steel 
 capital on the southern lip of Lake 
 Michigan whose first blast furnaces 
 spouted golden metal the other day, 
 should have been christened Economy, 
 Indiana. For economy is the inspira- 
 tion and the genius of the place. Lo- 
 cation, size, arrangement, equipment, 
 and every great and lesser detail of the 
 whole huge plant serve that one master 
 purpose — saving. Saving of materials, 
 time and labor; conserving of energy; 
 elimination of wastes. The problem 
 of producing more steel and cheaper 
 steel than any other mill on earth has 
 been worked out with the confident 
 foresight of expei'ience and the cer- 
 tainty of mathematics. Some $42,- 
 000,000 have been poured out on the 
 Indiana barrens in a little more than 
 two years. This to complete the first 
 unit of production, to create a harbor, 
 for its ore and fuel boats, to provide a 
 town for its army of woi'kers ; and $33,- 
 000,000 more will be required for the 
 construction now under way. 
 
 Immense as this total is, it will be 
 doubled — more likely trebled — before 
 this later Pittsburg finds its level of 
 maximum out^jut. 
 
 For another twelve-month, the build- 
 ers will outnumber the steel makers. 
 Of the treasure already invested in the 
 plant, the millions appropriated, no 
 dollar has gone or will go for experi- 
 ment. Here lies Gary's business sig- 
 nificance — its lesson to every man who 
 makes or sells for profit. The courage 
 and imagination which have spent for- 
 ty-two million dollars to clip a few 
 vital seconds from the birth throes of 
 a steel rail are linked with cool-brained 
 conservatism. No device, however 
 promising, which has not been tested 
 exhaustively, beyond chance of failure, 
 has been given place in the scheme. 
 Gary takes no risks. The plant is a 
 summary of the proved methods and 
 tried processes of steel making de- 
 
 veloped to the present limit of logic 
 and safety. 
 
 It is a convention of the short 
 cuts which have slashed steel costs 
 year by j^ear in the face of rising 
 fuel, ore and labor. Its furnaces, its 
 power generators, its conveying ma- 
 chinery, its giant rolls and motors, 
 though they mark the frontier of prog- 
 ress in steel making, have all been tried 
 out in previous installations. 
 
 The best, the record breaking fea- 
 tures of all other mills have been, as- 
 sembled, magnified. To them have 
 been added all that the craft of factory 
 engineer and transportation expert 
 could offer. A site, a town, a harbor 
 literally have been manufactured to 
 order. The result evolved is the most 
 perfect big industrial plant the sun 
 shines on. 
 
 For the sun shines at Gary. That is 
 the primary miracle. The pillar of 
 cloud which marks other creative 
 towns is lacking. Smoke spells waste; 
 and here they have cut down its prod- 
 igal blackness to a thrifty mist which 
 hardly dulls the blue of the sky. 
 
 Power — the basic factor in every in- 
 dustry — is Gary's surpassing economy 
 — by-product instead of tax. Blast 
 furnace gas, ouce absolute waste and 
 hateful poison in the air, is here har- 
 nessed to titanic labors in the largest 
 and most interesting group of gas en- 
 gines in the world. 
 
 Half the installation is in place — 
 seventeen electric units generating 68,- 
 000 horse-power and sixteen blowing 
 engines developing 40,000 more. Get 
 double that energy from steam turbines 
 and your boiler room would eat 800,- 
 000 tons of coal annually. There you 
 have Gary's initial saving — the pin- 
 nacle of free power towards which for 
 twenty years steel makers in America 
 have struggled. 
 
Ml^l 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 
 
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 (lA.-^ WASHER, STOVES AND FURNACES 9 AND 10 
 From the' du&t cati-heis, the gab lia\ els to the preliminary washers shown above, wher 
 nsine process. In the background may h> 
 
 L blast furnace i 
 
 t undergoes the second 
 th one of its "stoves" at the right. 
 
 "Lean" gas Avas the pioneer effort 
 towards economy — analysis of ore, 
 coke, limestone and patient experi- 
 ments in furnace management contrib- 
 uting to that result. Followed crown- 
 ing of the furnace stacks and capture 
 of enough gas to fire the enormous 
 "stoves" supplying the hot blast; 
 finally retrieving of all the gas, and 
 after cleansing, burning under boilers 
 to get steam for power — not power 
 sufficient to beat the product pig-iron 
 into steel rails and bars. That was re- 
 served for the self-contained efficiency 
 of Gary, whose gas engines develop 
 nearly twice as much energy from its 
 furnace Avastes as would boilers and 
 steam turbines, and where no coal is 
 burned for power. 
 
 Those engines — German invention 
 linked with Yankee design — are the 
 largest ever built to be driven by blast 
 furnace gas. 
 
 Massive as they are, the electrical 
 units turn their centers eighty-three 
 and one-third times a minute as quietly 
 as a leisurely Corliss and buckle to 
 their overloads without apparent 
 strain. They mark the passing of 
 steam in the steel industry, except as 
 emergency and secondary power; just 
 as Gary's central electric station and 
 the displacing of hydraulic, pneumatic 
 and steam appliances wherever elec- 
 tricity can shoulder the job, sets a new 
 standard of economy in steel mills. In 
 the billet mill where speed in handling 
 is a vital factor because the steel 
 loses heat each moment, seven sizes 
 of cranes, from five to seventy-five 
 tons, expedite operations. To equalize 
 the pull on the generators and thus 
 squeeze the last atom of energy oiit of 
 the gas an immense storage battery 
 Avaits hungry for idle "juice," return- 
 ing it on x^eak loads. 
 
THE SUM OF A THOUSAND SHORT CUTS 
 
 25 
 
 Steam has not been ousted complete- 
 ly, however. It has its province of 
 efRcieney ; and the study at Gary has 
 been to match everj- job vs^ith the most 
 economical agent. Therefore, after the 
 first eleansings and the diversion of 30 
 per cent, of the gas to the heating of 
 the blast furnace "stoves," 71/2 per 
 cent. — 1,700,000 cubic feet hourly — is 
 burned under boilers. This supplies 
 pressure and water pumps — four 30,- 
 000,000 gallon pumps are in place now 
 — warms the buildings and furnishes 
 steam for the gas producers of open 
 hearths and ''soaking pits." The pre- 
 ponderance of gas for pOAver purposes 
 is shown by the allotment of full 60 
 per cent. — 13,400,000 cubic feet per 
 hour — to internal combvistion engines. 
 
 Gary's power is only the climax of 
 its economies. They began before the 
 first steam shovel burrowed into the 
 Hoosier sand hills. They were boi-n 
 with recognition by a great organiza- 
 tion of specialists of the steel needs of 
 the west — railroad steel, structural 
 shapes, billets, plates and bars to feed 
 a thousand customer factories — and 
 the conception of a plant big enough 
 to satisfy those needs. They took con- 
 crete shape with the choice of a 
 tramps' paradise for the raising of a 
 city of industry and the mightiest and 
 most efficient steel mill the captains 
 a,nd the specialists together could 
 evoke. 
 
 The Strategic Factors Which Deter- 
 mined Gary's Location. 
 
 Many elements contrilnited to that 
 choice. Assembling of raw materials 
 and distribution of product were the 
 vital, inseparable factors. Where could 
 the ore of the Superior ranges, the 
 coke of the AUeghenies and a store of 
 limestone be laid down together at the 
 lowest cost? Where were the mar- 
 kets, existing and potential? Where 
 
 an adequate labor supply, with sur- 
 roundings making for stability and ef- 
 ficiency? Could Diatei'ials, markets and 
 labor be brought to a common focus, 
 wliere v as land enough at reasonable 
 prices to accommodate the visioned 
 mill! Square miles were wanted: the 
 new plant was building for the Cen- 
 tury of Steel and experience warned 
 that no boundaries be out on its ex- 
 pansion. 
 
 Gary was the answer — genius dis- 
 covering it. Found and explored, it 
 satisfied every requirement of the cor- 
 poration strategists, i^roduction ex- 
 perts and engineers. 
 
 In the rough, however, with Lake 
 Michigan and cheap carriage for its 
 ore handy, it lacked a harbor. With- 
 in easy call of an inexhaustible labor 
 supply, it lacked a tributary town to 
 house its workmen and anchor them to 
 their jobs. With twelve square miles 
 of land available, the strategic lake 
 front was so cui, up by railroads and 
 the superfluous Calumet river, that no- 
 where could the builders find a base 
 big enough for their operations. 
 
 Compromise with any condition af- 
 fecting production was not considered, 
 however. The chosen site was treated 
 like so much raw material — made over 
 at tremendous cost that none of its 
 limitations might restrict either speed 
 or efficiency. "Build the perfect plant 
 on paper," the command was, "then 
 fit the site to the plant." 
 
 Not less than two million dollars 
 was spent on this work of preparation. 
 The winding Calumet River was ban- 
 ished to a new channel. The four rail- 
 roads crossing the mill site were 
 evicted like fussy children hindering 
 industry — big roads, too, like the Lake 
 Shore and the Baltimore & Ohio, which 
 were torn up by the roots for over ten 
 miles. In all, to strip the site and pro- 
 vide connections, about 100 miles of 
 track were moved and reconstructed. 
 
IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 Cleared of obstructions, the site was 
 yet too cramped for the builders. The 
 base-line of their perfect mill was a 
 string of sixteen 450-ton blast fur- 
 naces, set at right angles to the lake, 
 with ore docks and a harbor one mile 
 long to feed them. Between the re- 
 modeled river and the beach was only 
 three-quarters of that distance. The 
 fonr outer furnaces, therefore, were 
 given stations out in Lake Michigan. 
 Lacking elbow room on dry land, it 
 was annexed off shore. In two years 
 the lake has been pushed back 700 
 feet. The harbor has crept even 
 farther to deep water. 
 
 ore, will handle it more cheaply and 
 more swiftly than any other installa- 
 tion on the lakes. For speed counts 
 here as elsewhere. Every minute the 
 big freighters lie at the dock costs the 
 better part of a dollar. 
 
 For economy's sake, also, the build- 
 ers disregarded the twelve square 
 miles they owned and kept their colos- 
 sal units all on 800 acres. Compact- 
 ness earned a premium, since the in- 
 candescent metal from the blast fur- 
 naces, the glowing ingots from the 
 open hearths, would lose heat every 
 needless foot they had to travel be- 
 tween operations. 
 
 MM 1)1 rHL(,Rl^\.l on N HI VKlll lU Il,l>l\i;s. 
 Length of building 1,2U0 feet, width, 193 feet, height, 104 feet; capacity of building, with one furnace out of 
 imission, 2,600 tons of steel per day , brick in furnaces, 1 1 ,200,000 ; structural steel used in construction, 5,600 tons. 
 
 This harbor — created off-hand — has 
 a 250-foot channel, a 750-foot turning 
 basin inland and berths for half a 
 dozen 12,000-ton ore boats. With the 
 outer breakwater and ore handling 
 machinery it will cost several millions. 
 But economy is part of the bargain. 
 Not only was it vital to the plan of the 
 works : its unloaders and bridges work- 
 ing synchronously will discharge more 
 
 The continuous process — acme of 
 production in any industry — means 
 more at Gfirj than steady progress 
 forward, without halt or retrograde 
 movement. It stands for the straight- 
 est, shortest, easiest line between ore 
 docks and shipping yards. It stands 
 for speed, for the elimination of every 
 second not employed in conversion or 
 manufacture, for the saving of every 
 
THE SUM OF A THOUSAND SHORT CUTS 
 
 27 
 
 possible heat iinit in molten iron, in 
 glowing ingot, bloom and billet — since 
 the loss mnst be restored and in the 
 later process the steel would suffer in 
 ductility, quality. Hence it stands for 
 highest production per capita, per 
 horse-power, per dollar invested. 
 
 Playing Chess with Giant Powers, 
 Economy the Prize. 
 
 Intra-works transportation plays a 
 mighty part in this thrifty hurry. 
 The switch track, indeed, is the vital 
 factor in Gary's scheme. Other steel 
 plants may adopt its gas engines, copy 
 its enormous open hearth units, du- 
 plicate its surpassing rail mill. But 
 they would have to rebuild from the 
 bare ground up to attain the econo- 
 mies secured at Gary by the arrange- 
 ment of furnaces and mills. The plac- 
 ing of these was dictated by the speed 
 a laboring locomotive can make on a 
 curving switch track. 
 
 To relieve the locomotive and achieve 
 speed, the right angle was abolished 
 in locating the various units. Instead 
 of setting the blast furnaces parallel 
 or at right angles to the tracks serv- 
 ing them, they were placed at an angle 
 of 22 degrees, allowing a 200-foot ra- 
 dius for the entering switch. A train 
 of forty-ton ladle cars can negotiate 
 that swiftly, easily, with little outlay 
 of power and no danger of accident. 
 Reversing on the main track, they will 
 rush aAvay to the open hearths on long, 
 easy curves of 800 feet radius. What 
 goes in at the near end of each unit 
 goes out at the other, one step nearer 
 finished product. There is no "back- 
 ing up" except of empty ladles or cars. 
 
 From the casting floor of the open 
 hearths, the ingots go to the mould- 
 stripping houses, thence to the soak- 
 ing pits and the ordeal of the rolls. 
 Between blast furnaces and open 
 hearths the angle to be overcome is 
 
 only 57 degrees ; between the latter 
 and the soaking pits about 70 degrees. 
 The shortest curve in the 175 miles of 
 track which will serve the mills has a 
 radius of 200 feet ; nearly all are up- 
 wards of 400 feet. The elevated ap- 
 proaches to the furnaces and mills 
 were planned with the same canny re- 
 gard for speed where speed is vital ; 
 elsewhere they are a compromise be- 
 tween economy of space and of power. 
 The company's locomotives will do the 
 switching — the cost will depend on 
 how fast they can move a load, how 
 little coal and time they consume. 
 Continuous gravity tracks at the ship- 
 ping platforms allow the shifting of 
 loaded cars without engines. 
 
 Analysis of the work's transporta- 
 tion can go no further than to say that 
 it embodies the most advanced railway 
 practice. SAvitch and service tracks, 
 except those at the blast furnaces, are 
 continuous : blockades are impossible, 
 both ends being accessible and the for- 
 ward movement of cars is uninter- 
 rupted. The same principle obtains in 
 the "Kirk" classification and storage 
 yards and in the locomotive house, 
 through which tracks and pits run at 
 an angle, abolishing the turn table. 
 These individual savings, multiplied 
 daily a thousand times, make tremen- 
 dous economies. 
 
 Adjusting Furnaces and Mills to the 
 Rhythm of Production. 
 
 Nice calculation of distances and ex- 
 act adjustment of units to their pro- 
 ductive functions mark every step in 
 Gary's plan. Ore' docks, furnaces, 
 power plants and mills are knit into a 
 harmony which excludes lost motion 
 and squandered energy. Starting at 
 the harbor side, no linear foot of space 
 is wasted. The ore yards, hemmed in 
 by concrete ramparts and spanned by 
 the longest carrier bridges in existence 
 
28 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 — 498 feet, are wide enough to store a 
 year's supply for the furnaces — 2,900,- 
 000 tons for the first eight. In prac- 
 tice, there will be no need of such a 
 mountain of material, but the widtli 
 contributes to straight line production, 
 minimizing lateral ore shifting. 
 
 Mere size, however, is not a fetish. 
 That Gary will surpass all other mills 
 in tonnage, in magnitude, in ultimate 
 acreage, is accidental. What its build- 
 ers sought everywhere and as a whole 
 was efficiency, the economy of bal- 
 anced production. Its mile of blast 
 fiirnaces will be unique; but the indi- 
 vidual stacks are not the largest in 
 commission. They rate 450 tons : many 
 in blast to-day exceed 600 tons. But 
 Gary's creators, caring nothing for the 
 grandiose, chose the smaller stacks be- 
 cause these had proved more depend- 
 able, manageable and profitable. Also 
 because they offered the golden mean 
 where strength of materials and stress 
 of accident could be equalized. 
 
 The open hearths, again, though of 
 uncommon size — fancy a kettle of 
 blinding, bubbling metal 16 to 40 feet 
 square — are not America's largest. By 
 grouping fourteen into a unit and pro- 
 viding for six units — the four now 
 ready or under construction have a ca- 
 pacity of 12,000 tons a day — Gary 
 overtopped the world in size of units 
 and total output. The purpose, how- 
 ever, Avas to provide the greatest num- 
 ber of furnaces one superintendent and 
 his staff could manage in production. 
 
 Likewise the rail mill. In length it 
 has no equal here or abroad — 1,800 
 feet, to say nothing of the 1,400-foot 
 groiip of soaking pits which it shares 
 with the record-breaking billet mill 
 adjoining. No lesser building would 
 shelter the continuous train of rolls 
 which will produce 100,000 tons of 
 steel rails monthly — 28,000 more than 
 the South Chicago world's record. 
 Here, also, size was incidental to the 
 
 most efficient and productive installa- 
 tion. The shorter the mill and fewer 
 the stands of rolls, the more time the 
 ruddy steel would waste on tilting ta- 
 bles and transfers, losing heat, losing 
 precious seconds, whose saving would 
 give larger output and lower costs. 
 
 The Best in Equipment was Chosen for 
 the Plant. 
 
 Equipment was chosen by like stand- 
 ards — the mathematics of experience. 
 Therefore the ore unloaders of one 
 maker were coupled with the bridges 
 and carriers of another, while the ore 
 bins and conveyors of a third feed 
 the skip hoists of a fourth — though 
 any one of the first three manufactur- 
 ers could have furnished the orehand- 
 ling machinery complete. For the same 
 reason cranes were purchased from 
 three different makers, the electric mo- 
 tors bear the name plates of three rival 
 manufacturers, while the light and 
 heavy machinery were supplied by no 
 less than a score of firms. The gas 
 producers of the open hearths vary 
 widely from the type at the soaking 
 pits : but either is the design which fits 
 best into the scheme of the unit sup- 
 plied. 
 
 Slosaic of the most approved machin- 
 ery and methods, Gary has adopt- 
 ed little without change, develop- 
 ment or refinement. Gone is the 
 epic day of steel making, when Cap- 
 tain Bill Jones refused big royalties 
 for patent rights whose sale might 
 endanger his own leadership in costs 
 and output. The practice, the short 
 cuts, the cunning inventions of a hun- 
 dred mill captains have been available. 
 Brought together, enlarged to the Gary 
 scale and accelerated to the Gary pace, 
 they produce its economies. 
 
 Speed and the elimination of human 
 labor have been carried beyond any- 
 thing steel makers have known. Re- 
 
THE SUM OF A THOUSAND SHORT CUTS 
 
 29 
 
 mote-control electric devices, automat- 
 ic and interlocking, allow seven men 
 to handle the forty or more operations 
 in the rail mill at top speed yet with- 
 out danger of accident. Two ingot 
 "buggies," for instance, bring the 
 flaming four-ton cubes from the soak- 
 ing-pits to the first set of rolls. The 
 thirteen pits cover 700 feet, yet one 
 man out of sight in a gallery, by set- 
 ting levers at the proper uotches, can 
 send a "Iraggy" to the chosen pit, stop 
 it, start it when loaded and bring it 
 to the first rolls without turning his 
 attention from the important bloom- 
 ing operation. 
 
 worked out by the company's engin- 
 eers, operating men and machinery 
 experts would recpiire many pages. In 
 some degree they are the outcome of 
 the company's policy of building its 
 furnaces and mills under the eyes of 
 the men who must run them. 
 
 Superintendent -J. M. Gleason, Gary's 
 head, was on the ground before the 
 steam shovels. As the furnaces and 
 mills took shape, they were put in 
 charge of the bosses who will direct 
 them, to check up the work of the 
 contractors, to correct any tendency 
 away from the solidly practical, to 
 supply anything needed in design or 
 
 tracks 1^/ Icet 
 
 To show how speed is served by this 
 system of automatic control one exam- 
 ple must do. The elevating table of the 
 blooming train weighing 250,000 
 pounds is raised or lowered to the de- 
 sired position in two seconds by the 
 throwing of a lever, considering the 
 mass moved a remarkable achievement 
 — in which electric, pneumatic and hy- 
 draulic power are all employed. 
 
 To list refinements of this sort 
 
 equipment. This has made for many 
 small economies — a pocket for broken 
 coke above the skid hoists of the blast 
 furnaces ; steel ties in the soaking pit 
 service tracks ; aerial bridges to avoid 
 time-losing detours ; safety devices ev- 
 erywhere. 
 
 Economy shaped the construction 
 program also. Excepting final efficien- 
 cj% everything was subordinated to the 
 end of production at the earliest prac- 
 
30 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 ticable date — of putting the millions 
 invested to work without delay. For 
 months the interest on Gary's cost has 
 amounted to six thousand dollars a 
 day. Effort was concentrated, there- 
 fore. P'urnaces and mills were begun 
 according to a schedule which would 
 complete them on the date they would 
 be needed to fill out the steel making 
 machine — but not before. 
 
 Four blast furnaces, tAvo batteries 
 of open hearths, the rail mill and a pig 
 iron casting plant, with their power 
 auxiliaries, make up the first unit now 
 gathering headway. The furnace 
 stacks and stoves, plus the gas-clean- 
 ing plant, Avere the slowest and most 
 tedious construction. They were well 
 up before the foundations of the open 
 hearths were in. Next the harbor — 
 the dredging of 1,500,000 cubic yards 
 of sand — then the rail mill, the power 
 station, the blowing and pumping 
 plants, for all of which eqiiipment had 
 been ordered nine months before the 
 buildings were erected. 
 
 The second quartette of furnaces 
 will be "blown in" early next fall. 
 Completing this unit will be a third 
 group of open hearths, and a billet 
 mill which will supply an axle mill and 
 five merchant mills rolling 18, 14, 12, 
 10 and 8 inch bars. With the third 
 group of blast furnaces — their founda- 
 tions are noAV in hand' — there must 
 come new power, pumping and blow- 
 ing stations, another group of open 
 hearths and two plate mills, with an 
 intermediate slabbing mill. The fourth 
 unit, making up the tally of sixteen 
 blast furnaces and rounding out the 
 4,000,000-ton mill, will follow fast or 
 slow as the demand for steel dictates. 
 
 All the big work— big is the word 
 for 2,100,000 cubic yards of excavation, 
 772,000 yards of concrete, 225 miles of 
 railroad track, 60,000,000 brick laid, 
 144,000 tons of structural iron fabri- 
 cated and erected, 80,000 tons of ma- 
 
 chinery created and installed — has been 
 done or is doing by contract and the 
 clock, without regard for seasons. The 
 thousand retail jobs, for which speci- 
 fications are not easily drawn, have 
 been handled by the company's own or- 
 ganization of machinists, metal work- 
 ers, electricians, masons. This insures 
 dependable work at reasonable cost — 
 the skilled men having been drafted 
 from other plants — and familiarizes the 
 organization with the construction and 
 machinery it will have to keep in tune. 
 Likewise the first buildings under roof 
 were the boiler, machine, blacksmith, 
 electric repair and other shops which 
 will serve the works permanently. 
 
 Gary is building out of surplus earn- 
 ings, but no dollar is planted until the 
 season of its fruitage approaches. In- 
 deed, some things necessary to the 
 completed plant have been postponed 
 until their need becomes more impera- 
 tive. There's the million-dollar break- 
 water for the harbor, the contract for 
 which has just been let. With South 
 Chicago close at hand and offering a 
 port in rough weather for Gary's ore 
 freighters, the Indiana plant can wait 
 without inconvenience for the fine days 
 to summon its ore carriers. 
 
 The Gayley "dry blast" furnishes a 
 striking instance of this postponing of 
 non-essential, though valuable, instal- 
 lations. Tests at both company and 
 independent furnaces have shown, ap- 
 parently, that freezing the moisture out 
 of the furnace blast increases output 
 and saves fuel in important ratios. The 
 process was experimental when Gary's 
 plans were drawn ; to hitch it to the 
 stacks now would postpone produc- 
 tion. It has been moved aside, there- 
 fore, until the absolutely essential in 
 construction and equipment has been 
 finished. The same rule postpones the 
 installation of a Kommers by-product 
 coke-plant — now undergoing a decisive 
 test at the company's Joliet mill. 
 
THE SUM OF A THOUSAND SHORT CUTS 
 
 Gary the city is the final element in 
 the mill's formula of economy. Its first 
 function is to attract labor — skilled 
 and unskilled — by reason of its metro- 
 politan coniforts and conveniences — its 
 perfect sanitation, its reasonable rents, 
 its low rates for water, gas and electric 
 light, its parks and schools, opi^ortuni- 
 ties to buy a home on terms even a 
 pick-and-shovel man can compass. Liv- 
 ing in such an environment, avoiding 
 long car journeys morning and night, 
 riveted to his job by his living condi- 
 tions, every man will bring more bod- 
 ily strength, a clearer brain and great- 
 er efficiency to his daily tasts. Dupli- 
 cate these conditions and results for 
 superintendents and foremen, and the 
 expenditure of .$2,500,000 on the town, 
 the building of 500 houses for sale and 
 rent, becomes a sober "business propo- 
 sition." 
 
 This is Gary today — the purpose al- 
 ready expressed in concrete and steel 
 or scheduled for realization as soon as 
 the builders can effect it. The larger 
 design is in the lap of the coming dec- 
 ade. Given a demand to justify such 
 expansion — here is no rivalry with ex- 
 isting mills, but iDrovision for the fu- 
 ture just dawning — Gary will surjjass 
 Pittsburg as a producer of steel. For 
 the sufficient reason that open-hearth 
 steel, the favored material for rails, 
 bridges and structural shapes, can be 
 converted and rolled at Gary cheaper 
 than anywhere else in the world. In- 
 dustry is as fluid as water, seeking the 
 lowest level always of production. 
 
 Add Gary's strategic position, its 
 transportation advantages, its unlimit- 
 ed room for extension, and you have 
 the imperative considerations which 
 
 will plant the new mills of the eorjjora- 
 tion's subsidiary companies — as these 
 are made necessary by the country's 
 hunger for steel products — at Gary, 
 where the basic material is cheapest 
 and freight charges are nil. The same 
 logic of saving will gather hundreds of 
 independent factories using merchant 
 steel — may even double the present 
 project and bring forth a twin plant 
 making 8,000,000 tons of steel annual- 
 ly, with miles of tributary work. Then 
 Gary's circle of economy, its scheme of 
 husbanding wealth otherwise dissipat- 
 ed in unnecessary operations will be 
 rounded and complete. The sum of a 
 thousand short cuts will be east up 
 and credited to America's resources. 
 
 Significant and conclusive as are the 
 facts stated by the writer of the fore- 
 going, the reader's thought is called 
 to the fact that it is only half of the 
 story, leaving unstated two great eco- 
 nomic factors, to-wit : First, the trans- 
 fer of new basic cost conditions from 
 the Pittsbi^rg region to the west and 
 the great saving to the consumer of 
 steel products on short freight ship- 
 ments, and second, that the Gary lo- 
 cation is practically the center of eco- 
 nomical shijiment and distribution of 
 the Steel Co.'s products throiighout the 
 entire Mississippi Valley ; surely so 
 now over the tens of thousands of 
 miles of a score of big railroad sys- 
 tems centering into the nearby Chica- 
 go, and from thence by two belt lines 
 into Gary, and later through the great 
 new water-ways to be constructed for 
 very low cost shipment to the Gulf of 
 Mexico and farther. 
 
32 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 THE SECOND STAGE OF STEEL MAKING. 
 At the right is one of the 1,400 foot buildings housing fourteen open hearth furnaces. At the left are the power 
 station and one of the blowing engine houses, tributary to the blast furnaces. In the foreground are the concrete 
 piers of a second group of open hearths, while the stacks of a third group show in the baclcground. 
 
 The financial editor of the Chicago 
 Tribune recently spoke of the first of 
 said two matters as follows : 
 
 The plant of the United States 
 Steel corporation at Gary has begun 
 turning out steel rails, being the first 
 active operation of the plant. When 
 the works are completed, the United 
 States Steel corporation will, through 
 plants now forming, control the steel 
 business of the west. It will do this 
 by making Chicago the basic point. 
 
 Pittsburg Now Basic Point. 
 
 seen that if Chicago be made the basic 
 point, purchasers here would save the 
 freight charge, getting their materials 
 as cheap as they could be purchased in 
 Pittsburg. 
 
 This difference of $3.60 a ton will 
 practically rule out all the independ- 
 ent companies of the east, for they 
 have no plants in the west. The steel 
 corporation will have one competitor 
 here in the Inland Steel Company, a 
 concern of resiseetable proportions, but 
 the big eastern concerns will be han- 
 dicapped the amount of freight men- 
 tioned. 
 
 At present Pittsburg is the basic 
 point and steel products shipped to 
 Chicago must bear the cost of freight 
 in addition to the cost of the steel. For 
 instance, steel products selling at $32 
 a ton at Pittsburg cost the Chicago 
 consumer not only the price of the 
 product but the freight from Pitts- 
 burg to Chicago, which is 18 cents a 
 100 pounds, or $3.60 a ton. It can be 
 
 Economies From Coke Ovens. 
 
 While it is true that the Gary plant 
 must get its coal for coking purposes 
 from the Connellsville district in Penn- 
 sylvania, the cost of transportation will 
 be overcome by the ability of the Gary 
 plant to save all the by-products re- 
 sulting from the manufacture of coke. 
 The steel works at Pittsburg are not 
 
THE "MEANING OF GARY" 
 
 33 
 
 able to do this. The coke is made at 
 the mines and the by-products are lost. 
 The Gary plant will have every facili- 
 ty for utilizing the gas and selling in 
 the market such by-products as it may 
 not use. 
 
 Again, there will be a saving in the 
 cost of transportation of ore. This 
 saving will be the difference between 
 the distance around the lakes from Du- 
 luth to Pittsburg compared with the 
 distance from the mines to Chicago. 
 Again, the Garj^ i)lant will be alto- 
 gether modern, enabling it to keep 
 manufacturing costs at the lowest pos- 
 sible level. 
 
 The "Meaning of Gary." 
 
 In the May, 1908 number of "Mid- 
 land" Charles Pierce Burton wrote, in 
 part, as follows, after having visited 
 Gary a number of times to get the "lo- 
 cal color" : 
 
 The story of Gary, the industrial 
 city which is being built to a pre- 
 determined scale and plan on the sandy 
 shore of Lake Michigan, in northern 
 Indiana, reads like a tale from the 
 Arabian Nights. The experience of 
 Aladdin with his wonderful lamp has 
 come true in the twentieth century. 
 Our modern Aladdin is the United 
 States Steel Corporation. Unlim- 
 ited capital is the "slave of the lamp" 
 and is building not a single palace but 
 a city of palaces, and building it where 
 Chicago ought to have stood and 
 might have stood had not human per- 
 verseness temporarily interfered with 
 the purposes of the Almighty. AVhat 
 of that! A century is but a second in 
 the creative day. 
 
 The purpose of this article is to con- 
 sider the meaning of Gary rather than 
 its physical construction. London has 
 been a thousand years in the building. 
 NcAv York and Philadelphia and Bos- 
 ton are older than the nation. Com- 
 
 pared with these Chicago is an infant, 
 giant though it is. But London, New 
 York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago 
 are growths. Gary is a creation. The 
 goddess Minerva sprang fully armed 
 and eciuipped from the head of Jove. 
 Gary is springing from the brain of 
 the LTnited States Steel Corporation. 
 
 In the summer of 1906 there was a 
 single building in the twenty-two 
 scpiare miles of scrub oak and sand 
 now incorporated as the town of Gary. 
 This lone building was the shooting 
 lodge of a Chicago gun club. Today 
 Gary has a population variously esti- 
 mated at from 10,000 to 20,000 people. 
 The shooting lodge has been torn down 
 and even the topography of the coun- 
 try has been changed to make way for 
 the encroachments of industry and 
 commerce. 
 
 The necessity for Gary came when 
 the Steel Corporation determined to 
 concentrate its steel industry at the 
 head of Lake Michigan, some miles 
 from any human habitation. Manifest- 
 ly the company could not employ 15,- 
 000 men in the wilderness, which it is 
 planned to do, without providing the 
 conveniences of life. A city was in- 
 evitable. The question was whether to 
 permit a haphazard growth or to plan 
 the city in advance and build it right. 
 
 One year ago Gary looked like a 
 great military camp, a city of tents. 
 Today it is a curious mixture of camp 
 and metropolis, the like of which prob- 
 ably was never before seen in the his- 
 tory of the world. Tents and little 
 boarded shacks are still to be seen in 
 every direction, for Gary's immediate 
 problem is to build houses fast enough 
 to accommodate the inrushing hordes 
 of people. Much of the business, too, 
 is conducted in temporary quarters. 
 On Broadway, for instance, a tiny 
 shack, hastily constructed and covered 
 with tar paper, bears the imposing in- 
 scription, "Gary Tribune," with the 
 
34 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 added information that fvirther down 
 the street a handsome building is be- 
 ing constructed for the newspaper's 
 permanent home. In strange contrast 
 with this primitive structure stands 
 Gary's new $150,000 hotel, and the 
 First National Bank building, classical- 
 ly ornate, both models of their kind. 
 
 product shipped back again to Chicago. 
 The Pittsburg mills necessarily must 
 be more or less antiquated, entailing a 
 greater cost of manufacture per ton 
 than the new mills now being con- 
 structed at Gary, along the most ad- 
 vanced lines known to science. It does 
 not take a student of economics to 
 
 GARY'S FIRST LAUNDRY. 
 One of hundreds of scenes only two years ago. 
 
 Whatever the jiresent purposes of 
 the Steel Corporation may be, the cre- 
 ation of Gary is a death-blow to the 
 supremacy of Pittsburg as a steel-pro- 
 ducing center. Gary, whose harbor 
 will receive the company's ore-laden 
 vessels direct from Lake Superior, has 
 at its back door the unlimited coal 
 fields of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 
 Moreover, Gary practically is Chicago, 
 and Chicago is the greatest distribut- 
 ing center of the steel product, with 
 water outlet to the Atlantic ocean, and 
 ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. To 
 reach Pittsburg, ore from the Lake 
 Superior region must be taken to Cleve- 
 land by boat and from there shipped 
 by rail to the mills, and the finished 
 
 foresee the natural outcome of such un- 
 equal competition. 
 
 Gary means that in the United States, 
 commercial and industrial supremacy 
 has shifted to Chicago and the middle 
 west, following the center of popula- 
 tion, which is only 123 miles from the 
 steel city. Chicago — and what is true 
 of Chicago also is true of its great sub- 
 urb — in all this country is practically 
 the center of population, of investment 
 in manufacturing, of banking capital, 
 of farm values. In ten years its bank 
 deposits, the gciuge which shoAvs the 
 pressure of thrift and enterprise, have 
 increased more than 200 per cent. The 
 drift of commerce is irresistibly to- 
 ward its doors. 
 
THE "MEANING OF GARY" 
 
 35 
 
 Gary means the perfection of the 
 great economic movement toward con- 
 soli(la:tion and elimination of waste in 
 every form, wiiich forever will make 
 the beginning of the twentieth century 
 notable. 
 
 It means a greater Chicago, reaching 
 out from its present confines, through 
 its huge natural workshop, known as 
 the Calumet district, once the bed of 
 Lake Michigan — a huge inland seaport, 
 both by way of the lakes to the Atlan- 
 tic ocean and the Mississippi river to 
 the Gulf of Mexico ; commercially one 
 gigantic city. 
 
 The old ways are gone forever. Gary 
 will set the pace for future industrial 
 development and industrial life. It is 
 a far cry from the individualism of the 
 primitive order, where every man's 
 household was a workshop, to a United 
 States Steel Corporation giving life to 
 one million people; to Gary, in which 
 the thought and ambitions of this cor- 
 poration have materialized. Denounce 
 the so-called ' ' trusts ' ' as we may ; rail 
 at consolidation and corporate greed; 
 these things are evil only in their 
 abuse. These great consolidated in- 
 terests are a vital part of the social 
 
 BINZEN APARTMENTS. 
 Gary needs a thousaad of them — and, of coui-se, will get them. 
 
 It means that successful movements 
 in the direction of beauty and cleanli- 
 ness in city building must be economic 
 rather than esthetic in their origin. 
 Gary will be a clean city and a model 
 city, free from sjnoke and soot, be- 
 cause to make it so will put dollars in- 
 to the treasury of a money-making cor- 
 poration. 
 
 order ; thej^ are an evolution, a result 
 of natural law, and inevitable. 
 
 In Gary we see the trust at its best — 
 as a creator in a large sense. Through 
 the eyes of the imagination we catch 
 distant visions of a future greatness for 
 this mighty central west, which would 
 have staggered the founders of the re- 
 public. 
 
36 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 In the iMarch, 1907, number of "Sys- 
 tem" Mr. Daniel Vincent Casey Avrote, 
 with his usual force and intelligence, 
 an article on Gary, entitled Making A 
 City to Order, from which the follow- 
 ing are extracts : 
 
 Up through the lioosier sand-hills 
 where duck-hunters set blinds a year 
 ago, the first furnaces of the greatest 
 steel mil] ever conceived are pushing 
 their Titanic million-dollar heads. Two 
 miles inland, created by the same im- 
 perial order, the fiat city of Gary is 
 rising among the scrub oaks. 
 
 Town and plant have only one pur- 
 pose — to make steel in greater cjuanti- 
 ties and at lower cost than it is made 
 anywhere else in the world. Here is a 
 city-to-be whose every detail answers 
 to the call of business. 
 
 That is a plain statement of the bold- 
 est and best-imagined industrial pro- 
 ject ever launched. 
 
 How it is taking, shape at Gary, 
 where Lake Michigan crowds farthest 
 south into Indiana — how three thou- 
 sand builders are making mock of win- 
 ter with dynamite and parboiled con- 
 crete, wind-shields and other cunning 
 devices — how waste land three miles 
 from a postoffice has been given a val- 
 ue of $140 a front foot — these are de- 
 tails of progress well worth the telling. 
 
 Biit, like the stranger who needs 
 blue-prints to grasp the relations be- 
 tween this yawning excavation and 
 those giant towers a mile eastward, the 
 man who would understand Gary and 
 the lesson it holds for every manufac- 
 turer must begin l)y charting the ideas, 
 the motives behind it. 
 
 What is the reason for Gary? What 
 is the plan of this $100,000,000 made- 
 to-order, city of concrete and steel 
 with its twelve square miles of raw 
 material and its ultimate yearly pro- 
 duction of $70,000,000 in new M^ealth? 
 Why was it set down on a remote 
 shore, five miles from a harbor, only a 
 
 dozen miles from another plant owned 
 by the same corporation and devoted to 
 the same ends? Why was it deemed 
 necessary to tie up millions in a town 
 which is costing $15,000 a day to build, 
 whose first "sub-division" will have 
 twenty-seven miles of paved streets, 
 Avitli water, gas and electric service 
 mains, as well as sewers, available to 
 every lot? 
 
 How Every Question That Arose Was 
 Analj'^zed. 
 
 Answer to these questions involves 
 the strategy and mathematics of "big 
 business" — here applied with a knowl- 
 edge and understanding of conditions 
 and resources possible only with an or- 
 ganization of specialists. For no ele- 
 ment which would contribute to econ- 
 omy of manufacture and maximum of 
 output was neglected in the placing 
 and designing of this Gary plant. Each 
 was analyzed — assembling of raw ma- 
 terials, distribution of product, exist- 
 ing and future markets, labor supply 
 and efficiency of workmen, cost of site 
 and i^rovision for unlimited expansion 
 — and the plan was developed with 
 the care and certainty of a chemist 
 comi^ounding a familiar formula. So 
 far as it is possible in a human under- 
 taking, chance was eliminated. 
 
 Assembling of raw materials and 
 distribution of product were matters of 
 transportation. 
 
 Here was iron ore in the Superior 
 ranges, coal in southern Illinois and 
 West Virginia, coke in West Virginia 
 or Pennsylvania, limestone in Michigan 
 or Illinois — where coiUd they be 
 brought together with least cost and 
 the resulting steel distributed with 
 greatest ease and economy? 
 
 Plainly not at the coal or iron mines, 
 each remote from markets and from all 
 the other sources of raw material, and 
 unable to guarantee winter deliveries. 
 
MAKING A CITY TO ORDER 
 
 37 
 
 Some point midway, then, where lake 
 carriers and railroads could meet at 
 the threshold of the biggest market 
 and lay down their ore and fuel to- 
 gether without trans-shipment. 
 
 The Causes Influencing- the Choice of a 
 Location. 
 
 Look at the map and you will see 
 why choice of location for the new 
 plant was limited to Chicago or its vi- 
 cinity. The central market of the rich- 
 est industrial region of the country, 
 the railroad hub of the continent, itself 
 a voracious consumer of structural 
 steel, and the point where the shortest 
 lake journey could be linked with the 
 shortest haul from Virginia coke ovens 
 and Illinois coal shafts, it had the ad- 
 ded advantage of being the supply fo- 
 cus of the corporation's system of sub- 
 sidiary mills — manufacturing sheet 
 steel, tin plate, bridges, structural iron, 
 wire and wire products in a continuous 
 chain of twenty plants in Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois aud Vfisconsin. Growth 
 of this inter-company market and the 
 enormous demand of western lines for 
 rails and bridges dictated the location 
 of the plant within the Chicago rail- 
 road zone, where rates would be most 
 advantageous. 
 
 Choice of a site was not so easy. Not 
 acres but square miles were needed to 
 accommodate the projected works, with 
 their storage and railroad yards. The 
 company's South Chicago plant was 
 crowded for room, and this new mill 
 was to be on an immeasurably vaster 
 scale. It was building for the century, 
 and history commanded that no limit 
 be placed on its expansion. 
 
 Within the city's boundaries not 
 even a square mile was available. And 
 the company had another cogent rea- 
 son which Avill be elaborated later for 
 desiring to escape from the city and 
 its influence altogether. Therefore 
 Gary. 
 
 The Transportation Facilities Available 
 in Gary. 
 
 Twenty-six miles from the mouth 
 of the Chicago river, it offered all that 
 the companj^'s business generals and 
 factory engineers could demand. Land 
 Avas cheap — and ai^proximately twelve 
 square miles were purchased before 
 the corporation's intentions were di- 
 vulged. Six miles of lake frontage, 
 Avith five eastern trunk lines crossing 
 the tract — tAvo of them distinctively 
 coal roads — made easy the Avedding of 
 lake and rail carriage for the chief raw 
 materials, and furnished outlets for 
 steel to mills and markets east and 
 south. 
 
 For Avestern and northern shipments, 
 facilities were equally ideal; the cor- 
 poration's industrial road, the Chica- 
 go, Lake Shore & Eastern, touched 
 Buffington at the northern verge of the 
 tract. Extended it Avould connect 
 the plant through the "outer belt 
 line" Avith every railroad leav- 
 ing the city, and would bring 
 the ncAv mills inside the Chicago rate 
 zone. In fact, the Gary site held one 
 transportation adA'antage a city loca- 
 tion could not afford — connection with 
 the "outer belt" would preclude de- 
 lays in terminal freight yards and in- 
 sure prompt dispatch even in seasons 
 of greatest congestion. 
 
 What Made the Site of the New Town 
 Advantageous. 
 
 Physically the site Avas admirable. 
 Half a jnile oft' shore, the lake Avas 
 deep enough to float the company's 
 biggest ore-carrier. Construction of a 
 harbor, then, was a mere matter of ex- 
 cavating a slip, building a break-water 
 and dredging a channel — all in sand, 
 AA'hich is the easiest of materials to 
 move. 
 
 Yet that sand had the merit of 
 
38 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 packing so hard three feet below lake 
 level, that piling Avas unnecessary foi- 
 the gigantic concrete monoliths of the 
 furnace foundations. Hydraulic jets 
 had even to be employed in driving 
 the piles for the temporary retaining 
 Avails of the slip. 
 
 Nowhere is the canny wisdom of the 
 company's engineers more evident than 
 in the decision to extend the Avorks to- 
 Avards deep water instead of bringing 
 deep water in to the mills. 
 
 Reference to the ground plan Avill 
 make it clear that the final third of 
 the plant Avill be erected on "made 
 land" filled Avith sand from excava- 
 tions and furnace Avastes. 
 
 Besides the first purpose of ap- 
 proach to deep Avater, this method fur- 
 nishes a convenient "dump," provides 
 the necessary Avidth of site otherAvise 
 denied by the position of the Grand 
 Calumet river and adds hundreds of 
 valuable acres to the company's prop- 
 erty. 
 
 Site, room for groAvth and adequate 
 transportation assured, the company's 
 strategists turned to the important 
 tAvin problems of labor supply and ef- 
 fiency of Avorkmen, both questions 
 vital to the largest success of the 
 mills. 
 
 Starting a plant five miles from the 
 nearest toAvn, it Avas inevitable that the 
 thousands employed would settle near- 
 er or find other jobs. Weighing the 
 conditions, the management deter- 
 mined to shoulder the burden of build- 
 ing the prospectiA^e city. 
 
 Handling the Vital Problem of Labor 
 Supply. 
 
 First, to insure an attractive town, 
 reasonable rents and municipal com- 
 forts and conveniences as the means of 
 binding employes permanently to the 
 Avorks, thereby increasing individual 
 efficiency. 
 
 Second, to combat the hostility of 
 trades unions — the Gary mill is to be 
 an open shop and this was the reason 
 already mentioned for wishing to es- 
 tablish it outside Chicago — by offering 
 material advantages likely to Aveigh 
 against labor anathemas. Of these 
 sixty-cent gas, water and electric light 
 at parallel Ioav rates, and opportunity 
 to buy a home on terms possible even 
 to day laborers are the most urgent. 
 
 A third motive lay in the company's 
 desire to colonize its superintendents, 
 foremen and office employes near the 
 Avorks — a thing to be realized only by 
 proAnding quarters as desirable or even 
 better than they could find in the 
 neighboring toAvns. 
 
 Philanthropy, then, had little part in 
 the founding of Gary, the city. It is a 
 "business proposition" exploited as 
 town-sites usually are, as well as a 
 practical recognition of the truth that 
 good drainage, comfort and accessibil- 
 ity in your Avorkmen's homes are re- 
 flected in increased factory efficiency. 
 Saloons and speculators are barred by 
 clauses in the deeds, becaiise liquor 
 saps the energy of Avorkmen and spec- 
 ulation Avould retard the sale of the 
 company's lots. 
 
CREATING THE NEWEST STEEL CITY 
 
 39 
 
 ONE OF THE CORNER RESIDENCES (JACKSON STREET). 
 
 The Regulations Under Which Gary Is 
 Being- Built. 
 
 A "model town" in the best — the 
 municipal engineering — sense, Gary 
 differs from Europe's "garden cities" 
 and America's Pullmans by putting a 
 premium on property-holding and 
 eliminating company control of muni- 
 cipal affairs. It has its council, mayor, 
 school board, political parties, and it 
 will come as near self-government as 
 the average American town. Barring 
 the restrictions in the deeds and the 
 supplying of Avater, gas and electric 
 current in bulk to the municipality at 
 about cost — solely to reduce living ex- 
 penses and so anchor its employes to 
 the work with the chains of self-inter- 
 est — the company's connection with 
 the town will cease when its lots are 
 sold. 
 
 Many of the readers, especially 
 
 those who contemplate the possibilities 
 of futiu'e residence in Gary, will be in- 
 terested in the following condensation 
 of an ably wi'itten article by Mr. Gra- 
 ham Romeyn Taylor, of the editorial 
 staff of the magazine, THE SURVEY, 
 formerly "Charities and the Com- 
 mons," appearing in the April, 1909, 
 number, and the writer inserts the 
 same even though something else- 
 where said in this book is repeated. 
 
 Accustomed as Americans of this 
 day are to rapid accomplishment, not 
 one who visits the suddenly created 
 town of Gary at the southern tip of 
 Lake Michigan fails to experience a 
 new thrill of amazement. The story 
 of this marvelous achievement of the 
 steel industry has been frequently told. 
 The purpose in these pages is not mere- 
 ly to repeat the wonder tale of Gary's 
 magic growth — steel plant and town — 
 but to present a brief sketch of the 
 
40 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 framework and structm-e of the place 
 and its rising social agencies, with 
 some impressions of how these serve 
 the needs of the rapidly gathering pop- 
 ulation. 
 
 G-ary is not quite three years old. In 
 April, 1906, the region was a waste of 
 rolling sand dunes sparsely covered 
 with scrub oak and interspersed with 
 ponds and marshes. To-day there is a 
 great steel plant covering approximate- 
 ly a square mile, equipped with a 
 made-to-order harbor for the great ore 
 freighters, and a town of 12,000 inhabi- 
 tants, with fifteen miles of paved 
 streets, twenty-five miles of cement 
 sidewalks, two million dollars' worth 
 of residences completed and occupied, 
 a sewer system, water and gas plants, 
 electric lighting, a national and state 
 bank, six hotels, three dailies, and one 
 weekly newspaper, two fine public 
 schools, several substantial church edi- 
 fices, ten denominations represented in 
 church organizations, and many well 
 appointed stores and shops handling 
 practically all the commodities that a 
 good sized city usually needs. There 
 are forty-six lawyers, twenty-four 
 physicians and six dentists. 
 
 Situated on the main lines of five 
 great trunk railroads, no less than fifty 
 trains a day stop at Gary, to say noth- 
 ing of the frequent service by the in- 
 terurban trolleys. 
 
 This mere enumeration is enough to 
 show an astonishing growth from the 
 wilderness of three years ago. A visit 
 proves far more convincing. A walk 
 two miles along a fine business street a 
 hundred feet in width, well paved 
 with granitoid, lined on both sides 
 with eighteen foot cement sidewalks 
 and flanked by Avell built fire-proof 
 business buildings ; to be told that no 
 more land is for sale on this thorough- 
 fare ; to glance up the side streets and 
 see block after block of attractive res- 
 idences ; to watch the busy crowds hur- 
 rying back and forth on BroadAvay ; 
 
 and, above all, to talk with energetic 
 business men of the place, who look 
 you straight in the eye and quietly as- 
 sure you that in a few more years this 
 ncAV capital of the steel industry will 
 suri^ass Indianapolis as the largest city 
 in Indiana — well, merely to spend a 
 day in the place is to find incredulity 
 vanishing as completely as the wilder- 
 ness itself. 
 
 Turn northward, retrace your steps, 
 and the underlying reason of your 
 newly acciuired faith, the economic ba- 
 sis of it all, takes definite shape before 
 your eyes. Here is the real fact which 
 gives solid substance to the community 
 you have thus far accepted because 
 your eyes told you to, but which until 
 now you could not explain. At the 
 northern terminus of Gary's Broadway 
 is the entrance to a steel plant destined 
 soon to be the largest in America. Here 
 the finger of unerring calculation has 
 located the geographical spot where 
 greatest economy dictates the assemb- 
 ling of raw material, and the center of 
 distribution for finished steel. Belief 
 in Gary and its future as a community, 
 then, rests upon the fundamental be- 
 lief of the shrewd and farsighted men 
 directing America's steel production, 
 that this is the place at which to con- 
 centrate in one great plant the sum of 
 all the best methods and processes else- 
 where demonstrated — that here is the 
 spot to embody the present acme of ef- 
 ficiency and economy in the making of 
 steel. The thoroughness of this be- 
 lief may be seen in the fact that, act- 
 ing upon it immediately, the United 
 States Steel Corporation without hesi- 
 tation has poured out during the last 
 two years $42,000,000 and soon will 
 have "spent a total of $75,000,000 to 
 build its plant, create a harbor for its 
 ore and fuel boats, and provide a town 
 for its army of workers. 
 
 Even these millions, spent "to clip a 
 few vital seconds from the birth throes 
 of a steel rail," as a recent writer has 
 
THE NEW STEEL CITY 
 
 41 
 
 put it, are said to be only a half or a 
 third of the total which will eventually 
 be invested to place this new Pittsburg 
 on its level of niaxiniuni output. 
 
 shops of the Chicago, Lake Shore and 
 Eastern Railroad — a Steel Corporation 
 road. Extensive sites for large plants 
 of the American Car and Foundry 
 
 FIl'TH A\ I'lMK l':Asr FltoM W ASHI X(,'I'(JN STREET IN XOVEMBER, IflOS. 
 
 The temporary paving in the center is about to be removed for the construction of the street car 1 
 entire length of Fifth Avenue. 
 
 rthe 
 
 The belief of the United States Steel 
 Corporation in this new location for 
 great industrial development is meas- 
 ured not alone by the great mill al- 
 ready beginning its work. To assure 
 for decades to come space in which this 
 mill and its various departments may 
 expand, to provide sites for many sub- 
 sidiary manufacturing plants which 
 make large use of steel, and to make 
 so]ne provision for the population of 
 workers, a great tract of nearly twenty 
 square miles has been acquired, the 
 shore frontage on Lake Michigan be- 
 ing eight consecutive miles. Already 
 located and in operation on this tract 
 are the works of the Universal Port- 
 land Cement Company, and the repair 
 
 Company and the American Locomo- 
 tive Company have been selected, and 
 in addition to these the American Steel 
 and Wire Company, the American 
 Bridge Company, and the American 
 Tin Plate Company are expected soon 
 to become members of this great in- 
 dustrial group. 
 
 La the various parts of the steel plant 
 itself at least 14,000 men will be em- 
 ployed. The combined working force 
 of the establishments now constructed, 
 or whose location is practically deter- 
 mined, is likely to number well Tip to- 
 ward four or five times that total. 
 
 So much for the industrial basis un- 
 derlying Gary as a community. The 
 conditions of work, the ever increasing 
 
42 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 part played by macliiuery, the lessen- 
 ing of manual toil, the greater precis- 
 ion in handling material and directing 
 processes, the better protection of the 
 workman at his work — all the provis- 
 ion for this interplay of hand and 
 mind with machine must here be left 
 without mention. 
 
 What of Gary, the town, and the 
 community of peoj^le? To sketch its 
 rise and structure is the purpose of 
 this article. To readers familiar with 
 the Pittsburg Survej'' and its thorough- 
 going method, the present ai'ticle will 
 be seen to be merely a fragmentary 
 suggestion that here at Gary is the 
 opportunity for a striking comparative 
 study. The Pittsburg Survey was a 
 close range analysis of the social, civic, 
 and industrial conditions of the Penn- 
 sylvania steel district. It not only 
 "blue-printed" the present Pittsburg 
 region but in some measure traced the 
 incoming flow of peoples and the grad- 
 ual evolution of conclusions. It took 
 account of a community wherein the 
 steel industry grew piecemeal by ad- 
 ding this part and that process — its 
 growth continually subject to the 
 more or less rigid, conditions imposed 
 by a long established city. The growth 
 of the various plants was, in most cases, 
 •not so rapid as to require any special 
 housing provison other than that 
 which haphazardly might be supplied 
 from time to time by the company or 
 outsiders. In some of the plants 
 themselves, the installation of larger 
 and larger machinery and more exten- 
 sive trackage was not accompanied by 
 any increase in the area covered. Un- 
 der these conditions the leeway and 
 "give" were wrenched from the hu- 
 man element. If tracks were needed 
 in a passageway previously used only 
 by workmen afoot, the tracks came in. 
 
 no additional passageway was provid- 
 ed, and the workmen began dodging 
 the shrieking little locomotives as best 
 they could. 
 
 Here in Gary all is different. Planned 
 at the outset on an enormous scale, it 
 was unnecessary even remotely to con- 
 sider space limitations. The visitor is 
 impressed with the elbow room, and 
 the absence of a dingy clutter such as 
 characterizes the average Pittsburg 
 steel mill. Men have light in which to 
 see their work, room in which to do it, 
 and an orderly arrangement that 
 means as much for safety as any of the 
 protection devices Avhich have been 
 installed. 
 
 . In Gary, the town, too, there was 
 absolutely unhampered opportunity to 
 arrange the streets, provide the funda- 
 mental necessities of community life, 
 determine the character of its houses 
 and predestine the lines of growth, all 
 in the best and most enlightened way. 
 The growth of the town through the 
 various stages of sand dunes, tents and 
 shacks, the latter made out of boards, 
 tar paper, canvas and anything else 
 at hand, to the present community as 
 briefly outlined at the beginning of 
 this article, is no less bewildering — 
 and in many respects is even more in- 
 teresting — than the creation of the 
 great mill. The Gary of to-day, with 
 all its substantial buildings, shows 
 many evidences of the successive stages 
 of its development. Many of the 
 shacks hastily thrown together are still 
 occupied by the workmen and immi- 
 grant laborers who have been engaged 
 in the construction, and several tents, 
 reinforced by a few boards and a little 
 banking of sand against their walls as 
 a feeble protection against winter cold, 
 are yet serving as habitations. 
 
THE NEW STEEL CITY 
 
 43 
 
 STEEL COMPANY'S GENEKAI, 
 
 Bl'ILDIXc; 
 
 and viaduct for main entrance to the works at the head of Broadwa 
 
 The officials of the Steel Company 
 say frankly that the building of the 
 town was incidental, that their main 
 concern was to construct a steel plant, 
 and that city-making was a side issue 
 into which necessity alone drove them. 
 They must have a place for their em- 
 ployes to live. This could not be ex- 
 pected to develop at all proportionate- 
 ly to the sudden need, unless the com- 
 pany assumed much of the responsi- 
 bility. Moreover, a haphazard town 
 would certainly prove an inefficient one 
 in serving the daily life and needs of 
 the men whose brains and muscle mean 
 the real ongo of the mill. An ineffi- 
 cient tOAvn, therefore, in some degree 
 would throw a paralyzing spell into 
 this place designed to be the very cita- 
 del of economy and efficiency in steel 
 production. A wholesome town was 
 recognized as essential. 
 
 The Gary Land Company, a subsi- 
 diary corporation of the United States 
 
 Steel Corporation, was formed to se- 
 cure the great tract of land to serve 
 the present and long future needs of 
 steel plant, town, and subsidiary man- 
 ufacture interests. TJpon this com- 
 pany was thi^s thrown the work of 
 making the town. The holdings of the 
 land company form a strip along Lake 
 Michigan, extending from Indiana 
 Harbor eastward some eight miles, if 
 land now to be acquired is included, 
 and averaging two miles in width — 
 about two and one-half miles wide at 
 the site of the plant and town. Almost 
 in the center of this strip is the mill. 
 At the latter 's eastern edge is the har- 
 bor slip, 250 feet wide, extending in 
 from the shore, affording berth for half 
 a dozen 12,000-ton ore freighters, and 
 equipped with a 750-foot turning basin 
 at its inner terminus. Just west of the 
 mill are the repair yards and shops 
 of the Chicago, Lake Shore and East- 
 ern Railroad. Adjoining them on the 
 
44 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 south is the site selected for the great 
 plant of the American Car and Foun- 
 dry company. East of the mill and 
 just across the harbor slip extensive 
 coke ovens to serve the mill are con- 
 templated. South of these and south- 
 east of the mill is the site determined 
 within the last few weeks for the big 
 works of the American Locomotive 
 Company. 
 
 the mill and other plants of the town. 
 It is interesting to learn of the pains 
 the company is taking to find out by 
 experiment what species of trees will 
 prove most satisfactory in Gary's san- 
 dy soil. The citizens of the town, too, 
 are alive to the desirability of tree 
 planting. With more zeal than reason 
 they recently agitated for an ordinance 
 making tree-planting compulsory, but 
 
 VAN BUREN STKEET NORTH FROM STH AVENUE IN 1908. 
 
 Directly south of the mill is the so- 
 called subdivision No. 1, laid out by 
 the Gary Ijand Company. The company 
 itself has erected 506 dAvellings and is 
 selling lots for business and residential 
 purposes, subject to certain restric- 
 tions which will be detailed later. Sub- 
 division No. 1 is the only part of its 
 holdings Avhich has been plotted into 
 lots by the company. Adjoining sub- 
 division No. 1 on the south are smaller 
 tracts owned by real estate dealers, 
 who are rapidly selling the lots they 
 have plotted. It will be seen at once 
 that Gary subdivision No. 1 is the 
 most central position with reference to 
 
 readily saw the wisdom of delay, pend- 
 ing the experiments of the company 
 and the working out of some scientific 
 and harmonious scheme. 
 
 The whole streeL scheme of Gary — in 
 fact the whole plan of the place — hangs 
 on the main thoroughfare, Broadway. 
 The idea of a civic center with a 
 grouping of public buildings seems not 
 to have occurred to those who designed 
 the town. W^ith the steel plant fore- 
 most in mind, and the town incidental, 
 it is natural that the main fact in 
 Gary's town plan is a broad street lead- 
 ing straight south from the mill en- 
 trance. Already it is paved three miles 
 
THE NEW STEEL CITY 
 
 45 
 
 and laiore. Up this great artery in the 
 morning, and down it at night, sweep 
 the throngs of workers. 
 
 Eificiency in town, it has already 
 been said, was recognized as a factor in 
 the eificiency of the steel plant. This 
 town efficiency will be made apparent 
 many times in this article. 
 
 Broadway, which is 100 feet wide, 
 and Fifth avenue, which crosses Broad- 
 way at right angles, in the northern 
 part of subdivision No. 1 and is 80 
 feet wide, are the two principal streets 
 plotted for business purposes. The 
 next streets to Broadway, paralleling it 
 on east and west, are also reserved for 
 business. Excepting Broadway and 
 Fifth avenue, all streets are 60 feet in 
 width. Along all streets but the foi^r 
 business streets a building line of 20, 
 2.5, or 35 feet is established. This has 
 been observed in the building of the 
 company houses, and each contract for 
 the sale of a lot stipulates its obser- 
 vance in any building to be erected. 
 An alley, in most cases 30 feet wide, 
 runs the long way in the center of each 
 block. The lots in the residence dis- 
 tricts are mostly 30 by 150 feet. A few 
 are only 25 feet wide and the length 
 of some is only 125 feet. It will be 
 noted that this allows for a good sizeti 
 back yard, but that the space between 
 houses is not likely to be considerable. 
 The proportion of a lot which may be 
 covered by buildings, and the number 
 of buildings to be permitted on a lot, 
 do not seem as yet to be worked out 
 in the building code of the town. Lots 
 on the business streets are uniformly 
 125 feet in length. On Broadway and 
 Fifth avenue they are 25 feet wide ; on 
 the two other business streets parall- 
 eling Broadway they are 30 feet wide. 
 The typical block is 600 feet in length, 
 permitting 40 lots of 30 feet width in 
 the residence district. Street paving is 
 granitoid on two miles of Broadway, 
 and concrete, brick or macadam, on the 
 miles of other streets already paved. 
 
 In the provision of the fundamental 
 utilities to serve the necessities of the 
 population, etficiency and amplitude 
 are manifest in marked degree. With 
 no permanent population yet on the 
 ground and even before the streets 
 were laid, the company immediately 
 constructed sewer and water systems 
 large enough for years to come. Of 
 primary importance is the fact that all 
 sewers and water mains are laid in the 
 alleys, so that in the future there will 
 be little need of tearing up the streets 
 to make repairs or new installation. 
 
 The cost of sewers and paving has 
 been distributed over the lots in the 
 subdivision, being included in the price 
 of each so that there is no assessment 
 for these improvements. The sewer 
 system can readily be extended to the 
 sixbdivisions not owned and develox^ed 
 by the company, assessment on the lots 
 defraying the cost. 
 
 Water supply is furnished by the 
 Gary Heat, Light and Water Company, 
 another subsidiary company of the 
 steel corporation. It furnishes also, as 
 its name implies, electric lighting and 
 gas. There is a provision that owner- 
 ship of these public utility plants may 
 be acquired hereafter by the city. For 
 water supply a three mile tunnel six 
 feet in diameter extends a mile and a 
 half into Lake Michigan. Its shore 
 end is at the pumping station — this 
 and a 500,000 gallon water tower in 
 the park site west of Broadway. Al- 
 ready twenty-five miles of mains have 
 been laid, and the capacity of the sys- 
 tem is 20,000,000 gallons a day. To 
 appreciate the advantage in town effi- 
 ciency, as contrasted with some other 
 localities where the United States 
 Steel Corporation acts as landlord, 
 compare with this water system the 
 pump in Pittsburg's "Painters Row," 
 the only source from which no less than 
 568 people can get water fit to drink. 
 
46 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 BROADWAY NORTH FROM EIGHTH AM, Mi; I.\ NOXKMHER, liUIS, 
 
 since which date the car line center space has been paved. There are 
 
 That the ''Painters Row" pump is ion, 
 
 not tlie only feature of older steel 
 towns upon Avhieh Gary marks im- 
 provement is already apparent to read- 
 ers of the Pittsburg Survey articles re- 
 cently published in this magazine. Per- 
 haps no part of Gary's development is 
 so immediately pleasing as the houses. 
 The Gary Land Company, as already 
 stated, has erected 506 dAvellings. Ap- 
 proximately 250 more have been built 
 by individuals who have bought lots 
 in the company subdivision. Instead 
 of rows upon rows of exactly similar 
 — and usually ugly — houses, which 
 generally come to mind at the mention 
 of "company houses," there is in Gary 
 an admirable diversity of architecture. 
 Combined with this, however, is har- 
 mony in the general effect, due no 
 doubt to the fact that the whole work 
 was in the hands of but two architects. 
 The cheapest houses are in the north- 
 east corner of the company subdivis- 
 
 light lamps at each street crossing. 
 
 locally called "Hunkyville," 
 where the lowest paid immigrant labor 
 lives. The next better houses are in 
 the northwest corner, known as "Kirk- 
 ville," and are occupied almost entire- 
 ly by Avorkmen in the repair shops of 
 the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern 
 Railroad nearby. The rest of the 
 houses are scattered over the central 
 portions of the subdivision, those to 
 the west of Broadway being somewhat 
 better than those to the east. The 
 quality of dwellings east of Broadway, 
 however, is likely to be improved, noAv 
 that the American Locomotive Com- 
 pany's works are to be built just east 
 of the subdivision. The nearest avail- 
 able location for the dwellings of offi- 
 cials and the more highly paid clerical 
 force will be the eastern portion of the 
 subdivision. It is likely that the fifty 
 "double drygoods boxes," as Hunky- 
 ville houses are called, will be moved 
 elsewhere. 
 
THE NEW STEEL CITY 
 
 47 
 
 With evident intention of avoiding 
 the mistakes of Pullman, the company 
 announces its desire to sell lots as rap- 
 idly as possible, so that any paternal- 
 ism it has exercised may speedily come 
 to an end. The price of the company's 
 more advantageously located lots is 
 still kept below that of lots outside its 
 subdivision. Great care, hovv^ever, is 
 used to see that they do not fall into 
 the hands of speculators Avho will hold 
 them vacant. It is the desire to make 
 them available for employes of the 
 company. 
 
 The agreement concerning the sale of 
 a lot stipulates that the plans must be 
 approved by the agent of the com- 
 pany, that the building must be com- 
 pleted within eighteen months, that it 
 must be built back of the prescribed 
 building line, and that no liquor is ever 
 to be sold on the premises. Exception 
 to the latter provision is made in the 
 case of a few places on Broadway. A 
 number of saloons had sprung vip 
 south of the company subdivision, 
 where there are no restrictions regard- 
 ing the sale of lots. All saloons in the 
 town of Gary, however, were closed on 
 April 1, 1909, when the region became 
 "dry territory." 
 
 Gary's people — who are they? The 
 study of Pittsburg's f)opulation and 
 Avhence it came was compared to an an- 
 alysis of a river's cvirrents. At Gary 
 such a study would be like cross-sec- 
 tioning a water spout. Perhaps the 
 writer's own experience was character- 
 istic. The first word spoken to him in 
 Gary after he alighted from the train, 
 a complete stranger on his first visit, 
 was by a foreigner inquiring his way. 
 At a cafe on Broadway which looked as 
 if it had been in good running order at 
 least a year, the waiter, in response to 
 a question, said tha,t the place had been 
 open five days, and that he himself had 
 arrived the night before last. An 
 "oldest inhabitant" — about three 
 years in the town — describing the 
 
 influx of people said they seemed to 
 sprout suddenly up out of the ground. 
 
 The growth of Gary's population 
 may be divided into two main stages, 
 corresponding to the development of 
 the place. First came the construction 
 crowd. W^hile a large number of these 
 are still on the ground, the transition 
 to the permanent working force of the 
 steel plant is now taking place, the 
 mill having recently started operation. 
 This change, however, Avill not be sud- 
 den, for much construction work yet 
 remains to be done. Prom the begin- 
 ning there has, of course, been a steady 
 growth in the element identified with 
 the development of private business 
 activities, etc., and in the number of 
 lawyers, physicians and members of 
 the other professions. 
 
 The construction force was brought 
 in principall}^ by contractors. With 
 its make-up and living conditions the 
 steel company had not much to do. A 
 large proportion was made up of the 
 lowest paid immigrant labor. While 
 the construction i^eriod has lasted 
 many months, it of course has not been 
 long enough to warrant the provision 
 of any but the most temporary sort of 
 shelter. 
 
 The transition from construction 
 gaiigs to permanently employed steel 
 workers means that from now on the 
 proportion of low-grade foreign labor 
 will diminish. The great inadeciuacy 
 of present housing for the lowest paid 
 labor may be thus in some measure ac- 
 counted for. It must be said, hoAvever, 
 that housing facilities of all sorts are 
 not sufficient ; a situation due, it is 
 probable, not so much to the failure of 
 any one to meet responsibilities, as to 
 the plain fact that it takes time to 
 build houses. 
 
 The extent to which the population 
 varies from that of the average fam- 
 ily community may be seen in the fact 
 that ordinary computation from a 
 knoAvledge of the number of men over 
 
48 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 twenty-one years of age, would give 
 Gary approximately 30,000 population. 
 This fact is also significant in connec- 
 tion with predictions on the probable 
 growth of Gary's total population, 
 which should increasingly tend to 
 reach the normal proportion to men of 
 voting age. 
 
 Gary's vote in April, 1907, was 29; 
 in November, 1908, eighteen months 
 later, it was over 2,000. At the start 
 there were barely enough voters to or- 
 ganize town government. The present 
 Gary is a place of well informed and 
 alert citizenship. Already the various 
 functions of the modern city are being 
 well organized. A police force came 
 early. The conditions in the pioneer 
 days of this place, just twenty-six 
 miles from Chicago's downtown, were 
 startingly lilie those of the western 
 frontier. The region had its traditions ; 
 it was Avhere the police of Chicago a 
 few yeai-s ago had pitched battles 
 with the notorious "ear barn" ban- 
 dits," who were eventually captured 
 and hung. The earliest construction 
 crews had their quota of ruffians. And 
 the health emergencies of a mushroom 
 community needed strong authority. 
 Curious enough most of the other mu- 
 nicipal functions were provided before 
 the fire department, which, at its estab- 
 lishment of a few months ago, was 
 urgently needed to bring down insur- 
 ance rates. A fine building is just 
 about to be constructed for these two 
 branches of the city service. For some 
 time to come it will also house the 
 other executive offices of the local gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Schools were early provided. The 
 first ones were portable frame affairs, 
 which met the need dux'ing the con- 
 struction of the fine two-story and 
 basement Jefferson School which the 
 company erected at a cost of $80,000. 
 The Emerson School, designed by the 
 architect of the famous St. Louis 
 
 schools, is nearing completion at a cost 
 of over $200,000. A parochial school 
 costing about $50,000 is soon to open 
 its doors. The pupils in the public 
 schools numbered over 1,000 at the 
 close of school last spring. Thirty-six 
 teachers are noAV employed. The new 
 Emerson School will have a play- 
 ground of about an acre and a half. 
 The Jefferson School, while it has no 
 playground adjoining, is but half a 
 block from a park space. 
 
 A¥orking in close co-operation with 
 the schools is the recently organized 
 public library — perhaps, in proposed 
 scope, the most progressive civic insti- 
 tution in Gary. An interesting com- 
 mentary on the town's growth, and a 
 circumstance which doubtless has some- 
 thing to do with the fine co-operation 
 between the library and the schools, 
 is the fact that the library could not 
 be organized under the general library 
 law of the state, which requires that 
 the five library trustees must have been 
 residents of the place for five years. 
 There being none with this qualifica- 
 tion, the library was organized tinder 
 another statute allowing it to be con- 
 ducted by the school authorities, who 
 on this account are authorized to levy 
 a larger tax. Housed at present in a 
 store and basement, the library main- 
 tains an attractive reading room, and 
 in the basement evening classes for im- 
 migrants studying English, with an in- 
 structor furnished by the schools. 
 
 Branch libraries are to be in every 
 school, and a progressive service in this 
 connection will be rendered in teach- 
 ing the children and giving them ex- 
 perience- m the use of library facili- 
 ties. For certain periods each week 
 the children of each grade will be 
 placed in charge of the branch librar- 
 ian. The importance of this as a stim- 
 ulus to continued use of books after 
 school days are past, is apparent. 
 
THE NEW STEEL CITY 
 
 49 
 
 THE JEFFERSON PUBLIC SCHOOL IN FEBRUARY, 1908. 
 
 Schools, and library, too, are to be 
 used as social centers. The former 
 have gymnasiums, natatoriums and 
 manual training, and each day pupil 
 keeps his books in lockers so that the 
 classrooms may be freely used at night. 
 The librarian is now planning what 
 the permanent library building shall 
 provide. In addition to the ordinary 
 library facilities he proposes baths, 
 bowling, billiards and pool, and a gym- 
 nasium available also for dances. If 
 these features are included, Gary's li- 
 brary will be the first in this country 
 maintained solely by public funds, to 
 provide such social and club facilities. 
 The few Avhieh now make such provis- 
 ion are located in industrial towns 
 where, in addition to public funds, a 
 scheme of membership fee is in force 
 or the industrial concern gives an en- 
 dowment or meets the deficit. 
 
 A small hospital is at present pro- 
 vided by the Sisters of Mercy. This 
 year, however, the steel company will 
 erect a large one costing .$200,000 for 
 the use of its employes. It will be lo- 
 cated on the east side of Broadway, 
 
 near the entrance of the mill. Two 
 parks have been plotted, one four 
 blocks west, and the other two blocks 
 east of Broadway. The former is four 
 blocks in area and the latter two. 
 Upon the larger one the water tower 
 and pumping station have been erect- 
 ed. The tower is at present built en- 
 tirely of steel, but the design has been 
 made to sheath it attractively with 
 brick and stone. 
 
 The prime economic importance of 
 extensive harbor and dockage facili- 
 ties for the steel plant and all the sub- 
 sidiary manufacturing interests is well 
 recognized. But the most serious and 
 immediate consideration ought to be 
 given to the question, Avhether some 
 portions of the lake shore, somewhere 
 along the ten miles, cannot now be re- 
 served for park jjurposes. The region 
 is one of great geological and botanical 
 interest and its wild and distinctive 
 scenery has for years attracted groups 
 of nature lovers from Chicago. Prom 
 Chicago's standpoint, therefore, it is 
 desirable that regions of natural beau- 
 ty near her boundaries be prescribed 
 
50 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 for the nse of tlie great and growing 
 metropolitan population. But above 
 all, from the standpoint of the people 
 living in Gary, still more especially 
 for the numbers who are yet to come, 
 this question is urgent. It has been 
 said regarding this very situation that 
 the steel companies "are not in the 
 summer resort business." And from 
 a.utJioritative sources has come the in- 
 formation that the matter of the peo- 
 ple's access to the lake was considered, 
 but that it was not thought "safe for 
 future industrial expansion" to set 
 aside specific portions of shore for park 
 pvirposes. The intention of these para- 
 graphs is not to argue the point — the 
 winter's knowledge of the factors in 
 the question is slight indeed — but 
 merely to direct some attention to this 
 problem confronting Gary, the com- 
 munity. This is the sort of problem, 
 moreover, to which frecjuently people 
 do not become aroused until too late. 
 Considerable agitation of it is already 
 reported to have arisen among Gary's 
 citizens. May it be co-operatively 
 taken up by all interests and solved 
 satisfactorily and speedily. 
 
 This sketch touches only the more 
 obvious points to be observed on the 
 surface. It does not even cover all 
 these. For instance, the progress being 
 made by religious organizations could 
 be interestingly detailed. And one of 
 the many community problems scarce- 
 ly mentioned is the need for a far- 
 sighted look toward an eventual group- 
 ing of public buildings. On the indus- 
 trial side, it would be of the greatest 
 interest to study wages in relation to 
 the standard of living. Grant that the 
 latter is exceptionally high — housing 
 and fundamental utilities bear this out 
 — what are the costs in relation to 
 wages 1 
 
 Gary, by reason of its industrial 
 significance and the marvelous growth 
 of its community life is a marked place 
 for the student of social, civic and in- 
 
 dustrial advance. If these observations 
 and impressions might suggest a more 
 careful survey, they would more than 
 fulfill their purpose. 
 
 PRESENT SELLING VALUES OF 
 GARY REAL ESTATE. 
 
 This is a difficult subject for any 
 one, however well informed, to speak 
 intelligently about. Of course, the 
 "selling" value of anything is what it 
 sells for in money. This depends much 
 upon the buyer's personal equipment 
 and knowledge, and how he is situated 
 as to contact with the seller. This 
 "buyer" might be the one who fur- 
 nishes the purchase money, and might 
 be his better equipped agent in the 
 matter. Although an investor may 
 have to pay more for Gary real estate 
 in installments than he would in all 
 cash, this far from means that he 
 should not buy at all unless he has all 
 cash. 
 
 What is the rightful selling value of 
 a lot or tract depends on many 
 things, often different in different 
 cases. Sometimes these conditions are 
 not known except to the well posted 
 buyer. For instance, there are sub- 
 divisions in and about Gary in which 
 each of perhaps a hundred scattered 
 lots have been sold to some one of a 
 class or nationality whose improve- 
 ments and occupancy will injure in- 
 stead of help any of the unsold lots. 
 
 Again, there are many cases in some- 
 what outlying localities where the buy- 
 er is told there will soon be quick and 
 convenient transportation, the truth or 
 probability of which, often very ma- 
 terial, he cannot rely on. The same is 
 true of assurances of the quick coming 
 of sewers, water, school facilities, etc., 
 where they do not now exist. Such a 
 buyer can get valuable help from some 
 one of the many others than the seller, 
 who knows much about such things. 
 
REAL ESTATE VALUES 
 
 51 
 
 Then there are matters that enter 
 into the actual values of real estate in 
 any city or locality which a buyer or 
 his representative could weigh after 
 seeing or otherwise knowing them. A 
 residence lot between two nice resi- 
 dences already built is worth more 
 than a lot, even only one hundred feet 
 away, the surroundings of which are 
 not determined. A business lot be- 
 tween a laundry and a livery stable, 
 present or to be, is not worth as much 
 as one between a store building and a 
 bank building. 
 
 A residence subdivision adjacent to 
 an undrained marsh, freight yard, 
 planing mill or a coal yard, etc., is 
 less likely to produce profits for lot 
 buyers than if better surrounded. 
 
 Then again, the value of a business 
 lot is somewhat effected by Avhat it 
 will earn. A corner on Broadway was, 
 last fail, valued at $500 a front foot 
 for the reason that the buyer had 
 figures on the cost of an improvement 
 and rental offers from responsible ten- 
 ants that would pay good income on 
 the cost of the ground and building. 
 Generally speaking, residence lots 
 within six blocks of the business cen- 
 ter of Gary can be had for about $600 
 per lot and as one goes farther, for 
 $500, $400, $300, etc. 
 
 Business lots along the north two 
 miles of Broadway, which is the im- 
 proved, built-up portion, can be bought 
 near the business center for about $300 
 per foot; a half mile farther south for 
 about $250 a foot, a mile and a half 
 to two miles south, from $100 to $150 
 a foot. In the Steel Company's plat 
 there is no chance to speculate on va- 
 cant property, business or residence, 
 as they sell only for prompt improve- 
 ment. 
 
 As to acre tracts, there are a few 
 small ones that can be obtained within 
 a mile, or a mile and a half, from the 
 business center for from $1,200 to 
 $2,000 per acre and about a half mile 
 farther away, for from $800 to $1,500 
 per acre, and there are still, farther 
 away, nice acre tracts of from five to 
 twenty-five acres that can be bought 
 from $500 to $1,000 per acre, depend- 
 ing upon elevation, drainage, transpor- 
 tation, schools, surroundings, etc. 
 
 It is quite feasible for several friends 
 to form a small syndicate, furnishing 
 an aggregate of a few thousand dollars 
 and buy a few acres at very much less 
 than individual lots prices. In such 
 cases, the title can be held jointly, or 
 the tract divided up into individual 
 holdings, or held by some one as a trus- 
 tee, for all. There are, no doubt, many 
 such syndicates, as well as more indi- 
 viduals, who would buy acres and sub- 
 divide and sell in lots, if they were 
 situated to attend to the reselling and 
 had the intelligence or experience to 
 do it rightly. 
 
 If the land is rightly bought and 
 rightly handled, it will show a large 
 percentage of profit, which profit often 
 has to be divided with whoever fur- 
 nishes the time, experience, advertis- 
 ing, etc. If the owner of acres can- 
 not make a wise selection of a man 
 to retail the lots, he should keep them 
 in acres and hope to resell the entire 
 tract in one sale. The best and most 
 desirable subdivision managers will not 
 work for a commission, but feel entit- 
 led to a good share of the profits and 
 of the advanced values. 
 
 Such a plan is the true theory for 
 the owner if he gets the right connec- 
 tion with the right man. 
 
52 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 THE EMERSON 
 now under roof, one of the largest and bes 
 
 One good way for the reader to 
 judge as to whether such prices as 
 given above are reasonable, is to com- 
 pare theiu with the prices in some city 
 he knows about or can learn about 
 more readily thaa about Gary. In 
 making up comparisons, he can, in 
 fairness to himself, and should, con- 
 sider Gary's immediate future, and the 
 great causes of real estate values that 
 now exist there, rather than purely 
 its present population, because if he 
 bases it on population alone, he would 
 be throi^gh before he started. By this 
 is meant that Gary, in the first half of 
 the year 1909 has probably not more 
 than 15,000 permanent resident popu- 
 lation, and there is probably no town 
 of 15,000 people in the United States 
 where real estate is worth as much as 
 the reader himself regards it worth at 
 Gary. The truer test by comparison is 
 on the basis of what the reader is al- 
 ready convinced will be the least im- 
 mediate population of Gary (which he 
 could not sensibly put down as less 
 than from 30,000 to 50,000) and make 
 his comparison with other cities of 
 from 30,000 to 50,000 people, some- one 
 or more of which he may know values 
 in, such as : 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 t in the United States. Cost about S2.0O,OOO. 
 
 Mobile, Ala 50,000 
 
 Montgomery, Ala 40,000 
 
 Little Rock, Ark 50,000 
 
 Bloomington, III 30,000 
 
 Joliet, 111 35,000 
 
 Quiney, III 42,000 
 
 Eock Island, 111 38,000 
 
 Fort Wayne, Ind 50,000 
 
 South Bend, Ind 45,000 
 
 Terre Haute, Ind 42,000 
 
 Davenport, Iowa 41,000 
 
 Saginaw, Mich 50,000 
 
 Lincoln, Neb 50,000 
 
 Elmira, N. Y 45,000 
 
 Schenectady, N. Y 50,000 
 
 Springfield, Ohio 50,000 
 
 Altoona, Pa 45,000 
 
 Lancaster, Pa 50,000 
 
 York, Pa 40,000 
 
 Dallas, Tex 50,000 
 
 Spokane, Wash 50,000 
 
 Wheeling, W. Va 48,000 
 
 Green Bay, Wis 30,000 
 
 Racine, Wis 35,000 
 
 These population figures are stated 
 on a basis of the federal census of nine 
 years ago, allowing for probable in- 
 crease since. 
 
 Then, if the reader's knowledge and 
 faith lead him to regard Gary as a 
 much greater city soon, he can make 
 his comparison of values so far as 
 
REAL ESTATE VALUES 
 
 53 
 
 kuown to him in such cities of larger 
 population as follows: 
 
 Birmingham, Ala 60,000 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal 150,000 
 
 Denver, Colo 150,000 
 
 Bridgeport, Conn 90,000 
 
 Hartford, Conn 90,000 
 
 New Haven, Conn 130,000 
 
 Wateroury, Conn 63,000 
 
 Wilmington, Del 90,000 
 
 Atlanta, Ga 100,000 
 
 Savannah, Ga 73,000 
 
 Evansville, Ind 70,000 
 
 Des Moines, Iowa 70,000 
 
 Covington, Ky 55,000 
 
 Cambridge, Mass 100,000 
 
 Fall River, Mass 130,000 
 
 Lawrence, Mass 73,000 
 
 New Bedford, Mass 74,000 
 
 Worcester, Mass 140,000 
 
 Portland, Me 60,000 
 
 Grand Eapids, Mich 100,000 
 
 Duluth, IVimn 60,000 
 
 Manchester, N. H 65,000 
 
 Camden, N. J 81,000 
 
 Albany, N. Y 100,000 
 
 Utica, N. Y 70,000 
 
 Yonkers, N. Y 60,000 
 
 Akron, Ohio 55,000 
 
 Dayton, Ohio 100,000 
 
 Youugstown, Ohio 55,000 
 
 Erie, Pa 60,000 
 
 Harrisburg, Pa 55,000 
 
 Wilkesbarre, Pa 60,000 
 
 Pawtucket, E. 1 45,000 
 
 Charlestown, S. C 65,000 
 
 Nashville, T'enn 95,000 
 
 Houston, Tex 60,000 
 
 San Antonio, Tex 75,000 
 
 Salt Lake City, Utah 60,000 
 
 Norfolk, Va 63,000 
 
 Seattle, Wash 110,000 
 
 Tacoma, Wash 55,000 
 
EUGENE J. BUFFINGTON. 
 "The man who does things." 
 
 President of the Indiana Steel Company that is expending a 
 Hundred Million Dollars at Gary on an industrial plant "that bears 
 its lesson of economy to every man who makes or sells for profit.' 
 
WHAT OTHERS SAY 
 
 57 
 
 OTHER PEOPLES' SAYINGS AND 
 WRITINGS. 
 
 At a banquet in December, 1907, 
 "the United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion" was the topic assigned to E. J. 
 Buffiugton, president of the Indiana 
 Steel Company. Mr. Buffington was 
 introduced as "a man who did 
 things." It had been his brain which 
 had conceived the great plant now 
 going up on the water front and the 
 City of Gary as it now appears in the 
 first subdivision. Mr. BuiSngtou said : 
 
 "I have been asked to respond to a 
 toast that calls for something to be 
 said in regard to the United States 
 Steel Corporation. In a technical sense 
 I am responding to that without my 
 credentials, because it is only in a sub- 
 sidiary capacity that I represent the 
 United States Steel Corporation. But, 
 perhaps, in so far as the corporation's 
 purposes and undertakings at Gary are 
 concerned, I can give some facts. 
 
 Is a Public Corporation. 
 
 "The United States Steel Coi'pora- 
 tion is M'hat I term a public corpora- 
 tion, in the sense of its widely distrib- 
 uted ownership of stock. The United 
 States Steel Corporation, perhaps, has 
 a larger number of stockholders than 
 any other corporation in the world. It 
 employs over 200,000 men in its indus- 
 trial activities. Multiplying that by 
 five would give us over a million peo- 
 ple associated through the employment 
 of labor of various kinds with the 
 United States Steel Corporation. It 
 feels itself a part of the public ; it 
 recognizes a duty to the public ; it 
 recognizes its responsibility to the 
 public for a strict observance of law 
 and an vmswerving adherence to the 
 principles of common honesty. The 
 policy of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration is along that line, and it will 
 
 always see to it that those who have 
 to do with the administration of its 
 affairs stick closely to the principles of 
 right and justice. Those who have to 
 do with the mapping out of the policy 
 to be pursued by the several subsidiary 
 companies of the corporation believe in 
 the strict observance of the law. They 
 recognize that the only protection that 
 property has is the observance of the 
 law and the maintenance of the law, 
 and the only way laws can be main- 
 tained is through their observance. 
 
 Why Gary Was Selected. 
 
 "The undertaking at Gary by the 
 United States Steel Corporation was 
 the result of its recognition of the 
 necessity to do something on a large 
 scale in the West to take care of the 
 rapidly growing demand for steel and 
 iron products. To give you an idea 
 as to the rapidity -with which the de- 
 mand for those products has grown, I 
 will state that in the year 1890 the 
 total production of steel in the United 
 States was 4,000,000 tons; in the year 
 1895 that production had grown to 
 6,000,000 tons ; in the year 1900 it had 
 grown to 10,000,000 tons ; in the year 
 1906 the United States produced 23,- 
 000,000 tons of steel products. 
 
 "Our plans for enlargement were 
 first had with respect to the existing 
 plants of the Illinois Steel Company, 
 the principal plant being at South Chi- 
 cago. Chicago possesses many of the 
 essentials of manufacture on a large 
 scale; but we soon saw that there was 
 not suiScient elboM^ room at South Chi- 
 cago for bringing forth or perfecting 
 our large plans for the building of an 
 additional steel plant. Hence we be- 
 gan to cast our eyes around for a suit- 
 able place for the location of a large 
 steel plant. Our observations were con- 
 fined to the shore of Lake Michigan; 
 we could not afford to break ourselves 
 
58 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1900" 
 
 away i'roiii the transportation afforded 
 bj^ the lake for our ore supplies. Our 
 attention was called to the sand dunes 
 in the northern part of Lake county, 
 and the site attracted us. Our investi- 
 gation of the depth of the water im- 
 mediately in front of this land con- 
 vinced us that there was possible a 
 most magnificent harbor for our ship- 
 ping; a sufficient depth of Avater could 
 be had to float the ships of largest 
 draught. We also found good railroad 
 facilities in this vicinity; better, in 
 some respects, than at Chicago, espe- 
 cially with reference to terminal and 
 transfer facilities. Therefore, we cast 
 our lot in the northern part of In- 
 diana. 
 
 "The first land was bought in the 
 fall of 1905 — a few hundred acres — 
 and the building of the steel plant was 
 begun in the spring of 1906 Avith the 
 development of larger plans, more land 
 was bought from time to time, until 
 now our holdings amount to approxi- 
 mately 9,000 acres in one continuous 
 body. The plan for the first unit, it 
 may be termed, for steel manufacture, 
 involves the building of eight blast 
 furnaces, fifty-six open-hearth fur- 
 naces, accessory finishing mills, rail 
 mill, plate mill, structural mill and 
 mills for making bar steel. The ca- 
 pacity of this first unit will be approx- 
 imately 2,500,000 tons annually. That 
 will be a larger output of steel than is 
 made to-day by all of the plants of the 
 Illinois Steel Company. That will give 
 you some idea of the scope of this un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 Homes for Employes. 
 
 "After deciding to build this steel 
 plant at this site, amid this waste and 
 these sand dunes we recognized at once 
 the necessity of the steel corporation 
 undertaking to build a place for the 
 homes of its employes. Therefore we 
 
 were forced to undertake the com- 
 mencement, at least, of a town. Our 
 connection with the Town of Gary 
 was a necessity; no one else would 
 undertake the expenditure of the capi- 
 tal necessary to make the homes for 
 our employes. Amid this waste and 
 these sand dunes it was not to be sup- 
 posed that any one would have suf- 
 ficient confidence in the mere an- 
 nouncement of the plan of the cor- 
 poration to build a big steel plant that 
 would employ eventually 15,000 men ; 
 capital cannot be persuaded to invest 
 in homes on a mere statement of that 
 kind. Therefore the corporation had 
 to acquire sufficient land not only for 
 its steel plants but for the starting of 
 a town. 
 
 "The first subdivision of Gary com- 
 prises about 800 acres of land, which 
 has been laid off into something over 
 4,000 lots. The purpose of the cor- 
 poration with respect to this compara- 
 tively small area is merely to give a 
 sample, or endeavor to give a sample, 
 of the lines along which Gary should 
 be built. We were anxious to avoid 
 the conditions which are usually inci- 
 dent to a new community. We pur- 
 pose in this first subdivision to com- 
 plete it with well-paved streets and 
 with a sewage system that has been de- 
 signed by the best of engineers so as 
 to secure the best possible sanitation 
 for the community. It will be 
 equipped with a water works that will 
 give Gary a supply of water inferior 
 to none on the lakes. The capacity of 
 the water plant being constructed can 
 be extended almost to an unlimited de- 
 gree. It involves the construction of a 
 tunnel over 15,000 feet in length, 7,000 
 feet of tlie tunnel being beneath the 
 waters of Lake Michigan, and going 
 out to a depth that will insure as pure 
 water as can be obtained from that 
 source. 
 
WHAT OTHERS SAY 59 
 
 Great Public Utilities. CONTRACTS FOR STEEL CARS. 
 
 "The gas works will have a capacity 
 from the start to serve a population of 
 over 25,000 people. All these public 
 utilities are being provided by a sub- 
 sidiary company of the United States 
 Steel Corporation under franchises ob- 
 tained in the regular way from the 
 Town Trustees. In seeking these fran- 
 chises we represented that they could 
 be safely entrusted to us and that the 
 Corporation did not seek them merely 
 for the profits which may be made out 
 of them. They will be administered in 
 the best interests of the community, be- 
 cause by so doing the Corporation will 
 be best administering its own inter- 
 ests. AA^e are to depend for our profits 
 upon the steel business. AVe know more 
 about the steel business than we do 
 about running a town. AVe expect the 
 people in this community to show us 
 how to run a town. AVe shall gladly 
 welcome the day when all the affairs 
 of Gary can be taken over by an or- 
 ganization, in due course of law, with 
 no attempted direction by the corpora- 
 tion. There is nothing paternalistic in 
 the undertaking of the corporation at 
 Gary. The corporation has built in 
 Gary at the present time over 500 
 dwelling houses. Those houses are in- 
 tended for its employes. 
 
 "The plan adopted by the corpora- 
 tion for offering its residence property 
 for sale in the first subdivision of Gary 
 prevents absolutely the property from 
 f)assing into the hands of speculators. 
 AVe sell no piece of property within 
 the first subdivision of Gary excepting 
 to those who are prepared and willing 
 to at once put up suitable buildings of 
 an agreed character ; so that there is 
 no opportunity in the first subdivision 
 of Gary for the speculators to get hold 
 of property and hold it for their per- 
 sonal advantage and disadvantage of 
 the community." 
 
 In an article about the opening of 
 the first furnace at Gary, the Chicago 
 Record-Herald early in the year 1909 
 says : 
 
 At present a large amount of steel 
 rail and steel car business is under ne- 
 gotiation. Recent orders for cars are 
 500 box cars and 300 steel hoppers 
 placed by the Lackawana with the 
 American Car and Foundry Company 
 and a contract for 300 steel under 
 frame cars placed by a southern road 
 with the Standard Steel Car Company. 
 
 In structural steel the most impor- 
 tant recent contract was that for 11,- 
 000 tons for the new C'ity Hall building 
 in Chicago, the American Bridge Com- 
 pany being the successful bidder. Sev- 
 ei'al other contracts for small amounts 
 were reported during the week. Dur- 
 ing the year the American Bridge 
 Company, the Steel Corporation's 
 structural steel subsidiary, has deliv- 
 ered about 350,000 tons of material and 
 will carry orders for about 200,000 tons 
 over into next year. The various in- 
 dependent interests have turned out 
 about 800,000 tons of structural ma- 
 terial during the year. During a large 
 part of the year they were hunting for 
 business actively and took it at lower 
 prices than the corporation would ccm- 
 sider. 
 
 In the January, 1909, issue of "Iron 
 Age" of New York, probably the lead- 
 ing journal in iron and steel in Amer- 
 ica, is a review of the Gary mills, show- 
 ing how they are regarded in the steel 
 industr}'. A part of the article is as 
 follows : 
 
 "The Greatest Steel Plant in the 
 World." 
 
 Since the organization of the Indiana 
 Steel Company as a constituent inter- 
 
60 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 est of the United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion in January, 1906, and the subse- 
 quent announcement of its plans for 
 the building of a steel plant of unpre- 
 cedented size at Gary, Ind., this under- 
 taking has eomuianded the interest and 
 attention of the entire industrial 
 world. Nor is this due alone to the 
 magnificence of the scale upon which 
 the work was planned ; for it was 
 easily recognized that an unprece- 
 dented opportunity would be here af- 
 forded for a concentration of the most 
 modern methods and appliances for 
 making steel from the ore to the fin- 
 ished product. 
 
 The Acme of Achievement. 
 
 Projected under conditions unhamp- 
 ered by the limitations of capital and 
 favored by the acquisition of an ade- 
 quate site, it was expected — and with 
 good reason — that the Gary plant when 
 completed would represent in all of its 
 units, individually and collectively, the 
 acme of achievement in this branch of 
 the world's industries. And as the 
 plans have developed and taken form 
 in construction, no doubt remains that 
 these expectations are in the end to be 
 realized in the fullest degree. The op- 
 portunity of designing a complete steel 
 making plant of such size has never 
 before presented itself to engineers ; 
 nor indeed can conditions better suited 
 to successful accomplishment be easily 
 conceived. The history of steel plant 
 construction, in this and other coun- 
 tries, has been, generally speaking, one 
 of evohxtion from more or less modest 
 beginning. 
 
 For Future Development. 
 
 First plans for such enterprises usu- 
 ally make only imperfect or inadequate 
 provision for future growth and exten- 
 sion, with the result that there are 
 lacking the perfect symmetry and com- 
 
 plete co-ordination of parts which are 
 only possible when ultimate ends are 
 in the view from the beginning. Here, 
 however, is a great, well balanced 
 plant, which will finally comprise a 
 S3'stem of component units fitted to- 
 gether iu a related plan calculated to 
 facilitate, at every stage, the produc- 
 tion of steel, and to secure the maxi- 
 mum of economy in the cost of produc- 
 ing it. 
 
 AS VIEWED BY THE ENGINEERS. 
 
 Magnitude One of Striking Features 
 of the Plant — Thoroughly Modern. 
 
 Gassier 's Magazine, one of the lead- 
 ing engineering magazines of the 
 world, contains an authoritative ac- 
 count of the new steel plant in Gary. 
 The article was written by a member 
 of the editorial stafif of the publication 
 and besides presenting his impressions 
 on the great plant the writer gives an 
 expert description of its construction. 
 
 For more than tM'o years past the 
 attention of the civilized Avorld has 
 been directed towards Gary, Ind., 
 Avhere an achievement uniciue in the 
 annals of industrial history is at pres- 
 ent in process of realization. Upon the 
 shifting sand dunes of Northern In- 
 diana, at a point where the Grand 
 Calumet flows into Lake Michigan, 
 twenty-three miles east of Chicago, 
 there are being built, in record time, a 
 city, a harbor and enormous steel 
 works, the largest of their kind in the 
 world. This is all in behalf of one 
 corporation, the Indiana Steel Com- 
 pany, which has secured here a site 
 of 9,000 acres, with a lake frontage of 
 one and three-quarter miles, on which 
 to erect both the mills and a residence 
 city for its employes. 
 
A PEN PICTURE 
 
 61 
 
 Impressed with Magnitude. 
 
 Upon a visitor entering tlie plant, 
 the first and overwhelming impression 
 is that of magnitude ; the second, re- 
 sulting from close inspection, is of com- 
 pleteness coupled with simplicity; the 
 third and most interesting concerns the 
 practical elimination of waste. Prom 
 these factors, as a natural resultant, 
 comes "economy," the much-sought 
 necessity of the present industrial 
 world. Plere it has been worked out 
 with mathematical certainty. 
 
 During a decade or two past the 
 relative cost of producing iron and 
 steel, as compared with the constantlj^ 
 increasing scales of wages paid to 
 worlimen, has been reduced largely 
 through the substitution, first, of me- 
 cliauical appliances for manual labor 
 and then of improved macliinery and 
 methods. This eliange has been and is 
 still taking place all along the line, 
 from tlie stripping and removal of ore 
 beds by steam shovels to the loading 
 of the finished rails, plates or struc- 
 tural parts on cars ready for shipment. 
 At every stage of the process wliere 
 new apparatus is used, if the machin- 
 ery has been wisely designed, properly 
 installed and efficiently operated, costs 
 have been proportionately reduced and 
 a final cheaper — usually better — prod- 
 uct made possible. 
 
 Methods for Utilizing- Waste. 
 
 Of late, however, there have come 
 about still more important require- 
 ments in steel mill practice, due both 
 to improved metallurgical processes 
 and the necessity of supplementing 
 these by methods for utilizing the in- 
 evitable waste, wliich, consequently, is 
 fast disappeai'ing as "waste" and re- 
 appearing as "by-products." 
 
 For the benefit of those wlio have no 
 intimate knowledge of the manufacture 
 of steel it may be well to state, in ex- 
 
 planation of wliat follows, sometliing 
 of the first steps of the process. When 
 pig-iron is to be made, coke, ore and 
 limestone are put in layers in the blast 
 furnaces and then the fires are lighted. 
 A powerful blast of heated air is sent 
 through tlie burning mass, in order to 
 generate the intense heat necessary to 
 melt the ore and the limestone, or 
 "fiux, " into a molten mass. In tlie 
 burning of the coke under a terrific 
 forced draught it is impossible to have 
 consumed all of the heat energy in tlie 
 coke. 
 
 STILL ANOTHER PEN 
 
 PICTURE OF GARY 
 
 In Harper's Weekly of July 4, 1908, 
 "Gary, the City That Rose From tlie 
 Sand Waste," is made the subject of 
 an appreciative article by John Kim- 
 berly Mumford. Space will not permit 
 of tlie publication of the article entire, 
 notwithstanding it is well worth read- 
 ing. Excerpts follow : 
 
 Three years ago the wild duck used 
 to flock in the lazy reaches of back- 
 water all about the sluggish bends of 
 the Grand Calumet, and foxes ran in 
 the scrub that thinly clothed the sand 
 hills. TAventy-six miles southeast of 
 Chicago the Calumet Hunting Club had 
 its rude biit comfortable huts topping 
 the barren rise above the lake shore. 
 Overworked lawyers and doctors used 
 to go down from Chicago on Saturday 
 night to fish and hunt and swap lies 
 through the Sabbath day, and get 
 braced up for Monday. It was out of 
 the world. Except for the surf and 
 the roaring wind and the periodical 
 bang of the double-barrel it was a 
 silent realm down there. Nature was 
 all alone. 
 
 To-day — well, the palace of Aladdin 
 was a hasheesh-dreamer's fantasy. 
 
62 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 The tower of Babel was a piece of 
 "jerry" work, because it hadn't like 
 the Steel Corporation, a bunch of poly- 
 glot foremen and a billion and a half 
 of money back of it. To-day the Grand 
 Calumet has been moved into a new 
 channel back from the storm-thrashed 
 coast, and titanic steam shovels have 
 sliced away the sand dunes and tossed 
 them into the hollows that Avere left, 
 to make foundation for mills and shops 
 and offices, and all the manifold build- 
 ings that belong- by rights to one of 
 the most extraordinary industrial 
 plants on earth. 
 
 Long piers grow out into the lake by 
 magic and between them big dredges 
 began gnawing their way inshore. To- 
 day a ship canal 250 feet wide and 25 
 feet deep extends a mile inland and 
 is still lengthening, to end in a turn- 
 ing-basin where the lake ore-vessels 
 can swing around and put their bull 
 noses out to sea again. All along the 
 west side of it runs a concrete wall big 
 enough to bastion a world, and on it 
 tower the black giants they call "un- 
 loaders," with lean arms that reach 
 down and snatch the cargo out of the 
 bowels of a ship in jig-time. Back of 
 these, au endless ore-yard, also of con- 
 crete, where mountains can be heaped 
 to await the day when the hot, hungry 
 niouths of the furnaces shall claim 
 them. Ore-bridges, raising their gaunt 
 skeletons into the sky, bins, dumps, 
 cars, obeying the click of an electrical 
 button. Huge, upright cylindrical 
 stoves, gas-consumers, conical blast 
 furnaces, rows of stacks like mammoth 
 sticks of licorice poked up into the face 
 of heaven ; acres upon acres of open- 
 hearth buildings, rail-mills, machine- 
 shops, foundries, pumping-stations, 
 bloom-mills, billet-mills, ladles, blow- 
 ers, conduits, pipes, storage-houses, 
 blacksmith-shops, and what not, all of 
 steel and brick, brick and steel, with 
 their feet set solid in concrete that 
 
 goes down to the wet sand below the 
 level of Lake Michigan. And every- 
 wliere are strewn the rubble and ruin 
 left from prodigious construction. 
 
 The vice-president of the Indiana 
 Steel Company said there were three 
 reasons for building Gary, none of 
 them sentimental. First, it is a lake 
 port, or will be ; second, its railroad 
 facilities for shipment will be perfect ; 
 third, it will in a short time be the cen- 
 ter of steel consumption, for that cen- 
 ter, though now a little farther east, 
 is moving west more rapidly than the 
 center of population, which is now just 
 south of Chicago. The curving south 
 shore of Lake Michigan Avithin the 
 next generation will be a black, re- 
 A'crberant arc of steel-mills, the great- 
 est producing center in the world, and 
 as Ave go now to look in wonder at the 
 grass-groAvn sites of vanished cities in 
 the oil regions, so our grandchildren 
 may go some day to pick Avild flowers 
 from AA^iat in this year of grace are 
 the noisy and smoke-laden streets of 
 Pittsburg. Who can tell ? 
 
 The Land of Opportunity. 
 
 A month later the Avriter of the above 
 has, in Harper's AVeekly, an important 
 intervieAv Avith Judge E. H. Gary. 
 
 In the course of an intervieAA^, Judge 
 Gary tells of the policy of the Steel 
 Corporation in so straightforAvard a 
 way that the intervicAv is well Avorth 
 the reading by every employe of the 
 Steel Corporation and by all others 
 Avho have been brought into contact 
 Avith it. The most pertinent extracts 
 are given beloAV : 
 
THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 63 
 
 "There is a great awakening in this 
 country with relation to better con- 
 duct, more decency, more honesty, 
 more responsibility — by everybody, to 
 everybody. 
 
 "It doesn't make an atom of differ- 
 ence who brought it about. It's here. 
 Mark my words, that is the keynote of 
 the American situation to-day. 
 
 "There has been deceit, there has 
 been over-reaching, there have been 
 errors of kinds innumerable, but from 
 this time forward there is going to be 
 more fairness and a lot more candor 
 and rectitude in the transaction of 
 business. 
 
 "Any man who says he is not in- 
 fluenced by selfish inotives in his deal- 
 ings is, of course, a hypocrite. We all 
 know better ; but there is a host of 
 men who can appreciate a policy of 
 honesty, and every sane man sees that 
 such a policy must be scrupulously fol- 
 lowed. And this idea should extend 
 until it prevails in all dealings and in 
 the management of all corporations. It 
 is in the air. The tendency of business 
 henceforth will be to respect the pub- 
 lic, and the man who antagonizes that 
 policy will be ground out sooner or 
 later." 
 
 This declaration was made to me the 
 other day by Judge Elbert H. Gary, 
 chairman of the United States Steel 
 Corporation. 
 
 "When the Steel Trust talks out from 
 the diaphragm there is no man in 
 America, whether he is his own boss 
 or whether he works on a salary, but 
 can afford to sit up and pay attention, 
 because it means something to every 
 individual. 
 
 Steel with its billion of money ; Steel 
 with its myriad glowing furnaces, its 
 
 thundering mills, and its smokestacks 
 thick as stalks in a cornfield ; Steel, 
 with its thousands upon thousands of 
 miles of ore land and coal land and 
 gas land ; Steel, with its endless rail- 
 ways and its fleet of vessels ; Steel, 
 with its SAvarming populations of work- 
 men and its trade lines penetrating 
 every business and every corner of the 
 world, has become the touchstone of 
 our fortunes and the barometer of our 
 condition. 
 
 They used to say "As New York 
 goes so goes the Union." Now they 
 say that as Steel goes so goes the whole 
 mighty current of American business. 
 We live and work in steel buildings, 
 we ride in steel ears and steel ships, 
 our intercourse is over steel wires — we 
 are encompassed and entwined and 
 coimected, transported, and finally en- 
 tombed by steel. We are Steel and 
 Steel is us. 
 
 The very form and embodiment of 
 the trust idea — the Simon-pure essence 
 of corporation in its highest potency — 
 is the Steel Trust. Hailed at its birth 
 by the conservative as a monstrosity, 
 and decried as an impertinence greater 
 than Lucifer's, the Steel Trust has 
 been a huge disappointment to many. 
 It was a machine too cumbersome to 
 work, they said; a ship too heavy to 
 float, an annihilator of personal rights 
 and a foe to Honest Labor. But it is 
 still here and growing. It has raised 
 wages and reduced prices. It has 
 averted one panic and steadied the 
 country through another, and it pos- 
 sesses a long arm and a sturdy voice. 
 
 It stands to reason, therefore, that 
 what the Steel Corporation, through 
 its authorized spokesman, has to say in 
 this most important stage of business 
 recovery is to be taken, in a way, as 
 the watchword of the times. 
 
JUDGE ELBERT H. GARY 
 
 the wonderful organizer and constructive genius. President of the Executive Board of the 
 United States Steel Company. 
 
A MODERN INDUSTRIAL CITY 
 
 67 
 
 FROM THE CHICAGO ECONOMIST 
 FINANCIAL EDITORIAL, DECEM- 
 BER 5, 1908. 
 
 The drift and the opinion of the Cap- 
 tains of Industry as to the future may 
 be inferred from the developments at 
 Gary and the plans that have been 
 adopted to be worked out later on. 
 Enough has been said in regard to this 
 new field of the United States Steel 
 Corporation to indicate in a way the 
 magnitude of the undertaking, but 
 Chicago does not yet appreciate what 
 is happening close to its doors, and 
 still less does the rest of the world 
 grasp the magnitude of the project. 
 It sounds like exaggeration to say that 
 engagements already entered into con- 
 template the employment of 75,000 
 men, and that a population there of 
 250,000 in the near future is a con- 
 servative estimate, but when such in- 
 formation comes from cautioxis men, 
 familiar with what is going on, one 
 must accept the statements with toler- 
 ance at least. 
 
 A MODERN INDUSTRIAL CITY. 
 
 "American Industries," a publica- 
 tion of high standing in its particular 
 field, devotes several pages of its De- 
 cember, 1908, issue to Gary. It was 
 written by G. Wilfred Pearce, civil 
 engineer. Cogent extracts from Mr. 
 Pearce 's article, which is entitled 
 "Gary: A Modern Industrial City," 
 are given below. 
 
 The works are to be operated by the 
 Indiana Steel Company. As planned, 
 the ultimate annual output of pig iron 
 from Gary will be 3,000,000 tons. This 
 vast amount is exactly one-half of the 
 world's output fifty years ago. In 
 1857 the United States made 1,000,000 
 tons of pig iron. This year's output 
 will be about 25,000,000 tons. Fifty 
 
 years ago the largest cargo of iron ore 
 taken down the Great Lakes was 340 
 tons, and pig iron, Foundry No. 2, 
 sold at $31. Better iron is sold to-day 
 at $16. 
 
 Fifty years ago the learned Sir 
 Lowthian Bell, one of the great iron- 
 masters of Great Britain, gave it for 
 his opinion that the Lake Superior iron 
 ore deposits would not be a factor of 
 importance in less than a century. 
 This season's downtake of iron ores 
 from Great Lake ports will aggregate 
 40,000,000 tons, which is within 8,000,- 
 000 tons of the total export and import 
 tonnage of the ports of London and 
 Liverpool. Gary is planned in a log- 
 ical way to provide due expansion for 
 the Steel Corporation's requirements. 
 The nation's steel wants double once 
 in seven years. Since the United States 
 Steel Corporation was organized, in 
 1901, it has appropriated the stupen- 
 dous amount of almost $100,000,000 for 
 ordinary maintenance and repairs, and 
 for new construction, extraordinary 
 replacement and real estate. 
 
 The Steel Corporation designs to ex- 
 pend $75,000,000 in all ways at Gary. 
 But this sum is being put out in what 
 might be termed fixed units of con- 
 sti'uction both at the works and in the 
 residential locality. About 110,000 
 tons of constructural steel have thus 
 far been used in structures, of which 
 14,000 tons are in the open-hearth 
 building. The fire brick, in nine-inch 
 equivalents, so far, number 100,000,- 
 000. In the frames of shops completed 
 18,000,000 building brick have, been 
 set. 
 
 When Gary makes 3,000,000 tons of 
 pig iron a year, something more than 
 6,000,000 tons of ore will be required, 
 and to that end, suction dredges are 
 making a long and deep channel from 
 the lake to a dock one and one-half 
 
68 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 miles loug and 250 feet wide, which will 
 be ready for ships iu AjDril. There is 
 a logical arrangement of the Avorks Ly 
 which the products move from docks 
 and flux and fuel receptacles to the 
 blast furnaces and thence to the open- 
 hearth steel works, and so on by the 
 shortest line to the mills for semi-fin- 
 ished and finished products. 
 
 All buildings are lofty and have am- 
 ple open space on all sides. The heat- 
 ing and ventilation systems are as good 
 as in the most costly hotels in the great 
 cities. In the foundry and machine 
 shops the window space is the double 
 of the sizes used until recently in mill 
 construction. The sanitary plumbing 
 is of the best, and the iDotable water is 
 supplied from a long intake from the 
 lake which goes out so far that the 
 water is as pure as any on earth. The 
 ore unloaders can discharge 97 per 
 cent, of a ship's cargo in a few hours 
 and convey the ore to the mixing bins 
 with the speed of a railroad train. 
 
 As comf)ared with methods of work- 
 ing pig iron and steel plants thirty 
 years ago, the 20,000 hands that will 
 be employed at Gary, when plans shall 
 have been completed, will do more 
 work than 100,000 hands working 
 under the anticiuated methods, still 
 largely employed in a number of East- 
 ern plants. 
 
 Ore, iron and steel finished products 
 in those trades originate immense ton- 
 nages. "Within five years the annual 
 tonnage at Gary Avill attain the colos- 
 sal amount of 14,000,000 tons a year. 
 The years are not far away when by 
 the dredging of the Grand Calumet 
 River that courses near the mills at 
 Gary, vessels drawing up to fourteen 
 feet Avill be able to ply between Gary 
 and Mississippi River points, via the 
 Chicago Main Drainage Canal. 
 
 The Georgian Bay Canal undertak- 
 ing by Canada, soon to be begun, will 
 give Gary the opportunity for sending 
 ships without breaking bulk direct 
 from her docks to any port in Europe 
 or Asia. All existing grade crossings 
 in Gary are to be abolished and a fine 
 Union Railroad Station is to be built. 
 
THE"F1EST STEP IN THE PRODUCTION OF GARY'S POWER. 
 
 From the tops of the blast furnaces the waste gases are blown down into the^'dast catchers shown here, which 
 remove the heavier impurities. Of these the ore dust is saved and re-smelted. The gas is treated to three further 
 processes. 
 
THE BELT LINE FACTOR 
 
 71 
 
 The Chicago Tribune Gives Details of 
 Road Coming from Milwaukee. 
 
 Plans of the greatest commercial im- 
 portance to Chicago and to the manu- 
 facturing district of which this city is 
 the center became public yesterday 
 through an announcement from St. 
 Louis that control of the Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee and Cary Railway had been 
 practically secured by the St. Louis 
 Union Trust Company. Arrangements 
 also have been made, it is said, where- 
 by $10,000,000 is to be expended on the 
 property to complete the outer belt 
 line around Chicago. When completed 
 the road will extend from Milwaukee 
 to Gary, a distance of 251 miles, en- 
 circling Chicago at a radius of about 
 fifty miles. 
 
 The present line from Rockford, 111., 
 to Momence, 111., 125 miles long, is to 
 be extended at once from Momence to 
 Gary, twenty-six miles, at a cost of 
 $2,225,000. The extension from Rock- 
 ford north to Milwaukee 100 miles will 
 cost $6,595,000, and a new line is to be 
 built from Aurora to Joliet twenty- 
 two miles at a cost of $1,180,000. Ttie 
 road now uses the tracks of the Elgin, 
 Joliet & Eastern Railway between 
 these points. 
 
 Avoid Chicago Congestion. 
 
 Besides affording facilities for the 
 handling of freight between its term- 
 inals, including the new steel town, 
 the road possesses great possibilities 
 for the handling of through freight 
 from the western to the eastern roads 
 along the line of least resistance, avoid- 
 ing the rapidly increasing congestion 
 incident to the Chicago terminals. 
 
 Milwaukee last year handled 96,- 
 000,000 tons of freight in and out by 
 means of only two railroads. Besides 
 the Wisconsin city and Gary, the road 
 passes through several important man- 
 ufacturing cities, including Aurora, 
 Joliet, Dekalb, Janesville and Beloit. 
 
 THE CONSUMPTION OF STEEL. 
 
 Over a year ago a writer, among 
 those most informed as to Gary, wrote : 
 
 The consumption of steel doubles 
 once in seven years ; the larger degree 
 of growth in the development of the 
 country is in sections tributary to Chi- 
 cago and St. Louis. Gary is only 123 
 miles from the center of the country's 
 population, and the trend of that cen- 
 ter is toward that town. The site has 
 an exceptionally good location right 
 on Lake Michigan, and the water front 
 of six and one-half miles is ample for 
 dock requirements for many years 
 ahead. 
 
 Three-fourths of the estimated quan- 
 tity of iron ore at the Upper Lakes is 
 controlled by the Steel Corporation, 
 and the estimated amount is sufficient 
 to endure through a century. The dis- 
 tance saved between upper lake ports 
 and Gary as compared with Lake Erie 
 ports and the transfer to rail for the 
 long haul to the Pittsburg district 
 gives the Steel Corporation's boats, 
 some of which carry 12,000 to 13,000 
 tons of iron ore, many more trips in a 
 season. 
 
 Gary should be regarded as an im- 
 portant unit in the Steel Corporation's 
 sagacious plans for increasing produc- 
 tion in a degree commensurate with the 
 growths of the markets and the trend 
 of the development of the Central West. 
 More than one-half the nation's pro- 
 duction of steel is taken by the rail- 
 road interests, and Gary is almost in 
 the heart of the section which will ex- 
 hibit the largest degree of increase in 
 trackage within a decade. Hence there 
 is what might be termed enough local 
 business to support all the plants now 
 planned for Gary. 
 
 Iron ore and fuel will be massed at 
 Gary during the early summer of the 
 coming year, and by August or Septem- 
 ber the blast furnaces will be at work, 
 
72 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 and immediately thereafter the open- 
 hearth furnaces Avill be charged. By 
 January, 1909, Gary will be an import- 
 ant factor in the steel trades, and from 
 then onward other metal working in- 
 dustries will be attracted thereto. 
 
 ITEMS. 
 
 The principal residential streets are 
 named for the original thirteen states 
 and for presidents of the United States. 
 In the heart of that district is the site 
 for a park which is to be beautified 
 as soon as possible. In the matter of 
 churches, the Steel Corporatiou tells 
 the clergy and trustees to pick their 
 lot, and when that is done the corpora- 
 tion donates the land and makes a con- 
 tribution to the building fund. The 
 same is the case with relation to a pro- 
 posed structure for the Young Men's 
 Christian Association. 
 
 There is to be a fine park at the lake 
 front with a bandstand and an amuse- 
 ment hall, and there is a rumor that a 
 fine library is to be built by a gentle- 
 man of prominence in the Steel Cor- 
 poration. There is plenty of good 
 building ground owned by the corpora- 
 tion and designed for sale to employes 
 at a very snuill return upon cost. 
 
 A lot of land was sold to a Chicago 
 brewer just outside the corporation's 
 residential tract the other day for $14,- 
 000, which a year ago Avas sold for 
 $800. 
 
 ' It is understood by the iron and steel 
 trade workers that Gary is to be what 
 they term "an all star town," that is, 
 the working men are to be picked, so- 
 ber, energetic and reliable men who 
 know how to get on, and who appre- 
 ciate the fact that north, south, east 
 and west, the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration has ahvays stood for "a 
 
 square deal" for every man, and that 
 promotion goes for merit. These facts 
 are not widely knoAvn outside the steel 
 trades, yet it is the explanation of why 
 thousands of the corporation's em- 
 ployes are inspired by ambition to get 
 upward in the service, as they see ev- 
 ery day fellow workers earning very 
 large incomes who a -few years ago 
 were day laborers or clerks in minor 
 capacities. It is this attitude toward 
 employes that is such a great factor in 
 the earnings of the Steel Coi'poration. 
 
 RAYMOND TELLS STORY OF GARY 
 
 (Written in Oct., 1908.) 
 
 Celebrated Correspondent of the Chi- 
 cago Tribune Writes of Magic 
 City of Steel. 
 
 NO SIGN OF MUSHROOM GROWTH 
 
 Astounded Over Vast Expenditures at 
 
 Mills Before Any Returns Can 
 
 Be Made. 
 
 Just think ■what it means in a com- 
 mercial way to spend $100,000,000 with- 
 in a raduis of ten miles and within a 
 period of less than ten years. That is 
 Avhat the United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion has begun to do in this vicinity, 
 and no man can estimate the effect on 
 business and politics in northern In- 
 diana, and even over the line between 
 Illinois and Michigan. 
 
 First of all, as to tlie commercial 
 transformation which has been effect- 
 ed in this land of sand mountains, teal 
 duck, and pine bax'rens. There could 
 not be a more unpromising field than 
 this old bed of Lake Michigan for a 
 demonstration of the unlimited power 
 of great capital to make a Avilderness 
 blossom like an American beauty, and 
 by giving employment to many thou- 
 
THE STORY OF GARY 
 
 73 
 
 sands of men to add to the comfort of 
 the community. 
 
 How many people of Chicago linew 
 wliat was meant wlien the great Steel 
 Corporation announced that it proposed 
 to secure possession of nine miles of 
 Avater frontage on the southern shore 
 of Lake Michigan, and dump ovit on the 
 sand dune country $40,000,000 before 
 it should receive a cent in return or a 
 single ounce of manufactured steel? 
 
 City Grows Up in a Night. 
 
 Do many people understand that to- 
 day, but a little over two years after 
 the ground was broken in one of the 
 most forbidding wildernesses of the 
 country, where the lake shore sand 
 stings the face and the Calumet 
 swamps entrap the feet, there are now 
 5,000 men at work and $250,000 in 
 cash at the least estimate is distributed 
 evei-y month? AVords like "astonish- 
 ing," " marvelous, " " astounding, ' ' and 
 "miraculous" seem entirely trite in 
 describing the results reached by the 
 preliminary millions already spent. 
 
 A city has grown up in the night. It 
 is not a mushroom village with miles 
 of temporary shacks and drink parlors, 
 such as we were accustomed to see in 
 the far west during the boom times, 
 but a real city, with miles of well 
 paved streets, water supply, sewerage, 
 a bustling daily paper, banks, hotels, 
 street cars, and substantial buildings of 
 brick and stone constructed with heavy 
 foundations to permit an extension up- 
 Avard in the near days to come. 
 
 liere is a city where there are not 
 homes enough to shelter the thousands 
 of prosperous workmen, and every 
 night and morning long trains pull 
 them to and from their work, many 
 of their homes being in South Chicago, 
 Englewood, and intermediate towns. 
 There are other industrial centers in 
 northwestern Indiana, like Whiting, 
 Indiana Harbor and Hammond, but 
 
 Gary is the newest and most astound- 
 ing of them all. 
 
 Gary's Population 12,000. 
 
 I went there to look up certain new 
 political conditions, but the commer- 
 cial and industrial surprises are so 
 great they must be told about before 
 the political revolution of the county 
 and state can be appreciated. 
 
 Gary wasn't even on the map four 
 years ago, and yet the residents of the 
 place now put its population at 12,000. 
 That seems an overestimate of the peo- 
 ple actually living there, for one can- 
 not forget tlie throngs of workmen on 
 the long trains of the Lake Shore, Wa- 
 bash, Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsyl- 
 vania lines. 
 
 That there are 5,000 men actually at 
 labor in the construction work of the 
 great steel works is undeniable, with 
 others employed in building up the 
 town. Allowing for a small proportion 
 of women and children — this is a man's 
 town as yet — a population figure of 12,- 
 000 is not excessive if applied to all 
 those who work or sleep in the new 
 city. 
 
 These two years have been devoted 
 to building the plant of the steel com- 
 pany, to erection of business blocks, 
 and to the creation of a section of ar- 
 tistic suburban residences which are 
 even now occupied by the superintend- 
 ents and heads of departments, who 
 must be on the ground early and late, 
 while the workmen within half an 
 hour can reach the Chicago limits. 
 
 Shows Stupendous Undertaking. 
 
 p]ven a few hours devoted to a rapid 
 scurry through the new plant will 
 show the stupendous character of the 
 undertaking. It would be easy to pile 
 up figures of lumdred tons cranes, of 
 a mountain of 400,000 tons of iron ore 
 now on the ground, of giant stacks and 
 
74 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 imposing dress parades of gas engines 
 and electric motors, but the main facts 
 are quite enough. 
 
 In the first place, the United States 
 Steel Company fo^ind by the reports 
 of its mathematicians that there was a 
 point where the transportation cost of 
 fuel and machinery met that of raw 
 material, and wliere this common point 
 was adjusted to freight rates on the 
 finished product. This place seemed 
 to be somewhere on the southern coast 
 of Lake Michigan, where there was 
 water carriage for the bulky ore, easy 
 access to coal and coke, and a natural 
 distx'ibution for the product. 
 
 Chicago was bai-red because of the 
 prohibitive cost of the land for the 
 plant. On the southern shore of Lake 
 Michigan, where the northwest wind 
 for centuries had piled up the sand 
 back to the swamps and out into the 
 lake, and where the old great river 
 which used to empty Lake Michigan 
 into the Mississippi has almost been 
 forgotten, a place was found where 
 land was cheap, where every great 
 tnink line could be tapped, and where 
 water transportation from the Lake 
 Superior iron mines was at hand. 
 
 Plant Will Lead World. 
 
 Gary, named after the master 
 mind of the steel trust, was therefore 
 conceived and the vast plant formulat- 
 ed. It involved, as I have said, an ex- 
 penditure of $100,000,000 in lands, 
 buildings and machinery. The result 
 will be a steel plant with the greatest 
 producing power in the world. 
 
 It is literally true that the United 
 States Steel Corporation is planning to 
 spend the vast sura of $100,000,000 on 
 its plant alone and that it will paj out 
 $40,000,000 before it makes a pound of 
 steel. 
 
 Through the courtesy of W. P. Glea- 
 son, the superintendent of the con- 
 
 cern, I was enabled to take a running 
 jump through the plant. A carriage 
 will take one into the center of a 
 great network of railroad tracks and 
 strangely shaped buildings, with their 
 fantastic domes and stacks, but from 
 that point one nmst be prepared for a 
 leg racking trip over miles of cinder 
 plazas, acres of lake sand, and vast 
 areas of monster buildings, some of 
 them now ready for the steel making. 
 
 Ore Slip of Big Capacity. 
 
 There is a steamship slip where the 
 ore boats from Lake Superior dump 
 10,000 tons at a time of the red prod- 
 uct of the ranges. We cross the aban- 
 doned main line of the Baltimore & 
 Ohio and learn that this trunk road 
 with the Lake Shore was obliged to 
 divert its main right of way to make 
 room for the steel monster. 
 
 And this town of Gary is the most 
 wonderful thing of all. The steel trust 
 has wisely avoided all appearances of 
 paternalism. The Pullman experiment 
 has not been repeated. Gary is an in- 
 dependent municipality in every sense 
 of the term. Land was acquired from 
 the trust, but except as to certain lim- 
 itations regartling immediate building, 
 it is free to any man who has the price 
 of purchase. 
 
 Spirit of Commercialism. 
 
 In my short stop in the town I was 
 accosted by one man who wanted to 
 sell me a lot and another who insisted 
 I should take a Avhole block. What 
 appearance of prosperity there was 
 about me, I cannot conceive, but my 
 second friend, who was redheaded and 
 a hastier, insisted there was no stroller 
 on the streets of Gary who did not 
 want to buy a lot or a dozen of them, 
 and he kept at my heels like a South 
 
THE STORY OF GARY 
 
 75 
 
 Clark street old clo' man long after 
 I had disdainfully denied even the sus- 
 picion of capitalism. 
 
 Gary has a main street many miles 
 long, on which there is a trolley line 
 rumiing betAveen vitrified brick pave- 
 ments from the Pennsylvania station, 
 which is well out of town, up to the 
 "works" themselves. As one gets up- 
 town there is a real city. 
 
 There are substantial banks and ho- 
 tels, a rich variety of merchandise 
 shops, and full preparation for a city 
 of 50,000 people, which the inhabitants 
 think certain in the next year or two. 
 
 There are dei^artment stores, restau- 
 rants, pharmacies, gin mills, book 
 stores, offices of physicians and law- 
 yers, undertaking shops, and all the 
 outward evidences of civic prosperity. 
 
 "Working- Force of 15,000. 
 
 When the plans of the steel trust are 
 finally accomplished there will be a 
 permanent working force of 15,000, 
 the men to be put at work in subsi- 
 diary concerns like the American 
 Bridge Company, which are already 
 preparing to locate here. 
 
 At the present time not a furnace is 
 in operation. The foundry will open in 
 a few days, not for commercial work 
 but merely to make castings for the 
 plant itself. There are now, as I have 
 explained, 5,000 men engaged in the 
 construction work exclusively. 
 
 About 1,000 of these are employed 
 on the interior railroad system in de- 
 livering material and machinery. Of 
 the other 4,000 over half are picked 
 employes of the company engaged in 
 installing the machinery. They will 
 be permanent residents. 
 
 A construction force equally as large 
 as that at present Avill be required for 
 
 the next two to five years. Meanwhile 
 one unit after another of the mills will 
 be put in operation, some of them be 
 ginning this winter, so that Gary will 
 have a working force of 10,000 men 
 long before it can provide them with 
 cheap homes enough for their daily 
 habitation. 
 
 MAGNITUDE MOST STRIKING. 
 
 0. A. Tupper, Writing of Gary Mills in 
 
 "Industrial Progress" Makes 
 
 This Comment on Them. 
 
 Still another view of the Gary mills 
 from the technical side is given in a 
 current number of "Industrial Prog- 
 ress," by an article written by C. A. 
 Tupper, representing the Allis-Chal- 
 mers company. In the introduction to 
 his article, which covers several pages 
 of the magazine, Mr. Tupper says : 
 
 "For more than two years past 
 the attention of the civilized world 
 has been directed towards Gary, Ind., 
 where an achievement unique in the 
 annals of industial history is at pres- 
 ent in process of realization. Upon 
 the shifting sand dunes of northern 
 Indiana, at a point where the Grand 
 Calumet flows into Lake Michigan, 23. 
 miles east of Chicago, there are being 
 built in record time, a city, a harbor 
 and enormous steel works, of which 
 the last named are the largest of their 
 kind in the world. This is all in behalf 
 of one corporation, the Indiana Steel 
 Company, which has secured here a 
 site of 9,000 acres, on which to erect 
 both the mills and a residence city for 
 its employes. 
 
76 
 
 ■IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 Overwhelming Magnitude. 
 
 "Upon a visitor entering the plant, 
 the first and overwhelming impression 
 is that of magnitude ; the second, re- 
 sulting from close inspection, is of 
 completeness coupled with simplicity; 
 the third and most interesting con- 
 cerns the practical elimination of 
 waste. From these factors, as a nat- 
 ural resultant, comes 'economy,' the 
 much-sought necessity of the present 
 industrial world. Here it has been 
 worked out with mathematical cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 "Dviring a decade or two past the 
 relative cost of producing iron and 
 steel as compared with the constantlj^ 
 increasing scales of wages paid to 
 workmen, has been reduced largely 
 through the substitution, first, of me- 
 chanical appliances for manual labor 
 and then of improved machinery and 
 methods. 
 
 waste — which, consequently, is fast 
 disappearing as 'waste' and reappear- 
 ing as "by-products.' " 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 / %• 
 
 A 71 -vs 
 
 v^ 
 
 y Y.=i\v 
 
 $%r-^ *^ — II>'^5=: 
 
 
 
 1 ;pv\' 
 
 rSii^ ^I^S^^^-.-^-'^^^.:^^ 
 
 A recent editorial in the Chicago 
 Daily Ncavs says : 
 
 Chicago as an Iron and Steel Center. 
 
 Designed to Lower Cost. 
 
 ' ' This change has been and is still tak- 
 ing place all along the line, from the 
 stripping and removal of ore beds by 
 steam shovels to the loading of the 
 finished rails, plates or structural parts 
 on cars ready for shipment. At every 
 stage of the process, where new ap- 
 paratus is used, if the machinery has 
 been wisely designed, properly in-- 
 stalled and efficiently operated, costs 
 have been proportionately reduced and 
 a final cheaper — usually better — prod- 
 uct made possible. 
 
 "Of late, however, there have come 
 about still more important refinements 
 in steel mill practice, due both to im- 
 proved metallurgical processes and to 
 the necessity of supplementing these 
 bv methods for utilizing the inevitable 
 
 Pittsburg is today the great iron 
 and steel center of the country, but 
 there are signs that Pittsburg's su- 
 premacy in this respect must pass to 
 the industrial area of which Chicago 
 is the center. The Pennsylvania city is 
 situated amid great coal fields. In for- 
 mer years iron ore was mined in its 
 vicinity in large quantities, but now 
 the ore used by its mills in the manu- 
 facture of iron and steel is drawn 
 largely from the region at the head of 
 the great lakes. It is this fact that 
 gives (.'hicago the chance to acquire 
 the supremacy as an iron and steel pro- 
 ducing center. Iron ore can be 
 brought to the foot of Lake Michigan 
 cheaper than it can be taken to Pitts- 
 burg, since the latter trip requires a 
 rail haul for part of the distance. 
 
 The three principal ingredients 
 which go to the making of iron and 
 steel are the natural ore, the fuel and 
 
OF INTEREST TO ENGINEERS 
 
 77 
 
 limestone. Limestone abounds near 
 Chicago. The iron ore can be brought 
 here at relatively small cost. Chicago 
 is near great coal fields. In so far as 
 the coal of Pennsylvania, with its bet- 
 ter coking qualities, is required in 
 some of the steel-making processes, 
 there is more economy in bringing it 
 or the coke made from it to this point 
 than in taking the ore to Pittsburg. If 
 the coal is coked near Chicago the gas 
 formed as a by-product can be readily 
 marketed. Because of these consider- 
 ations the greatest iron and steel mak- 
 ing plant of the United States Steel 
 corporation is being established at 
 Gary, which is a suburb of Chicago. 
 
 The presence of cheap iron and steel 
 is an invitation to manufacturing 
 plants which need them as raw mat- 
 rial to come to this neighborhood. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, that great 
 manufacturers are seeking sites in the 
 environs of Chicago. These elements 
 of growth in population and business 
 must exercise an immense influence 
 upon this great community in the com- 
 ing years. 
 
 GARY MILLS SEEN BY ENGINEERS 
 
 Exhaustive Article on the Engineering 
 Features of the Great Plant. 
 
 4,000 TONS OP RAILS DAILY 
 
 Capacity Will be 4,000,000 Tons Per 
 Year — All Operated by Elec- 
 tricity. 
 
 The Engineering Record, one of the 
 great engineering periodicals in the 
 country, devoted several pages of its 
 issue last week to the steel mills at 
 Gary. The article is exceedingly im- 
 portant, as showing the view point of 
 
 leading engineers. Extracts are given 
 below : 
 
 Practically the whole plant will be 
 operated by poAver furnished by inter- 
 nal-combustion engines, using blast 
 furnace gas. The plans call for sixteen 
 500-ton blast furnaces of standard de- 
 sign, eight of which are now either 
 completed or under construction. 
 
 Cleansing' the Gas. 
 
 The gas passes from the top of each 
 furnace through four outlets into two 
 downcomer pipes, which lead into a 
 dry dust catcher, thirty feet in diam- 
 eter by forty feet high. In the latter 
 a considerable part of the impurities 
 settles to the bottom and the gas pass- 
 es into another large pipe which leads 
 upward some distance to increase the 
 quantity of dust dropped and then 
 turns down again emptying into a sup- 
 plementary tank, fourteen feet in di- 
 ameter by twenty-five feet high, 
 one of which serves each pair of 
 furnaces. This structure not only pro- 
 vides an additional dust catcher, but 
 also acts as a valve, being divided into 
 two compartments partially filled with 
 water. The two chambers of this tank 
 discharge into a pipe ten feet in diam- 
 eter, which cai'ries the gas into the pri- 
 mary wet washers. 
 
 The primary washers are cylindrical, 
 with a cone-shaped bottom and top, 
 and are kept about one-third full of 
 water. Water cascades down through 
 each drum, and the stream of gas is 
 directed up against if from near the 
 bottom of the drums. A stream of 
 water is spread into a film on the sur- 
 face of the cylinder, and the whirling 
 drum throws such impurities as the 
 gas still holds out against the water 
 film, where they are caught. From 
 these final washers the gas is conveyed 
 under slight pressure to the holders, 
 each of wliich has 200,000 cubic feet 
 capacity, from which it goes, as re- 
 
78 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 quired, to the electric power station 
 and blowing engine houses. 
 
 44,900,000 Cubic Feet Per Day. 
 
 Sixteen blast furnaces produce about 
 44,900,000 cubic feet of gas per twenty- 
 four hours, equivalent when used in gas 
 
 engines, to 500,000 horse power. 
 
 Of this quantity approximately 30 per 
 cent, is taken for heating the stoves, 
 7.6 per cent, is diverted to steam boil- 
 er furnaces, 5 per cent, is consumed by 
 various auxiliaries or lost in the pro- 
 cess of cleansing, 12.5 per cent, oper- 
 ates the gas engine-driven blowers, and 
 45 i^er cent, supplies the electrical pow- 
 er station. 
 
 For the eight furnaces thus far erec- 
 ted there are two blowing engine 
 houses, one of which is 600 feet long 
 and 104 feet wide, and the other of 
 the same width, but 530 feet long. The 
 former building includes a central 
 pumping and hydraulic power plant. 
 Each house contains two steam-driven 
 blowers, in addition to the gas engines, 
 but when the plant is in fiill operation 
 these blowers will not be used. 
 
 Each of the sixteen blowing engines 
 consists of a horizontal, twin-tandem 
 2,500 horse-power gas engine, having 
 42x54 inch cylinders, and two direct- 
 driven Slick blowing tubes rated at 30,- 
 000 cubic feet of free air per minute 
 against a pressure of eighteen pounds 
 per square inch, but proportioned for 
 operation at any pressure up to thirty 
 pounds. 
 
 Electric Power Station. 
 
 The central power station, which is 
 105x966 feet in plan, with forty-two 
 transverse twenty-three feet bays, ad- 
 joins the blowing engine houses and 
 is between the blast and open-hearth 
 furnaces. 
 
 This places it advantageously for fuel 
 supply and insures minimum lengths 
 
 of transmission lines to the various 
 departments furnished with current. 
 The foundations of this building and 
 also of both blower houses consist in 
 each case of a slab of concrete five feet 
 thick, underlying the entire structure at 
 about the level of Lake Michigan. On 
 this heavy slab are separate founda- 
 tions for each of the generating and 
 blowing units. 
 
 In order to pass from the blast to the 
 open hearth furnaces a subway has 
 been built under the floor of the build- 
 ing at the transverse center line of the 
 latter, thus enabling workmen to avoid 
 a long detour that, would otherwise be 
 required to keep them out of the power 
 house. 
 
 In this central station are installed 
 seventeen 4,000 horse-power horizontal, 
 twin-tandem, double-acting gas en- 
 gines, fifteen of which are designed for 
 coupling to alternating-current gener- 
 ators and two to be connected to di- 
 rect-current generators. 
 
 Exhaust From Gas Engine. 
 
 The exhaust from the gas engines is 
 conveyed to a 9x12 feet under-ground 
 tunnel, immediately outside the build- 
 ing. This tunnel runs the length of 
 the building and is provided at each 
 end with a stack, nine feet in diameter 
 by ninety-two feet high. The same 
 method of muffling the exhaust is pro- 
 vided for the blowing engine houses. 
 
 The power generated will be distrib- 
 uted throughout the works and used 
 to operate heavy induction-motor-driv- 
 en rolls, the tilting and feed tables for 
 the various passes, the hot saws, hot 
 and cold pull-ups, hot rolls, transfer 
 tables, straightening and drilling ma- 
 chines, cold saws, elevators, conveyors, 
 pumps and a multitude of machines 
 and mechanical devices auxiliary to 
 the operation of such an enormous 
 plant. Several of the motors for driv- 
 ing rolls in these works are of 6,000 
 
OF INTEREST TO ENGINEERS 
 
 79 
 
 horsepower capacity each. Prom these 
 large motors the size ranges down to 
 machines of the smallest capacity used 
 to operate sAvitches in the power house. 
 The problems of control presented by 
 the multitude of motors installed in the 
 plant involve many unusual features. 
 The electrical system as a whole is sub- 
 ject to central control at a switchboard 
 operated from a gallery, sixteen feet 
 high, in the station. 
 
 Open Hearth Furnaces. 
 
 In the construction of the open 
 hearth furnaces provision has been 
 made for retaining the heat of the 
 molten iron. At the same time a more 
 uniform quality of the ingots is in- 
 sured by conveying the molten iron di- 
 rectly from the plast furnaces to enor- 
 mous mixer in 40-ton ladles on special 
 trucks. These mixers, of which there 
 are two, with a capacity of 300 tons 
 each, are shaped like converters and 
 are in the north end of each of the 
 open-hearth furnace buildings. Prom 
 these the molten metal is again poured 
 into 40-ton ladles, carried by cranes to 
 the furnaces and there emptied in by 
 means of charging machines. 
 
 The plans of the plant provide for 
 six batteries of basic oijen-hearth fur- 
 naces, fourteen to the building, of 
 which tAvo batteries, or twenty-eight 
 furnaces, are at present constructed. 
 The six open-hearth furnace buildings 
 contemplated in the plans will be iden- 
 tical with the others in construction, 
 being 1,200 feet long and built in 
 three spans, giving a total width of 193 
 feet, with a height of 104 feet above 
 the floor line, thus allowing for ex- 
 cellent ventilation. 
 
 At the north end of each open-hearth 
 building is a structure eighty-six feet 
 wide by 120 feet long, for the mixers, 
 and for a pit for relining the 40-ton hot- 
 metal ladles. The balance is occupied 
 by the furnaces, each sixteen feet 
 
 wide and forty feet long, with 
 a rated capacity of seventy tons. 
 In the construction of each fur- 
 nace 800,000 bricks were required, 
 making a total for one building of over 
 11,000,000, or about 67,000,000 bricks 
 in the six buildings to be built. The 
 open-hearth buildings are equipped 
 with electrically-operated cranes, both 
 traveling and fixed, one with a capa- 
 city of ]25 tons being provided in the 
 casting department, and another of 
 the same capacity on the charging side 
 of the furnaces. The ladles employed in 
 pouring off are each of eighty tons capa- 
 city. 
 
 12,000 Tons Daily Capacity. 
 
 As it takes about eight hours for a 
 heat in one of the open-hearth fur- 
 naces, and the latter are never allowed 
 to cool except for repairs, the daily 
 capacity of each of them will be ap- 
 proximately 210 tons, giving, with one 
 furnace down for repairs, a daily total 
 of 3,360 tons for each building. When 
 the four open-hearth buildings now 
 completed or under construction are 
 in operation, the Gary plant will, there- 
 fore, have a capacity of 12,000 tons of 
 steel per day or 2,500,000 tons per 
 year. With all six buildings in ser- 
 vice the total capacity of the plant, as 
 planned by the United States Steel 
 Corporation, will be upwards of 4,000,- 
 000 tons per year. 
 
 With everything running at full ca- 
 pacity, 4,000 tons of steel rails can be 
 produced daily, and in a normal oper- 
 ation the mill is expected to turn out 
 100,000 tons per month. 
 
 The group of rail mill buildings is 
 about 300 yards from the lines of the 
 open-hearth furnaces. The main struc- 
 ture is 1,800 feet long, and at right 
 angles to it is another building of one- 
 third the length, with a width of eighty- 
 five feet in a single span. This latter 
 building contains twelve soaking pits, 
 
80 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 each supplied with gas from an inde- 
 pendent mechanical gas producer. The 
 arrangement here is such that ingots 
 enter from the open-hearth furnace 
 buildings along the entire length of 
 one side of the pit building, the other 
 side being reserved for the electrically 
 operated ingot buggies which transfer 
 the heated ingots through the first 
 stand rolls. The ingots used are 20x24 
 inches by six. feet, weighing 8,500 
 pounds each. 
 
 Progress of the Rail. 
 
 After the finishing pass the rail trav- 
 els through to the saws, of which five 
 are provided, thus cutting four rails to 
 length. These four rail lengths consist 
 of half the ingot. As the capacity of 
 this mill is 4,000 gross tons per 
 twenty-four hours, it will be seen 
 that there must be a four-rail 
 length sawed about every half min- 
 ute. The saAvs are forty-two-inch 
 blades, arranged to be raised and low- 
 ered in unison by one controller from 
 the hot-saw ojaerator. Following ■ the 
 hot-saw run the rails pass over the usu- 
 al cambering machine and are run on- 
 to hot beds, 100 feet long, of which 
 four are at present installed, with pro- 
 vision made for two more if necessary. 
 These hot beds extend to the south of 
 the mill proper. In the finishing mill 
 section they are of unusual design, be- 
 ing made of structural material and 
 placed eight feet above the floor to al- 
 low for an extraordinary large air 
 space to facilitate the rapid cooling of 
 the rails. 
 
 The finishing building is 1,383 feet 
 long, central with the hot beds, and is 
 provided with live rolls extending its 
 entire length. Presses complete the 
 rails, and from them the rails are 
 transferred to a roller table, which ex- 
 tends the full length of the building, 
 and from which the rolls may be skid- 
 ded to the loading beds just outside 
 the building. 
 
 Operated by Electricity. 
 
 For the operation of cranes, tables 
 and other apparatus, in and about the 
 rail mill, requiring direct current, two 
 500 kilowatt synchronous motors driv- 
 ing direct-current generators have 
 been furnished. This ecjuipment, with 
 the necessary switchboards, is located 
 in one of the motor houses at the rail 
 mill and is designated Sub-station No. 
 1. Other sub-stations suitably ec|uipped 
 are being located in other sections of 
 the plant. 
 
 The loading yard is provided with 
 the usual inspection beds and two 
 tracks, each about 1,400 feet long, con- 
 nected with the track system of the 
 plant at both ends, thus avoiding any 
 unnecessary shifting. The yard is al- 
 so served by an eighty-foot traveling 
 crane for the entire length of the finish- 
 ing department, and by means of this 
 the rails are placed directly on flat cars. 
 In loading steel rails the ordinary way 
 has been to switch in on stub tracks, 
 which requires the cars to go out the 
 same way. In the Gary plant the rail- 
 road tracks along the finishing depart- 
 ment of the rail mills will be at a 
 slight grade, so that the cars can be 
 moved by gravity to the point where 
 they are needed. The empty cars 
 come in on one of the nine tracks form- 
 ing the trunk line. They are then 
 switched to tracks making a broad 
 curve to the finishing department. 
 
 Billet Mill. 
 
 Tlie billet mill consists of four con- 
 tinuous stands of forty-inch blooming 
 mills, each two of which are driven by 
 a 2,000 horse-power motor. After leav- 
 ing these the ingot is turned end for 
 end on a turntable and passes through 
 a five-stand, thirty-tAvo-inch continuous 
 mill, the entire mechanism of Avliich is 
 driven by one 6.000 horse-poAver motor. 
 At the end of the tAventy-four inch mill 
 is placed a roller table. The billets 
 may be transferred to an eighteen-inch 
 
OF INTEREST TO ENGINEERS 
 
 81 
 
 coiitiniTOUs mill to be further reduced, 
 or, if for sale, to a shear and from 
 theuce to overhead billet pockets, from 
 which they may be loaded directly 
 into cars. 
 
 The ingots for the billet mill are 
 heated in twelve soaking pit furnaces, 
 arranged similarly to those adjoining 
 the rail mill. Each of the pits in both 
 buildings is supplied with gas from 
 one independent mechanical gas pro- 
 ducer. 
 
 The additional mills to be built are 
 a 60-inch universal plate mill, which 
 will be the largest of its kind in the 
 world, and a 44x1 60-inch sheared plate 
 mill. These two mills Avill each be 
 served by a 32-inch slabbing metal. 
 Further extensions to the Gary works 
 include an axle mill, a structural mill, 
 an 8-inch, a lO-mcli, a 14-inch and an 
 18-inch merchant bill. The mill build- 
 ings have steel frames with brick sides 
 and corrugated iron roofs. The open 
 hearth stripper and soaking pit build- 
 ings have steel frames and corrugated 
 iron sides and roofs. The struc- 
 tural steel in these buildings and 
 elsewhere in the plant was fur- 
 nished by the American Bridge Com- 
 pany, supplemented by the Illinois 
 Steel Company. 
 
 The blast furnace plant is also pro- 
 vided with live pig casting machines. 
 These machines make pig iron and 
 load it directly on cars, if for any rea- 
 son the open-hearth plants are unable 
 to take care of the product of the blast 
 furnaces, as on Sunday, when the mills 
 are not in operation, or when it is de- 
 sired to send the pig to any other plant 
 of the United States Steel Corporation. 
 
 In connection with the furnaces and 
 mills of the steel plant proper, there 
 has been erected a group of buildings 
 of general utility, consisting of a ma- 
 chine shop, foundry, boiler shop, black- 
 smith shop, pattern and carpenter shop, 
 pattern storage building, roll shop, 
 electrical repair shop, brick storage 
 
 house and a well equipped general 
 storehouse. These shops have steel 
 frames, brick walls and concrete tile 
 roofs. There has also been provided a 
 yard locomotive house, which is rec- 
 tangular in plan, with tracks running 
 through on an angle from one side to 
 the other, thus avoiding the necessity 
 of a turn-table. 
 
 Of these utility building's the most 
 interesting is probably the foundry, a 
 structure 136x400 feet in plan, in three 
 spans of 36, 40 and 60 feet respectively. 
 This building contains two cupolas for 
 making iron castings, and two 25-ton 
 oi^en-hearth furnaces for making steel 
 castings. It is served by eight cranes 
 of capacities ranging from 5 to 50 tons. 
 The blacksmith shop is also notewor- 
 thy for the improved appliances which 
 it contains, and it likewise houses 
 boilers to generate steam for operating 
 trip hammers and for heating the 
 shops of this group. 
 
 ENGINEER OFFICE, U. S. ARMY, 
 508 Federal Building. 
 
 Chicago, July 27, 1908. 
 Mr. H. S. Norton, 
 
 President Gary Commercial Club, 
 Gary, Ind. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I desire to thank you specially for 
 your invitation of last week to the 
 "Oldening of Gary Harbor," and for 
 the pleasure which it gave me to ac- 
 cei^t and be present. 
 
 The possibilities of Gary are enor- 
 mous; it starts to-day with the advan- 
 tages which Chicago acquired only 
 after many years of hard struggles. If 
 properly handled, Gary and its adjoin- 
 ing towns may in fifteen to twenty 
 years rival, if not surpass, Chicago as 
 a commercial and manufacturing com- 
 munity. May it successfully arrive at 
 that position. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 W. H. BIXBY, 
 Colonel Engineers, U. S. Army. 
 
82 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 THE MAP HEREWITH 
 
 had, during last year, months of care- 
 ful preparation by the writer, and, 
 since then, has been changed to date. 
 Steel Company officials and railway of- 
 ticials have strongly commended it. 
 The lines of railroad shown are from 
 surveys furnished by the Engineering 
 Department of the Vanderbilt System. 
 The following points can be better un- 
 derstood by reference to the map : 
 
 Each mile square is what is called 
 a "section" and the number of the 
 section is in the middle of it. 
 
 The Steel Company's subdivision, 
 shown in white, contains the lots that 
 they are selling with building restric- 
 tions, etc., and is all the property they 
 have on the market. This subdivision 
 is the "core" of the city and contains 
 some fifty miles of streets that are 
 paved or being paved. 
 
 The east and west street ear line in 
 this subdivision is on Fifth avenue, and 
 the north and south one on Broadway. 
 These are the business streets of the 
 town on which buyers of lots must 
 biiild brick and stone store buildings. 
 On other streets, residence improve- 
 ments are required. 
 
 The town is spreading out far and 
 wide beyond this subdivision into ter- 
 ritory where no building restrictions 
 are imposed, but there are strong as- 
 surances of the city's realizing on the 
 Steel Company's theory that a new 
 city with a heart or core, one mile by 
 two miles in area, of fine streets and . 
 good buildings, will stimulate the same 
 things in all additions thereto. 
 
 All east and west streets are "ave- 
 nues" aud numbered from First ave- 
 nue, crossing the north end of Broad- 
 way at the entrance to the works, to 
 Ninth avenue at the south edge of 
 their subdivision, and about Twentieth 
 avenue at the Port "Wayne crossing 
 and depot on Broadway. 
 
 The thoroughfares running north 
 
 and south are called "streets"; those 
 lying east of Broadway being named 
 after the states of the Union, and those 
 lying west of Broadway named after 
 the presidents in the order of their 
 election. 
 
 At the north end of Broadway is 
 about to be built the large Union De- 
 pot of the Lake Shore and the Balti- 
 more & Ohio Railroads ; at about Ninth 
 avenue and Broadway will be the 
 Union Depot of the Michigan Central 
 and Gary and Western; and about 
 Twentieth avenue and Broadway the 
 depot of the Fort Wayne Railroad. 
 
 At the upper end of Broadway is 
 the entrance to the mills and the de- 
 pot of the Chicago, Lake Shore & 
 South Bend Electric, a through fast 
 line running hourly trains between 
 Gary and Chicago and from which, 
 just west of the Steel Company's sub- 
 division, a branch is in operation into 
 the ToUeston region. The Broadway 
 line also has a branch westward on 
 Eleventh avenue to Tolleston. 
 
 Where the stations on the new Gary 
 & Western R. R. would be, has been 
 a matter of much curiosity and some 
 significance. Their location has just 
 been announced. Near the American 
 Locomotive Works there will be a new 
 station called Alco. The other stations 
 are at Broadway ; 1st St. in Tolleston ; 
 one at Clark Road; one at Ivanhoe, 
 and one at Gibson. The one at Clark 
 Road is a Union Depot for the Gary & 
 Western and the Michigan Central. 
 
 The shaded portion of the map rep- 
 resents the about 10,000 acres of the 
 Steel Company's industrial lands. 
 None of this is for sale unless it be to 
 manufacturing institutions desired by 
 the Steel Company. 
 
 Through these lands extends east 
 and west, the Grand Calumet River, 
 which is to be straightened, widened 
 and deepened to form the Lake Michi- 
 gan end of the Ship Canal to the Gulf. 
 
L 
 
 M 
 
 H- 
 
 ^z 
 
 -* \c 
 
 T 
 
 -U 
 
 ^L\ 
 
THE MAP OF GARY AND VICINITY 
 
 83 
 
 Along the south edge of the map is 
 shown the Little Calumet, along each 
 side of which is considerable low land, 
 between which and the Steel Com- 
 pany's holdings are about all of the 
 Gary acres that are "ripe" for subdi- 
 vision. Much of this is already in lots 
 and the reader will see that the best, 
 close in, acreage that is for sale, is lim- 
 ited in quantity. Even some of this 
 acreage is low in spots, which is one 
 of the things a man well posted in real 
 estate there must know about. It is 
 generally made of ridges several hun- 
 dred feet wide, extending east and 
 west with depressions of about the 
 same width between the ridges. It is 
 usually covered with small trees from 
 ten to thirty feet high, and nearly all 
 of sand surface to such an extent that 
 it is bare of grass. If the trees were 
 cut away it would look like an im- 
 mense stone wash board. 
 
 There are as yet in this outlying dis- 
 trict, not many wagon roads and very 
 few of them even graveled. The only 
 way to know this land thoroughly is 
 to "tramp" around and over it, which 
 
 the writer did in the summer of 1907 
 to the extent of hundreds of miles and 
 as much more since. 
 
 WHAT DOES "TOLLESTON" 
 MEAN? 
 
 It means an attractive residence 
 area cornering into the corporate town 
 of Gary and now, in every way but 
 legally, a part of Gary. All students 
 of the situation consider it certain 
 that within a year or two, the corpo- 
 rate town of Tolleston will be merged 
 into Gary. In the northeast corner of 
 the town of Tolleston is a small village 
 at the crossing of the Michigan Cen- 
 tral and Fort Wayne Railroads, called 
 Tolleston. It is peopled by good Ger- 
 man citizens who have lived there for 
 a generation and has very good resi- 
 dence conditions, including schools, 
 drainage, transportation, high ground, 
 much line tree growth and has now 
 two electric lines to the entrance to 
 the Steel Works, only six or eight min- 
 utes away. 
 
84 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 For those who are Wondering how it w^ould be 
 to Live in Gary ? 
 
 To such readers, certainly no more accurate idea could be con- 
 veyed in print than the following few pages of clippings, mostly from 
 the Gary Tribune, covering a period of the last year and a half. 
 While one of such clippings of itself might not signify much, the 
 aggregate, novel as the method is, will throw much light on the civic, 
 social and educational affairs of the town, which interest every reading 
 member of a family that is thinking of moving to Gary. Many of the 
 clippings are condensed and many residents' names omitted. 
 
 OMAHA COUNCILMEN IN GARY. 
 LID NAILED DOWN ON 
 
 GARY SALOONS 
 
 Magic City of Steel Takes Its Place on 
 Water Wagon for a Year. 
 
 The City of Gary was turned out of 
 the sanitarium where it has been under 
 treatment for the past year, and those 
 who had the city in their care say that 
 it is effectually cured of the liquor 
 habit. 
 
 But those who knew Gary in the 
 palmy days when the "lid was off," 
 are standing around the corner, and 
 patientlj' waiting to see a headlong 
 tumble from the water wagon. To- 
 day the city sits proudly on the seat 
 beside the driver of that time honored 
 vehicle Avhich is filled with many sister 
 cities of Indiana. 
 
 Lid Reverently Nailed Down. 
 
 There were only fovirteen saloons 
 left to pass away, and it was midnight 
 before the doors were closed. Patrons 
 of the various saloons gathered around 
 the bars, and bought the small stock 
 that remained in the shelves. 
 
 Then at 12 o'clock, one hour later 
 than the usual closing time, the pro- 
 prietors shook hands with the patrons 
 and the "lid" Avas closed, reverently 
 nailed own and securely sealed. 
 
 I^' embers of Junketing Party Look 
 Over Local Pavements. 
 Gary is fast gaining an enviable 
 reputation among the city councils and 
 county commissioners of the country 
 for her pavements and civic improve- 
 ments. Last Saturday the county 
 commissioners of Omaha, Neb., made 
 a trip to this city to inspect the streets 
 and pavements. 
 
 FOR FIRST PRESBYTERIAN. 
 
 Ground Broken by Church Officials — 
 
 First Spadeful Turned by 
 
 Mrs. Walton. 
 
 Ground was broken Tuesday after- 
 noon for the building of the first Pres- 
 byterian church in Gary. The building 
 committee of the Presbyterian church, 
 the trustees and Rev. and Mrs. F. E. 
 Walton, pastor of the church, gathered 
 at the site at Van Buren street and 
 Sixth avenue Tuesday afternoon at 
 2 :'S0 to turn the first earth for the new 
 building, which will be erected at once. 
 
 STILL ANOTHER TROLLEY LINE. 
 
 Applications for a franchise for a 
 new interurban railroad connecting 
 the cities of Hammond, East Chicago, 
 Indiana Harbor, Gary and Crown 
 Point will be made to the councils of 
 Hammond and East Chicago, Monday 
 night by a company known as the 
 Calumet Traction Company. 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LiVE IN GARY? 
 
 85 
 
 BIG FLAT BUILDING ON 6TH AVE. 
 
 Twelve-Apartment Structure Corner of 
 Van Euren Street to Cost $40,000. 
 
 Another big flat building will go up 
 at Sixth avenue and Van Buren street. 
 It will be three stories high and have 
 accommodations for twelve families. 
 
 The new building is on the southeast 
 corner diagonally across from the 
 Brant building, which is now being 
 erected on the northwest corner, and 
 which will also be three stories high 
 and will contain twelve flats. 
 
 Will Cost $40,000. 
 
 The plans for the new building call 
 for pressed brick front with Bedford 
 stone trimmings, and are for one of the 
 best structures of its kind in Gary. 
 The estimate cost is $40,000. 
 
 SOCIETY IN GARY. 
 
 One of the pleasant receptions of the 
 week occurred Wednesday afternoon 
 at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Al- 
 schuler. Mrs. Alschuler was the 
 hostess to a party of eighty ladies of 
 Gary and Chicago, who took this op- 
 portunity to visit the newly completed 
 home of the Alschulers at 600 Van 
 Buren street. 
 
 The reception was held from 3 to 6 
 o'clock and during its progress a three- 
 course luncheon was served in the 
 beautifid dining room of the resi- 
 dence. 
 
 The decorations were in red and 
 green and tastily arranged. Holly and 
 poinsetti were among the decorations 
 and carried out admirably the Christ- 
 mas effect desired. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Alschuler have been 
 in their new home only a fcAv weeks 
 and the reception was the first of a 
 number of social functions they will 
 
 give during the season. The house is 
 beautifully decorated and arranged. 
 
 In receiving Mrs. Alschuler was as- 
 sisted by Miss Stearn of Chicago and 
 Mrs. E. G. Cogshell of this city. 
 
 Mrs. W. P. Gleason entertained yes- 
 terday from 12 to 2 p. m., at a nine- 
 course luncheon, in honor of Mrs. Ray- 
 mond Lennon of Joliet. The Gleason 
 home at Seventh avenue and Jackson 
 street was beautifully decorated in 
 colors and roses and palms. The din- 
 ing table was decorated with pink 
 roses. The reception room was adorned 
 with American beauty roses and the 
 living room was decorated in red and 
 green, with palms. 
 
 Besides Mrs. Raymond Lennon, in 
 whose honor the luncheon was given, 
 were Mrs. Daniel Lennon, Mrs. J. Len- 
 non and Miss Nellie Lennon of Joliet. 
 
 The Cotillion Club of Gary, the new- 
 est organization of dancers, held its 
 first annual dance last night at Bin- 
 zenhof Hall. More than seventy-five 
 couple were present. The hall was 
 artistically decorated with crepe pa- 
 per in gold and purple, the colors of 
 the club. 
 
 Music was furnished by Bigelow's 
 Orchestra, and the dancing began at 9 
 and continued until 12, there being 
 about twenty numbers on the program. 
 During the evening D. H. Pitzele, form- 
 erly of Pittsburg, introduced a number 
 of fancy dances from the east, which 
 will be included in the programs of 
 future functions given by the club. 
 
 MASONIC TEMPLE IS 
 
 NOW PLANNED 
 
 Social Club of the Order Decides to 
 Build. 
 
 Arrangements for the purchase of 
 property upon which to build a Ma- 
 sonic Temple were completed Wednes- 
 day night at a meeting of the members 
 
86 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 of the Gp.ry Masonic Social Club at the 
 Delaware Hotel. It is the intention 
 of the Masonic order in Gary to pro- 
 ceed as speedily as possible with the 
 plans already mapped out and it is be- 
 lieved that within a few months 
 groimd will be broken upon which the 
 temple will be erected. 
 
 BIG BUSINESS OF GARY'S P. 0. 
 
 Over $250,000 Handled in 1908, Ac- 
 cording to Postmaster Call's 
 Official Figures. 
 
 SOME STARTLING STATISTICS. 
 
 The Gary pcstoffice did a business of 
 a quarter of a million dollars in 1908. 
 
 Postmaster Call has just compiled 
 the statistics of his office for last year. 
 The figures are fairly startling as to 
 the volume of business transacted in 
 the office. 
 
 The total receipts of the office for 
 the year were $15,540. 
 
 The total number of pieces of mail 
 handled at the Gary office during the 
 year was about 2,500,000. 
 
 NIGHT SCHOOLS TO 
 
 TEACH ENGLISH 
 
 Great Boon of Foreign-Born Residents 
 Soon to Be Installed in Gary. 
 
 The school board of Gary has com- 
 pleted all arrangements whereby the 
 night school system will be opened 
 within a few days after New Year's. 
 A large attendance is expected. 
 
 More than thirty applications have 
 been made by young men who wish to 
 enter the schools as soon as they are 
 opened. The applicants have been 
 mostly foreigners who wish to become 
 
 better acquainted with the English 
 language. 
 
 The first courses taken up in the 
 night scJiool will be the learning of 
 English and other studies which bring 
 into use the study and constant use of 
 the English language. The teachers 
 employed will speak the English lan- 
 guage alone, this system being now 
 considered the best for teaching lan- 
 guages. After the English language is 
 thoroughly understood by the students 
 other branches of study will be taken 
 up, and taught to the students, who 
 may want a more advanced education 
 in English branches. 
 
 Manual training will be given a 
 prominent place in the night schools 
 when the system is thoroughly estab- 
 lished. The electrician, clerk, carpen- 
 ter, or men of any other trade may at- 
 tend the schools and secure instruction 
 in the advanced courses of his work 
 entirely free of charge. 
 Modeled After German Night Schools. 
 
 The famous system of training 
 schools of Germany, in which young 
 men are trained after leaving the com- 
 mon schools, will be models after 
 which the Gary night school system 
 will be fashioned. The aim of the 
 board is to give aid to every person 
 who wishes to specialize in any one 
 line. 
 
 CITY HALL PLANS. 
 
 STRUCTURE TO COST $45,000. 
 
 To Be Located at Seventh and Mas- 
 sachusetts. 
 
 tl. E. Hammons & Sou were awarded 
 the contract for the architectural work 
 on the new Gary City ITall by the 
 board of trustees Tuesday afternoon. 
 The decision was reached by the trus- 
 tees after plans had been submitted 
 by three architects. 
 
HOWiWOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 87 
 
 Fire Department on First Floor. 
 
 The fire department will be located 
 on the first floor, too. Space has been 
 provided in the center of the bnilding 
 for fire buggies and an engine. Pour 
 stalls are provided and a fireman's 
 room, giving 400 square feet of space, 
 is furnished. The chief of the fire de- 
 partment will have a private office 10 
 by 14 feet. The fire buggy and patrol 
 wagon will be taken care of on another 
 side of the building. Three horse 
 stalls are provided there. 
 
 CONFIDENCE IN GARY. 
 
 How Gary is regarded at Indianapo- 
 lis was shown Tuesday in the bids for 
 the bonds, which the Town of Gary is 
 selling to build the City Hall. 
 
 The two highest bidders were bond 
 houses from the state capital. Indi- 
 anapolis houses saw the Chicago bond 
 houses and not only went them one 
 better, but went them several better in 
 their ofliers. In fact, the prices offered 
 by Indianapolis houses show that 
 Gary's credit is as good as the credit 
 of metropolitan cities. Even at 4 per 
 cent, a good premium was offered for 
 the bonds. 
 
 FEAST ON ROAST PIG. 
 
 University Men Hold Weekly Dinner 
 — Dr. Hosmer Carves. 
 
 Members of the Univei'sity Club 
 feasted on roast pig and chicken Fri- 
 day evening at the Gary Hotel at the 
 weekly dinner. Manager O'Donnell, 
 of the hotel, prepared the north din- 
 ing room of the hotel for his guests 
 and placed a piano in the room so that 
 all sorts of college songs could be in- 
 dulged in. 
 
 All the men were seated at a single 
 table placed in the center of the room. 
 The honor of carving the pig fell to 
 Dr. H. M. Hosmer. 
 
 CALL IS NOW FOR ACRES TO 
 DIVIDE. 
 
 Gary real estate is closing the year 
 in a sort of statu cjuo. The most 
 marked feature of the closing weeks 
 is a sharp demand for acreage which 
 the purchasers desire to hold until 
 next sunnner before subdividing them. 
 Several important sales have been 
 closed in and around Tolleston of this 
 kind. 
 
 STORES CLOSE AT 9 TO-NIGHT. 
 
 According to the agreement signed 
 by forty-three of the Gary merchants, 
 practically all of the business houses 
 in Gary Monday night closing at 9 
 o'clock every evening with the excep- 
 tion of Saturdays and pay days. The 
 stores remain closed all day Sundays. 
 
 PERSONAL MENTION. 
 
 Will H. Moore, a veteran real estate 
 man of high standing in Chicago, 
 writes a letter to the Gary Tribune, 
 which is well worth the reading by 
 every man dealing in Gary property. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Williams of 
 Marshall, Minn., parents of Mrs. Clar- 
 ence C. Hall, are the guests of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Hall at the Gary Hotel. They 
 are en route to Hot Springs, Mo., and 
 will continue on their way to the 
 southern resort to-morrow. 
 
88 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 j\Irs. William McNeil has returned 
 from a three clays' visit to New York 
 City. 
 
 Attorney R. C. Morrison spent Sun- 
 day at his former home in Elkhart, 
 Ind. 
 
 REPAIR SHOPS MAKE A 
 
 GIANT PLANT 
 
 SECOND CONCERT IN COURSE. 
 
 Masonic Social Club Prepares for 
 
 Scotch Singers Friday Evening — 
 
 Second Annual Ball. 
 
 The Masonic Social Club last night, 
 at its meeting at the Gary Hotel, pre- 
 pared for the second entertainment in 
 its lecture course next Friday night. It 
 will be a concert by the Scotch singers. 
 It was decided to make no further can- 
 vass in the sale of season tickets, but 
 to depend on the sale of course tickets 
 at the banks and drug stores. The 
 price of course tickets for the three 
 remaining entertainments was fixed at 
 $1.25. Besides the Scotch Singers Fri- 
 day night, there will be a lecture by 
 Opie Read in February and a concert 
 by the Lyceum Grand Concert com- 
 pany in March. 
 
 BEGIN TO BUILD CASINO. 
 
 The Gary Casino at Connecticut 
 street and Fifth avenue was begun 
 this week and it is the intention of the 
 owners to get it in operation before 
 September 1. The building will be 
 used as a skating rink and dance hall. 
 It will also be useful for public meet- 
 ings. 
 
 A Side Issue of the Big Mills Which in 
 
 Itself Is a Great Industry with 
 
 an Army of Workmen. 
 
 BROADWAY LINED HALF A MILE. 
 
 Aggregate of ground covered by 
 buildings, 5 1-5 acres. 
 
 Material used, steel, brick and ce- 
 ment; wood only in doors and win- 
 dows. 
 
 Longest crane track, 660 feet. 
 
 Total number of men to be employed 
 when in full operation, 2,000. 
 
 Storage cajjacity of fire brick, 2,000,- 
 000. 
 
 Product, repair work for the steel 
 mills. 
 
 The big buildings which line Broad- 
 way for a half-juile between the via- 
 duct and the rail mill, marking the 
 northern terminus of Broadway, will 
 themselves turn out no finished product 
 to the world and yet they are most 
 important in the operation of the 
 plant. They are what is known as the 
 "shops." They are simply to repair 
 what wears out or breaks down in the 
 great structures where the actual pro- 
 duction of iron and steel is going for- 
 Avard. 
 
 Over Five Acres of Buildings. 
 
 The "shops" in themselves make a 
 large manufacturing establishment. In 
 all, thej'' cover a space of five and a 
 fifth acres. In construction they are 
 absolutely fireproof. Steel, brick and 
 cement are used. The only wood in 
 any of the structures are window and 
 door frames and doors. Unless there 
 should be an earthquake or some simi- 
 lar upheaval the shops are practically 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 indestructable. They will last as long 
 as man continues to inhabit these 
 parts. 
 
 The "shops" can easily make new 
 machinery and later on may be used in 
 that way for constructive purposes. At 
 present, however, all of the machinery 
 used in the erection of the mills is com- 
 ing from the factories, although the 
 shops are so nearly completed that they 
 could begin new construction within a 
 fortnight. 
 
 Can Be Doubled in Size. 
 
 It is said that when the mills are in 
 operation to the limit of the plans 
 originally planned by the steel cor- 
 poration, nearly 2,000 men will be em- 
 ployed in the "shops" alone. 
 
 AVith the same foresight for the 
 future which has dominated the great 
 Gary project from its inception, all of 
 the shops are so located that they can 
 be doubled in capacity by simply build- 
 ing on additions. 
 
 HOTEL ARRIVALS. 
 
 Dec. 4, 1908. 
 
 Gary Hotel — C. Z. Martin, Dayton, 
 0.; R. M. Little, South Bend, Ind.; 
 H. M. Love, Milwaukee, Wis.; F. H. 
 Biggett, Jr., Pittsburg, Pa.; Mrs. M'. 
 F. Whiting, Miss Florence Whiting, 
 Engiewood; C. M. Brownson, Grand 
 Rapids, Mich. ; Miss Inez Goddard, 
 Miss Agnes Carnduff, F. P. Hamburg, 
 Henry Teller, George P. Jackson, Chi- 
 cago ; D. C. Maiton, Dayton, 0. ; F. R. 
 Thompson, Indiana Harbor; L. Hen- 
 man, New York; P. A. Lawler, Chi- 
 cago ; C. J. Branham, Michigan City ; 
 D. Henry Brennan, Carbondale, Pa. ; 
 D. L. Guipe, Indianapolis, Ind. ; F. B. 
 Castle, Quincy, 111. ; J. D. Shipman, W. 
 Kline, Toledo", 0. ; J. M. Moody, Phila- 
 delphia, Pa. ; p. W. Baylor, Chicago ; 
 
 L. Adelsdorf, A. B. Monitz, E. A. Tifft, 
 Chicago; Marvin W^allach, Oshkosh, 
 Wis.; C. F. Richie, Milwaukee, Wis.; 
 A. H. Coosley, Boston, Mass.; D. W. 
 Sanders, Covington, Ind. ; L. D. Black- 
 man, Miss Augusta Wallis, George A. 
 McGinnity, Chicago ; P. N. Gavit and 
 family, AVhiting, Ind. ; William Kulen- 
 kamp, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
 Victoria Hotel — W. L. Thomas, 
 Titusville, Pa. ; Mortimer Madden, 
 Charles Kidd, Indiana Llarbor, Ind.; 
 George Deller, Cincinnati, 0. ; P. D. 
 Rospler. Chicago-. D. S. Mitchell, Wil- 
 liam Parry and wife, Chicago ; H. L. 
 Ward, Cincinnati, 0. ; W. H. Heaton, 
 Boston, Mass. ; E. L. Coddington, La 
 Porte, Ind. ; John Pabiny, Seeleyville, 
 111. ; W. F. Shrum, Latrobe, 111. ; Peter 
 Klein, South Bend; Albert Uhl, St. 
 Louis ; J. Barnes, Chicago ; Peter Klein, 
 South Bend, Ind. ; Lillien Black, J. P. 
 Brill, W. P. Hord, Thomas Grant and 
 wife, Chicago ; C. B. Millar, Boston, 
 Mass. ; William Herbold, Peru, 111. ; J. 
 P. Potshard, Marshall, 111.; W. F. 
 Shrum, Latrobe, Pa. ; Miss Eva Ditz- 
 ler, Markle, Ind.; W. E. Blakely, In- 
 dianapolis, Ind. ; Peter Kline, South 
 Bend, Ind. ; James Mitchell and wife, 
 Chicago. 
 
 Hotel Norton— iliss C. M. Wright, 
 La Grange 111. ; Dennis R. McCarthy, 
 Niagara Palls, N. Y. ; H. S. Dickson, 
 Toledo, 0. ; Howard Hildebrand, La 
 Porte, Ind. ; George A. and Mrs. Hen- 
 derson, Miss Brantley, Chicago ; Riley 
 Denton, Wyoming, 111. ; Mrs. J. D. 
 Campbell, Miss Selena Campbell, Mrs. 
 Ursula Rose, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Glyde 
 Uvkon, Plymouth, Mass. ; J. Nussbaum, 
 Chicago, 111.; W. P. Tice, wife and 
 daughter, Crown Point ; J. A. Davis, 
 John Moran, Elyria, 0.; R. J. Scott, 
 Davenport, la. ; J. A. Davis, W. S. 
 Roche, Crown Point, Ind. ; John Mo- 
 ran, Elyria, 0. ; R. L. Scott, Davenport, 
 la. ; Charles Gahagan, George Dillon, 
 Joliet, 111. 
 
90 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 GARY REACHES ERA OF FLATS. WIAJESTIC TO OPEN MARCH 1. 
 
 Apartment Buildings Now Going- Up 
 
 On Both Sides of the First 
 
 Subdivision. 
 
 New $35,000 Building to Be Erected 
 at Sixth Avenue and Van 
 Buren Street. 
 
 Gary has now reached the flat build- 
 ing era of her existence. On every 
 hand flats and apartment houses are 
 going up. On both the east and west 
 sides of the First Subdivision excava- 
 tions are being dug and frame super- 
 structures are being erected for flat 
 buildings. 
 
 Building to Cost $35,000. 
 
 A twelve-flat three-story apartment 
 building of latest design and construc- 
 tion has been planned for the heart of 
 the West Side residence district. The 
 building will cost $35,000. It will be 
 located at the northwest corner of Van 
 Bixren street and Sixth avenue and will 
 be erected by J. R. Brant of Indiana 
 Harbor. 
 
 The new flat building will face on 
 Van Buren street with a large grass 
 plot in front. Six flats will front on 
 Van Buren street and the other six will 
 front on Sixth avenue. The building 
 ■wall measure 50 by 125, the lot being 
 150 feet in length and 90 feet in width. 
 
 All Apartments Steam Heated. 
 
 The ai:)artments will be steam heated, 
 with stationary wash tubs and clothes 
 driers in the basement. There will be 
 a light court between the two sets of 
 apartments and a freight elevator cap- 
 able of giving service to all the flats. 
 
 The building will be of brick with 
 store trimmings, and have an orna- 
 mental front. Mr. Brant has already 
 erected a business building in Gary in 
 the Minnesota block. He is confldent 
 that a high-class flat building will pay 
 returns on the investment. 
 
 Gary's First Vaudeville Playhouse 
 Nearing Completion — Town Be- 
 ing Billed for First Show. 
 
 Joseph S. Kuechlei, the local man- 
 ager of the new Majestic Theater, 
 which is nearing completion, came to 
 Gary to-day, and will remain here 
 while the theater is being flnished. Mr. 
 Kuechlei will inspect the interior ar- 
 rangements of the theater, place the 
 advertising for the opening week, and 
 make all arrangements to start the new 
 vaudeville house successfvilly. 
 
 LOOKING OVER GARY FOR Y. M. 
 C. A, 
 
 International Secretary McDill Here in 
 Interest of Local Branch. 
 
 George D. McDill, international sec- 
 retary of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, with headquarters in Chi- 
 cago, arrived in Gary yesterday after- 
 noon for a visit of several days. Mr. 
 McDill's purpose in coming to Gary is 
 to acquaint himself thoroughly with 
 the conditions in this city in order to 
 make a report to the executive board 
 of the organization, which, it is under- 
 stood, is planning the establishment of 
 Y. M. C. A. quarters in Gary. 
 
 E. E. Stacey, Indiana state secretary, 
 is also expected to be in Gary before 
 the week is over. He will confer with 
 Mr. McDill on the plans to be pursued 
 in establishing headquarters and or- 
 ganizing a local branch. 
 
 The advisability of establishing Y. 
 M. C. A. headquarters in Gary has been 
 prominent in the minds of a number of 
 residents for more than a year. It is 
 believed that if the organization is 
 given a good start here that it will 
 soon grow to large proportions. In 
 case a move is made in that direction it 
 
HOW AVOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 91 
 
 is likely that funds will be subscribed 
 for the erection of a building suitable 
 to the purposes of the organization. It 
 is understood that a large number of 
 young men in Gary are interested in 
 the i^roject and they are ready to be 
 enlisted in the work just as soon as it 
 is deemed advisable. 
 
 GARY MINSTREL CLUB FORMED. 
 
 Minstrel Show Will Be Given Two 
 Nights— May 27 and 28. 
 
 The Gary Minstrel Club, with a mem- 
 bership of nearly thirty, was organ- 
 ized Tuesday evening at Binzenhof 
 Ilall. It is the purpose of the club to 
 give the minstrel show for which it 
 has been preparing on the nights of 
 May 27 and 28 in Binzenhof liall. A 
 professional trainer from Chicago was 
 present at the meeting and the initial 
 instructions to the chorus and end men 
 were given. 
 
 ANNEXATION OF TOLLESTON. 
 
 It is reported that a good many peo- 
 ple residing in Tolleston are more than 
 anxious for annexation to Gary, but 
 the town board of Tolleston cannot see 
 it in that light. On the other hand, 
 the town board of Gary is ready to 
 take in its western neighbor as soon 
 as the people want to join. 
 
 Tolleston is really a part of Gary 
 and there is no logical reason why it 
 should not have the same town govern- 
 ment. Until Gary was founded Tolles- 
 ton was without any significance and 
 its growth within the past two years 
 has been owing wholly to the founding 
 of Gary. Its real estate has advanced 
 simply because of the steel mills. In 
 the end, Tolleston must become a part 
 of Gary, and for the systematic de- 
 velopment of the new city annexation 
 cannot come too soon. 
 
 BANK DEPOSITS HAVE BIG JUMP. 
 
 Gary Institutions Grow from $200,000 
 to Half a Million in a Year. 
 
 The banks of Gary made a remark- 
 able advance in the period from July 
 15, the date of their midsummer re- 
 port, to September 23, when the last 
 call was made. The report of the 
 First State Bank of Tolleston is not 
 in hand to make a complete analysis 
 of the three Gary banks, but the re- 
 port of the First National and the 
 Gary State Bank exhibits a remarka- 
 ble advance. 
 
 Great Gain in Figures. 
 
 The total deposits of the two banks 
 September 23 were : $411,655.37. This 
 was a gain of $138,867.76. The loans 
 of the two banks up to September 23 
 were $193,346.46, a gain of $40,624.29. 
 
 If the Tolleston Bank, which is 
 really a part of Gary's financial inter- 
 ests, were added, the total deposits 
 would doubtless exceed half a million 
 dollars. 
 
 The steady increase in the item of 
 loans and discounts show that the local 
 banks are being able gradually to. in- 
 crease their facilities to local business 
 firms and contractors. 
 
 Tremendous Gain in a Year. 
 
 September 23, 1907, the deposits in 
 the First National Bank of Gary were 
 $123,463.18. The Gary State Bank 
 had not yet begun business, but the 
 First Bank of Tolleston had deposits 
 bringing the deposits for Gary to about 
 $200,000. The increase from $200,000 
 to $500,000 in a year represents the 
 progress of the city as a business and 
 financial center. 
 
 From the start one great difficulty 
 of business men and contractors has 
 been to secure needed accommodations 
 in the way of loans. The new town 
 did not have the banking capital re- 
 quired and as yet the depositors were 
 
92 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 not sufficiently numerous to add ma- 
 tei-ially to the banking strength. 
 
 Loans to Local Firms. 
 
 During the past six months this con- 
 dition has been rapidly changing for 
 the better. Business houses are estab- 
 lisliing a credit, and local bankers feel 
 more certain in making loans. 
 
 With the new building and loan as- 
 sociation in operation, which will 
 gather in local funds and render them 
 available for loaning purposes, another 
 step forward will be taken toward a 
 larger working capital in the new city. 
 The savings deposits in the Gary State 
 Bank show a steady gain, and these, 
 too, are adding to the banking 
 strength. 
 
 Merchants Making Money, 
 
 The steady gain in bank deposits in- 
 dicates that the merchants of Gary 
 are making some money even if the 
 lack of houses is seriously retarding 
 the growth of the city by compelling 
 families to live away from here. If 
 homes should be provided in Gary for 
 the families of all the men who are 
 employed at the steel mills and in the 
 construction of buildings, it would not 
 be long before the bank deposits would 
 .jump from half a million to a full mil- 
 lion dollars. 
 
 SOUTH SIDE NOW HAS GAS. 
 
 TO BUILD SWEDISH CHURCH. 
 
 Prospects for Place of Worship Are 
 Considered Very Bright. 
 
 Members of Swedish Lutheran 
 church congregations in the northwest- 
 ern part of the state met in Gary for 
 the purpose of ascertaining the pros- 
 pects of organizing a Swedish Luth- 
 eran church in the steel town. The 
 meeting was held in the Episcopal 
 Church and the large attendance was 
 very encouraging to the promoters of 
 the proposed new church. 
 
 First of Connections Turned On To-day 
 Expected to Increase Rapidly. 
 
 The south side now has gas, that 
 much needed fuel and light for which 
 residents of that part of Gary have 
 been crying for months. A large num- 
 ber of people have had connections 
 made with their houses and places of 
 business and the number is expected 
 to increase as the mains are laid 
 farther south. 
 
 START WORK ON FORTY HOUSES. 
 
 Will Occupy Entire Block South of the 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 The contract for excavating the 
 basements of the _ forty houses which 
 are to be erected in the Wheeler and 
 Petty Addition south of the Pennsyl- 
 vania was let Monday. The work was 
 begun Wednesday morning and will be 
 completed Avithin thirty days. 
 
 The sand taken from the basements 
 will be used to fill in the low places in 
 the block and the lots on which the 
 houses are to be built will be leveled 
 before the buildings are begun. 
 
 The houses, to be built by a retired 
 real estate dealer of Chicago, will oc- 
 cupy the entire block. They will be 
 cottages of various sizes and will be 
 built so that they will be within the 
 reach of the working men who wish 
 to locate in that part of the town. 
 They will be completed during the 
 summer and will be placed on sale 
 early in the fall. 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 93 
 
 METHODISTS PLAN TO BUILD. 
 
 Early Construction of Their Church at 
 
 Seventh Avenue and Adams Street 
 
 Is Now Assured. 
 
 The iiienibers of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church of Gary have taken the 
 first steps toward building the new 
 church at Seventh avenue and Adams 
 street and the actual work of building 
 will begin Avithin a iew days. 
 
 The committee will hold a meeting 
 this week to complete the arrange- 
 ments for beginning the work. Plans 
 that have been submitted by architects 
 will probably be accepted. The church 
 now has sufficient funds for beginning 
 the work, and an attempt will be made 
 to push the work to completion this 
 spring. 
 
 DOCTORS ARE TO AID COURT. 
 
 Gary Medical Society to Appoint Dele- 
 gates This Afternoon — Uni- 
 versity Club Joins. 
 
 The physicians of Gary will join in 
 the general citzens committee for the 
 establishment of a Superior Court in 
 Gary. The physicians have taken 
 great interest in the movement and as 
 many of them have come to Gary from 
 tOAvns and cities throughout the Hoo- 
 sier state, their assistance will be most 
 valuable in the legislature. 
 
 The Gai-y Medical Society, in whose 
 ranks are enlisted nearly all the phy- 
 sicians of the new city, will hold a 
 special meeting at the Gary Hotel this 
 afternoon to select three delegates to 
 the general citizens committee. 
 
 Bar to Meet Friday Night. 
 
 The Gary Bar Association will hold 
 a special meeting at the Gary Hotel 
 Friday evening to take up definite 
 plans in the campaign for a court. 
 
 The citizens general committee will 
 meet at the same hotel Saturday even- 
 ing, when matters of great importance 
 will be considered. The presidents of 
 all the constituent bodies have been in- 
 vited to attend the meeting of the citi- 
 zens committee, as their aid is needed 
 on one or two vital issues. 
 
 University Club to Join. 
 
 The University Club will join in the 
 citizens' general movement by naming 
 three delegates to the committee. 
 There are over seventy members of 
 the University Club, and its addition 
 to the citizens' movement Avill be de- 
 cidedly helpful. 
 
 TO WORK FOR MAIL CARRIERS. 
 
 Commercial Club Names Committee, 
 
 Which Will Get to Work for 
 
 Mail Delivery in Gary. 
 
 Prior to taking up the court ques- 
 tion the Commercial Club appointed a 
 committee to take charge of the move- 
 ment for securing a mail delivery sys- 
 tem in Gary. This committee will get 
 itself in touch with the postoffice de- 
 partment and take all necessary steps 
 to force the issue of a carrier system 
 in Gary. 
 
 PRESBYTERIANS HOLD SOCIAL. 
 
 One Hundred Persons Gather at Home 
 of Rev. Walton for Evening. 
 
 The u)usicale which was held by the 
 members of the Presbyterian Church 
 of this city, at the home of Rev. and 
 Mrs. P. E. Walton, was one of the most 
 pleasant social functions of the season. 
 One hundred persons were present. 
 
 Those who took part in the program 
 were : Piano, Master Louis Christian- 
 
94 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 son, May McNeil, and Miss Vivian 
 Creutz ; violin, William Douglass ; vo- 
 cal, Ruby Gougli, Mr. Howard, Eugene 
 K. De Witt; piano, Mr. Boyd; read- 
 ings, Mrs. F. E. Walton, Dr. E. L. 
 Schiable. 
 
 greatest benefit to both the contractors 
 and the building supply men. 
 
 BIG FEAT IN CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 AUis-Chalmers Company Has Already 
 Delivered to Steel Mills 3,100 Cars. 
 
 In the last annual report of the Allis- 
 Chalmers Company, just made public 
 in New York, some interesting figures 
 regarding its contracts with the United 
 States Steel corporation for material 
 to be furnished and for orders already 
 completed, are given. That part of 
 the report relating to machinery fur- 
 nished for the Gary plant reads as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 "On account of contracts with the 
 United States Steel corporation's plant 
 at Gary, Ind., the Allis-Chalmers Com- 
 pany has already delivered 3,100 cars 
 of machinery at that point. If those 
 shipments had been moved at one time 
 in one train the length would have 
 been twenty-one and one-half miles." 
 
 BUILDERS TO HAVE AN EX- 
 CHANGE. 
 
 The main topic of the Builders' and 
 Contractors' Association meeting 
 Thursday was the establishment of the 
 Builders' and Traders' Exchange of 
 Gary. The project of the establish- 
 ment of such an exchange was brought 
 up several weeks ago, but has never 
 been definitely discussed until at the 
 regular meeting Avhich was held in the 
 Gai-y Hotel in the afternoon. 
 
 The members of the association are 
 practically unanimous in the opinion 
 that the exchange would be of the 
 
 THAT PASSENGER STATION. 
 
 This announcement appears in to- 
 day 's Construction News : ' ' The Lake 
 Shore & Michigan Southern Railway 
 Company, 144 Van Buren street, repre- 
 sented by J. W. Crissey, its resiclent 
 engineer, room 318, 144 Van Buren 
 street, and the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- 
 way Company, represented by L. G. 
 Curtis, its division engineer, 135 
 Adams street, will jointly build a pas- 
 senger station at Gary, Ind. It will be 
 two-story, 70x150 feet, of steel and 
 concrete construction, have pressed 
 brick exterior and is estimated to cost, 
 including the train shed, about $200,- 
 000." 
 
 GARY A MIRACLE. 
 
 "The greatest industrial miracle of 
 the world is the City of Gary," began 
 Senator Beveridge. "I have traveled 
 12,000 miles during this campaign; I 
 have seen the new cities of the coast 
 and the cities that have sprung up in 
 Oklahoma, but the fact remains that 
 the most marvelous creation upon 
 which the eyes of man ever looked is 
 Gary, Ind." 
 
 REPORT SHOWS 105 PERMITS. 
 
 Majority of Those Issued Were for 
 Residences in First Subdivision. 
 
 Building Commissioner W. H. Kli- 
 ver's report for the month of March 
 shows that permits for 105 dwellings 
 and business buildings were issued 
 during that period. The majority of 
 these were residences for the First sub- 
 division and are now under construc- 
 tion. 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 95 
 
 WATER SOON TO 17TH AVENUE. 
 
 WORKING ON FIRST 
 
 ORDER FOR RAILS 
 
 Mains Will Be Opened to 10th Avenue 
 To-day— Rapid Work South. 
 
 Water Superintendent Luscombe re- 
 ports that the water is now running as 
 far south as Eleventh avenue, and be- 
 fore Thansl^giving will be running to 
 Seventeenth avenue. 
 
 Leonard Fitzgerald reports the open- 
 ing of the gas mains Thursday as far 
 south as Tenth avenue. 
 
 SUBURBAN SERVICE ON 
 
 THE WABASH 
 
 More Trains to be Put on the Gary 
 Run. 
 
 NOW LEADS ALL OTHER LINES. 
 
 E. I. Crossley, local passenger and 
 freight agent of the Wabash Railroad, 
 has taken up the question of suburban 
 train service on that road and has re- 
 ceived the promise that a complete sys- 
 tem of suburban trains will be estab- 
 lished here before April 1. 
 
 Mr. Crossley came to Gary in No- 
 vember, and found the affairs of the 
 road in a bad condition. He recom- 
 mended a 35-cent fare between Gary 
 and Chicago, and it was accepted by 
 the officials of the road, who decided 
 that the former rate of 52 cents was 
 more than should be charged to obtain 
 the patronage of Gary people. 
 
 More Suburban Trains. 
 
 With the suburban fare established, 
 four trains will be put on between 
 Gary and Chicago. 
 
 Great Freight Traffic. 
 
 The W^abash, during the past three 
 months, has exceeded all other roads in 
 freight traffic at Gary, a greater 
 amount of business being handled than 
 by air other roads combined. 
 
 Gary Plant Begins on Steel Rails for 
 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. 
 
 Steel rails are now being turned out 
 by the Gary mills on their first order. 
 They will go to the Chicago, Burling- 
 ton & Quincy Railroad. The next 
 order will be the first consignment on 
 an order of 30,000 tons for the Balti- 
 more & Ohio Railroad. 
 
 Work began at 6 o'clock Tuesday, 
 two crews being at work in the rail 
 mill. They will work together this 
 week, and next Monday they will be 
 separated into day and night shifts, 
 the rail mill then being kept in opera- 
 tion without a stop for twenty-four 
 hours of the day. 
 
 NO OCCASION FOR SURPRISE. 
 
 The announcement that the Ameri- 
 can Locomotive Company will build 
 the most complete and best equipped 
 locomotive wox'ks in the world at Gary, 
 Ind., should not be in the nature of a 
 surprise to people who are familiar 
 with the magnitude of affairs at that 
 Avonderful place. The company has 
 purchased 130 acres of land and is 
 having plans drawn for a new plant. 
 The land purchased is twice the extent 
 of that occupied by the largest of the 
 company's plants and when fully occu- 
 pied the plant will give employment to 
 from 12,000 to 15,000 men. The land ad- 
 joins that of the new plant of the Unit- 
 ed States Steel Corporation. The site 
 at Gary, twenty-four miles from Chi- 
 cago, was selected in order to provide 
 for the territory where the largest 
 number of railroads converge to a sin- 
 gle commercial center. The Chicago 
 district is a great railroad center and 
 the district is favorable as a loca- 
 tion for securing material for building 
 
96 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 locomotives. The company now oper- EPISCOPAL CHURCH IS 
 
 ates plants in Selmectady and Dun- 
 kirk, N. Y., Pittsburg and Scranton, 
 Pa., Richmond, Va., Paterson, N. J., 
 Manchester, N. H., and Montreal, Can- 
 ada. At present there is no large lo- 
 comotive plant west of Pittsburg. The 
 size of the new plant will be sufficient 
 to provide liberally for the growing 
 needs of the railroads for years to 
 come. — Construction News. 
 
 NOW ASSURED 
 
 GARY DOCTORS TO ENTERTAIN 
 
 Meeting of the Local Medical Society 
 
 April 11 to be a Notable One — 
 
 Many Will Attend. 
 
 The meeting of the Gary Medical so- 
 ciety on April 11 will be given over to 
 the entertainment of representatives of 
 medical societies from all of the cities 
 in the northern part of Indiana and 
 arrangements are being made for some 
 of the best speakers in the medical pro- 
 fession to be present at the meeting. 
 
 TO BUILD TOLLESTON HOME 
 
 A. Carlson to Construct Brick Resi- 
 dence in Suburb. 
 
 A. Carlson, the Gary real estate man 
 Avill start within a day or two the erec- 
 tion of a residence at the corner of 
 Bormann boulevard and First street. 
 The house will be of brick, two stories 
 in height, containing six rooms and a 
 bath. It will cost in the neighborhood 
 of $3,000, and will be completed in two 
 months. As soon as the house is ready 
 for occupancy, Mr. Carlson will re- 
 move his family from South Chicago. 
 
 New York Donates $10,000 for the 
 Building Fund. 
 
 Five Thousand Dollars More Now Be- 
 ing Raised in the Diocese for the 
 Gary Edifice. 
 
 SOME $35,000 TO BE EXPENDED 
 
 A telegram which practically assures 
 the erection of a handsome Episcopal 
 church in Gary," "was received here 
 "Wednesday from New York. It stated 
 that $10,000 had been awarded by the 
 church authorities in that city for the 
 Gary edifice. The telegram also said 
 that the purchase price of the lots re- 
 served for the church at the corner of 
 Fifth avenue and Adams street, had 
 been cared for by an "unknown 
 friend." It was currently surmised 
 that this "unknown friend" was J. 
 Pierpont Morgan, who is an ardent 
 Episcopalian. Judge E. H. Gary re- 
 cently made a gift on his own account 
 of a site for the church of the Metho- 
 dist denomination, of which he has 
 been a lifelong member. 
 
 "The liberal gifts from New York," 
 said a member of tlie church yesterday, 
 "means that we will be able to build 
 an edifice costing from $30,000 to $35,- 
 000. The corner selected by the church 
 authorities is one of the best and most 
 accessible in the city, and a handsome 
 structui'e there would be a great orna- 
 ment. We have been hoping for some 
 time that these donations might be 
 made, but the positive announcement 
 by telegraph is most satisfactory to 
 us." 
 
HOAV WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 97 
 
 BIG AUDIENCE HEARS READ. 
 
 The Great American Story Teller Roy- 
 ally Entertains in the Masonic 
 Social Club Course. 
 
 The Opie Eead lecture given at As- 
 sembly hall Thursday night under the 
 auspices of the Masonic Social club, 
 was unquestionably the most success- 
 ful entertainment that has been given 
 here. Mr. Read being widely known 
 as one of the most entertaining speak- 
 ers, tickets sold early, and at 8 o'clock 
 the hall was filled. 
 
 Mr. Read was introduced at 8 :15 
 by H. J. Carr, after which he talked 
 for an hour, his subject being, "First 
 One Thing and Then Another." "I 
 have chosen this name for my talk," 
 said Mr. Read, "so that I will be sure 
 not to get off the subject." 
 
 Mr. Read's lecture was of the great- 
 est interest to every person in the audi- 
 ence. Bright humorous sketches as 
 Avell as stories of pathos were used to 
 illustrate the points that he brought 
 out. 
 
 Report of the Condition of the 
 
 FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF GARY 
 
 In the State of Indiana. 
 
 At the close of business, Nov. 27, 1908. 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 Loans and discounts .$144,714.37 
 
 Overdrafts, secured and un- 
 secured 296.23 
 
 U. S. Bonds to secure circu- 
 lation 30,000.00 
 
 Premiums on Lf. S. bonds. . . 1,400.00 
 
 Bonds, securities, etc 500.00 
 
 Banking house furniture 
 
 and fixtures 41,952.54 
 
 Due from National Banks 
 
 (not resei've agents) 29,714.21 
 
 Due from State Banks and 
 bankers 14,227.60 
 
 Due from approved reserve 
 
 agents 25,391.19 
 
 Checks and other cash items 5,756.17 
 Exchanges for clearing 
 
 house 3,964.26 
 
 Notes of other National 
 
 Banks 13,500.00 
 
 Fractional paper currency, 
 
 nickels and cents 791.08 
 
 Lawful Money Reserve in Bank Viz: 
 
 Specie $ 8,945.00 
 
 Legal-tender notes 10,000.00 
 
 $ 18,945.00 
 
 Redemption fund with U. S. 
 
 Treasurer (5 per cent, of 
 
 circulation) 1,500.00 
 
 Total $332,652.65 
 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Capital stock paid in $100,000.00 
 
 Surplus fund 1,000.00 
 
 Undivided profits, less ex- 
 penses and taxes paid . . . 2,574.60 
 
 National Bank notes out- 
 standing 29,500.00 
 
 Due to Trust Companies and 
 
 Savings Banks 18,627.89 
 
 Individual deposits subject 
 
 to check 170,123.01 
 
 Demand certificates of de- 
 posit 3,296.00 
 
 Certified cheeks 225.48 
 
 Cashier's checks outstand- 
 ing 7,305.67 
 
 Total $332,652.65 
 
 Report of the Condition of the 
 GARY STATE BANK, 
 
 A STATE BANK AT GARY, 
 In the State of Indiana. 
 
 At the close of business on Nov. 27, 
 1908. 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 Loans and discounts $ 71,094.28 
 
 Overdrafts 507.34 
 
98 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 Other bonds and securities. 75,000.00 
 
 Banking house 47,543.51 
 
 Furniture and fixtures 3,345.81 
 
 Due from banks and trust 
 
 companies 50,831.18 
 
 Cash on hand 28,740.03 
 
 Cash items 3,001.44 
 
 Current expenses 8,972.59 
 
 Interest paid 197.58 
 
 Total resources $289,233.76 
 
 LIABILITIES 
 
 Capital stock paid in $100,000.00 
 
 Demand deposits $134,677.10 
 Demand certiti- 
 
 cates 2,545.85 
 
 137,222.95 
 
 Time deposits . . 39,316.24 
 
 Time certificates 400.00 
 
 39,716.24 
 
 Certified checks 59.91 
 
 Cashier's checlvs 333.00 
 
 Due to banks and trust com- 
 panies 3,304.56 
 
 Exchange, discounts, etc... 8,597.10 
 
 RECORD OF SOME REAL ESTATE 
 
 TRANSFERS IN AND ABOUT 
 
 GARY APRIL 17, 1909. 
 
 Tolleston, It 11, b 15, Co's 4th 
 
 add $ 500 
 
 Gary, It 30, b 1, 2d Grant Park 
 
 add 450 
 
 Township 35, .806 acre in 9, 35, 
 
 9 250 
 
 Township, 36, 100x139 feet in s w 
 
 1/4 32, 36, 7 1,500 
 
 Tolleston, It 8, b 14, Co's 5th add 700 
 Gary, It 6, b 58, original town. . . 3,500 
 Gary, It 6, b 10, Broadway add. . 450 
 Tolleston, Its 32 and 33, b 11, Lo- 
 gan Park add 600 
 
 Gary, It 13, b 4, Broadway add. .1,000 
 Tolleston, It 18, b 4, Pridmore, Orr 
 & Ulrich's sub (sec 10) 1,900 
 
 Township 37, 42.25 acres in s % 
 21, 37, 9 '!' 1 
 
 Township 37, 32, 11 acres in ni^, 
 21, 39, 9 1 
 
 Township 37, 16.099 acres in n w 
 1/4, 21, 37, 9 1 
 
 Township 37, 40 acres in n e i/4 20, 
 and n w % 21, 37, 9 1 
 
 Gary, Its 13, 15 and 17, b 78, origi- 
 nal town 2,250 
 
 Tolleston, Its 19 and 20, b 19, Co's 
 3d add. and It 17, b 1, It 23, b 
 17, Co's oth add 1,850 
 
 Tolleston, Its 14 and 15, b 1, Co's 
 5th add 2,050 
 
 Township 33, 75 acres in 9, 33, 7 . 4,875 
 
 Township 36, 35 acres in 29, 36, 7 930 
 
 Tolleston, Its 36 and 37, b 7, Lo- 
 gan Park add 400 
 
 ToAvnship 36, 10 acres in 29, 36, 
 9 1,250 
 
 Gary, It 5, b 34, original town. . . 800 
 
 Gary, It 7, b 81, original town. . . 625 
 
 Tolleston, Its S and 9, Caldwell's 
 2d add 400 
 
 Gary, It 28, b 8, original town. . . 700 
 
 Gary, Its 26 and 27, b 2, Gary 
 Park ad 600 
 
 Toleston, It 6, b 6, 2d Logan Park 
 add 300 
 
 Township 37, pt s w % 25, 37, 10, 
 southwest of L. N. A. & C. Ry., 
 and north of Calumet River . . 5,000 
 
 Township 35, 120 acres in 2, 35, 8 1,150 
 
 Township 35, 38 acres in 16 and 
 21, 35, 7 3,400 
 
 Tolleston, 60 lots in Red Oak add 2,220 
 
 Tolleston, It 14, b 12, Logan Park 
 add 300 
 
 Township 36, 184x255 f t in s e 14, 
 s e 14, 29, 36, 7 1,975 
 
 Tolleston, It 7, b 4, Oak Park add 425 
 
 Township 36, 7.27 acres in 18, 
 and 3 acres in 19, 36, 9 1,200 
 
 Gary, Its 14 and 26, b 10, Broad- 
 way add 2,000 
 
 Tolleston, Its 3 an 4, b 1, Carl- 
 son's 1st add 700 
 
 Gary, It 30, b 59, original town. . 2,160 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 Gary. Us 16 and 17, b 83, original 
 
 town 4,000 
 
 Township 34. SO acres in 16, 34, 
 7 6,000 
 
 Township 34. 6.16 acres in w 1/2, 
 
 n w 14, 9, 34, 8 1,000 
 
 PLATE MILLS COMING NEXT 
 
 Contract for the Machinery Just 
 
 Awarded by the Indiana 
 
 Steel Company. 
 
 The contract for the plate mill at 
 the Gary plant has just been awarded 
 by the Indiana Steel Company. It will 
 be what is known as "the sixty-inch 
 uniYcrsal plate mill." 
 
 The total capacity of the plate mill 
 will be 75,000 tons of finished product 
 a year. Plates of all sizes up to sixty 
 inches in width and of all thicknesses 
 will be produced. 
 
 The decision to go ahead with the 
 construction of the plate mill is but 
 another indication of the diversified 
 products of the Gary mills when they 
 are fully completed. 
 
 Foundations Going In. 
 
 The entire western half of the mill 
 site is now being allotted to the var- 
 ious mills for the manufacture of steel 
 for general use. The foundations are 
 already going in for the merchant mill 
 and for the billet mill. Before the win- 
 ter sets in the great concrete founda- 
 tions for the plate mill and car axle 
 mill will be in place ready for the su- 
 perstructure of steel and brick during 
 the winter. 
 
 FIRST CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 On Christmas eve, 1906, one of the 
 most notable gatherings that has ever 
 taken place here, was held in one of 
 the little school houses that stood on 
 
 Broadway just south of the Lake Shore 
 tracks, the only schools in Gary at 
 that time. 
 
 It Avas the first Christmas tree in 
 Gary, and the celebration that was ar- 
 ranged was attended by practically ev- 
 ery English-speaking resident of Gary. 
 It was the first and probably the last 
 time that the entire population of the 
 town was gathered under one roof on 
 such an occasion. 
 
 The school house was decorated with 
 evergreen branches, and lighted with 
 candles, while two large Christmas 
 trees, chopped but a short distance 
 from Broadway were loaded with 
 candy and fruit for all of the school 
 children. The treat was bought by a 
 subscription fund taken by the teach- 
 ers of the school and the amount was 
 large enough so that each pupil re- 
 ceived a generous supply of candy. 
 
 Only Organ in the Town. 
 
 A program had been arranged by 
 the teachers and recitations were giv- 
 en before an audience that packed ev- 
 ery corner of the room. When the en- 
 tertainment was over, the little 
 folding organ, the only musical 
 instrument in the town, wheezed 
 out the accompaniment to "America," 
 and the volume of sound that arose 
 from the entire population of the town 
 bore as much meaning as the anthems 
 sung by the Pilgrims. Like the 
 Pilgrims, the Gary people had 
 found new homes and the hard- 
 ships attending the establishment of 
 the homes only added to the energy 
 with which they worked. It is doubt- 
 ful if such genuine good cheer will 
 ever again be known in Gary. 
 
 Christmas day was set aside for a 
 complete holiday, and nearly every one 
 remained in the town. The business 
 at the police station on that day was 
 great. Christmas morning found the 
 cells full of revelers of the night be- 
 fore, waiting anxiously to see how they 
 
loo 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 were to be punished. Judge Fitzger- 
 ald arrived at the jail early in the 
 morning, and one by one the men were 
 dismissed, even when their petty 
 crimes were evident. It was their 
 Christmas present. 
 
 Great Change in a Year. 
 
 In the winter of 1907, things had 
 changed materially. More than 500 
 residences had been erected and there 
 was ample room for Christmas cheer. 
 Numerous stores on Broadway offered 
 attractive Christmas presents and ho- 
 tels and restaurants flaunted irresis- 
 table bills of fare. 
 
 On this Christmas the men who 
 founded the city can si^urcely believe 
 that it was only two years ago when 
 there were no houses, no Christmas 
 windows, and Santa Claus had not yet 
 found the j'oung city hidden in the 
 dunes. 
 
 TOLLESTON NOW LIGHTED. 
 
 NEW BANK TO BEGIN BUSINESS 
 
 ON BROADWAY NEAR SIXTH 
 
 AVE. IN DECEMBER, 
 
 Prominent Men in Project — Frank A. 
 Vanderlip, Vice-President of Na- 
 tional City Bank, New York, 
 Interested. 
 
 The Calumet Trust and Savings 
 bank is the title of a new banking in- 
 stitution which will open its doors at 
 656 Broadway during December. 
 
 Among the incorporators of the new 
 bank are Frank A. Vanderlip, vice- 
 president of the National City Bank, of 
 New York, the largest banking insti- 
 tion in the United States. 
 
 The electric light line to ToUeston 
 has been completed and lights are now 
 being furnished to the town by the 
 Gary Heat, Light and Water Company. 
 All of the lamps have not yet been 
 placed on the poles. 
 
 FIRST IRON ORE HERE 
 
 BY APRIL 25 
 
 Two New Company Steamers. 
 
 II, is now planned for the first 1909 
 cargo of iron ore to reach Gary about 
 April 25. 
 
 The Pittsburg Steamship Company, 
 the lake transportation end of the 
 United States Steel Corporation, has 
 been given instructions to deliver at 
 Gary during the coming season a mini- 
 mum of 2,000,000 tons of iron ore and 
 a maximum of 2,500,000. 
 
 Two steamers of the largest class 
 have been added to the steel corpora- 
 tion's fleet during the winter and will 
 trade here regularly. They are known 
 as the E. J. Buffington and the Alva 
 Dinkey. 
 
 INCORPORATE THE GARY CLUB 
 
 Formal Steps Taken for a Social and 
 Family Organization. 
 
 The Gary Club has been incorporat- 
 ed and application will be made for 
 the lots set aside by the Gary Land 
 Company at the northeast corner of 
 Sixth avenue and Adams street for 
 club purposes. It is the ultimate aim 
 of the club to erect a handsome club- 
 house on the site selected, with ample 
 grounds for athletic sports on the lots 
 originally reserved by the Land com- 
 pany for that purpose. 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 101 
 
 FINISH SURVEY IN TWO WEEKS 
 
 American Bridge Engineers Securing 
 
 Topographical Data — Plant Will 
 
 Have Four Units. 
 
 Civil engineers now engaged in sur- 
 veying tlie site of tlie American Bridge 
 works near tlie Kirlv switclr yard re- 
 port tliat tlieir work will be accom- 
 plished within the course of two weeks. 
 Tliey will tlien return to Pittsburg. 
 
 The survey in Gary has been made 
 for tlie purpose of determining the 
 topography of the site. The site is 
 three-fourths of a mile in length and 
 over 1,S00 feet in width. The exact 
 data will be returned to the company 
 so that the engineers in charge of the 
 preparation of the site for building 
 purposes may know every fill and ev- 
 ery cut that is to be made. 
 
 Four Units in Gary. 
 
 The American Bridge Company, it 
 was stated by the engineer in cliarge 
 of the survey in Gary, would erect 
 four units in Gary. Each of these 
 units will employ 1,000 men, the total 
 number of men employed in the oper- 
 ation of the mills being in the neigli- 
 borhood of 5,000. In addition to this 
 number there will be clerical and 
 draughting forces consisting of nearly 
 four hundred men. The company will 
 of course have its offices here. 
 
 The American Bridge Company does 
 not manufacture its own steel but is 
 supplied that by the United States 
 Steel Corporation. The steel bars, 
 sheets and rods will be assembled by 
 the plant at Gary and here made into 
 structural shapes for use in the con- 
 struction of bridges. 
 
 MICHIGAN CENTRAL TO BUILD 
 
 on the structure will begin at once. 
 The building will be of brick, and will 
 be located on the east side of Broad- 
 way, on the north side of the Michi- 
 gan Central tracks. 
 
 COMMON STOCK TO ITS MEN 
 
 Steel Corporation Makes Decided 
 
 Change in Its Profit Sharing 
 
 System, 
 
 A new departure in the profit-shar- 
 ing plan, giving its employes the privi- 
 lege of subscribing to the common as 
 well as the preferred stock of the con- 
 cern, has been announced by the Unit- 
 ed States Steel Cori^oration. Tlie price 
 at which the stock is being offered to 
 the employes is $110 a share for the 
 preferred and $50 a share for the com- 
 mon. The closing prices for these se- 
 curities on the stock margin today 
 were 113 and 52 respectively. 
 
 The price at which the preferred 
 stock is offered to employes this year 
 is the highest since the profit-sharing 
 plan was started. Last year the em- 
 ployes were allowed to subscribe to 
 the preferred stock at $87.50 a share. 
 The total subscription amounted to 
 about 60,000 shares, but only about 
 25,000 shares were allotted. 
 
 Since the profit-sharing plan was in- 
 troduced in 1903 the employes who 
 purchased stock have received in divi- 
 dends and bonuses close to $12,000,000. 
 
 LINCOLN SERVICES AT CHURCHES 
 
 Plans for the new passenger station 
 of the Michigan Central railroad have 
 practically been completed, and work 
 
 Large Audiences Attend Memorial Ex- 
 ercises Sunday. 
 
 Large audiences attended the Lin- 
 coln memorial services at the Congre- 
 gational and Presbyterian churches 
 Sunday evening. At both churches 
 special programs of patriotic songs and 
 
102 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 other music were arranged and both 
 Reverend Sullens of the Congregation- 
 al church and Reverend Walton of the 
 Presbyterian church delivered sermons 
 in memory of Lincoln. 
 
 Further services will be held in mem- 
 ory of Lincoln this week by the schools 
 and some of the other Gary churches. 
 
 HOLLAND GETS THE TRUTH 
 
 "De Telegraaf Van Dorderdad" De- 
 votes Two Columns to Descrip- 
 tion of Gary. 
 
 In the i.ssue of August 13, of "De 
 Telegraaf van Dorderdad," a Holland 
 publication, two columns are devoted 
 to a description of the new steel city, 
 Gary. 
 
 The article is a cable message from 
 Cleveland and is an accurate descrip- 
 tion of Gary and shows that the cor- 
 respondent had a great fund of cor- 
 rect information about the city. 
 
 LIBRARY SHOWS A GREAT GAIN 
 
 Total of 2692 Volumes. 
 
 One of the most remarkable in- 
 stances of progress and gain in popular 
 favor among local institutions is that 
 of the Gary Public library, which has 
 been in existence since October 1, 1908. 
 The report of the Librarian for the 
 month of February, which has just 
 been issued, shows there are now regis- 
 tered on the records of the library the 
 names of 486 adiilt readers and 434 
 juvenile readers making a total of 920 
 active patrons of the institution. 
 
 CONTRACT AWARDED FOR 
 
 FIRE STATION AT TOLLESTON 
 
 The Tolleston board of trustees on 
 Monday awarded the contract for the 
 
 construction of the new fire station to 
 Albert Koepke. 
 
 The station will be located at the 
 corner of Grace avenue and Second 
 street and will be completed by Feb- 
 I'uary 1. 
 
 WORK ON HOSPITAL 
 
 EXCAVATIONS BEGINS 
 
 Tuesday the work of making exca- 
 vations for the construction of the 
 new $250,000 hospital for the United 
 States Steel Corporation at Broadway 
 and the Grand Calumet River, was 
 started. 
 
 A FINE EDIFICE FOR METHODISTS 
 
 To Cost $40,000 Complete— Building 
 Will Be of Gothic Design— Con- 
 struction to Begin This 
 Summer. 
 
 Plans for the new IMethodist church, 
 to be erected at the southwest corner 
 of Adams street and Seventh avenue, 
 have now been decided upon definite- 
 ly. A meeting of the trustees of the 
 church was held Tuesday night, but 
 no important changes were made in 
 tlie designs already agreed upon. 
 
 The church complete will cost $40,- 
 000. It will have a seating capacity 
 when completed of between 1,000 and 
 1,100. 
 
 Charles II. Slack, formerly a prom- 
 inent grocer of Chicago, was in Gary 
 Friday looking over the prospects for 
 the establishment of a grocery on 
 Broadway. Mr. Slack expects to make 
 several trips to Gary before arriving 
 at a decision. 
 
HOW WOULD IT BE TO LIVE IN GARY? 
 
 103 
 
 HOSPITAL UP TO FIRST STORY. 
 
 Rapid progress is being made on the 
 construction of the big $250,000 hos- 
 pital for the steel corporation at the 
 Grand Calumet river and Broadway. 
 The work is now being done on the 
 first story of the building, which will 
 be completed this week. All the win- 
 dow frames have been set in place and 
 the structure is beginning to take def- 
 inite shape. 
 
 JEFFERSON PARK 
 
 TO BE IMPROVED 
 
 Power Station and Water Tower to be 
 
 Ornamental Features — Big Thing 
 
 for West Side. 
 
 Improving and beautifying Jefferson 
 Park to make it a most attractive place 
 are about to begin. By September 
 Gary will have on the west side a park 
 which will be a fine setting to that 
 residence section of the city. 
 
 Will Be Left Undulating. 
 
 No attempt will be made to fill in 
 all the northern part of the park to 
 the street level along Sixth avenue. In- 
 stead, the surface of the park will be 
 left undulating, only enough filling in 
 the north end of the park being done 
 to improve the appearance around the 
 pumping station and to give the whole 
 an attractive, park-like appearance. 
 
 Of course, no planting of trees and 
 shrubs can be done this summer. The 
 entire park will be put in shape for 
 the planting of trees and shrubs late 
 next fall. 
 
 Great Improvement to West Side. 
 
 There is nothing which will improve 
 the appearance of the west side more 
 than the beautifying of Jefferson Park, 
 which is right in the center of that 
 residence section. This doubtless would 
 
 have been done before, but the delay 
 in the completion of the power station 
 has put off the work until now. In a 
 month more the power station will be 
 wholly completed, and by that time the 
 work of filling in the southern end of 
 the park and the grading of the north 
 part will have progressed to a point 
 where the landscape gardeners can 
 take up the corner devoted to the 
 poAver station. 
 
 JUDGE E. H. GARY MAKES MUNIF- 
 ICENT GIFT TO CITY NAMED 
 IN HIS HONOR. 
 
 One of the Finest Edifices of Its Class 
 
 in the State to Be Built This 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Judge E. H. Gary will present to the 
 city named in his honor a Young Men's 
 Christian Association building which 
 will be erected at a cost of $100,000. 
 This sum Judge Gary gives outright 
 for the building and is exclusive of 
 the land upon which it will be erected. 
 
 Plans for the structure will be im- 
 mediately rushed to completion by the 
 architect of the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association in New York, and as 
 soon thereafter as contracts can be let 
 actual construction will begin. 
 
 NEWS OF STEEL WORLD. 
 
 The stock of the United States Steel 
 Corporation Wednesday reached the 
 top-notch prices attained since the cor- 
 poration was organized, some ten years 
 ago. The advance in prices has been 
 steady for a month, sometimes a frac- 
 tion up, but always upward. 
 
 The top figures Wednesday were 
 reached at 3 o'clock, the close of trad- 
 ing on the New York Stock Exchange. 
 
 The remarkable advance in steel 
 
104 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 stocks is the cause of much good feel- 
 ing among the employes of the corpo- 
 ration, -vvho purchased their stock at 
 much lower prices than have prevailed 
 this year. In 1907, employes paid 87 
 for preferred. This year they paid 110. 
 Those that selected common stock for 
 their purchases this year paid 50. 
 
 NOW AND NOT DECADES HENCE, 
 
 Gary has certainly fared Avell in the 
 way of generous gifts from the world 
 at large. Perhaps never before in Indi- 
 ana, if not in the United States, has a 
 new city, not yet quite three years old, 
 fared so well. All of the denomina- 
 tions have extended a helping hand in 
 the establishing of their churches in 
 the Magic City of Steel. In some in- 
 stances the donations from the general 
 
 church organization have been sur- 
 prisingly large and the church edifices 
 already erected or to be erected before 
 the end of the year would do credit to 
 a city far larger than Gary. 
 
 Most cities have to wait for a Y. M. 
 C. A. building until, tlirovigh laborious 
 years, funds can be raised among their 
 citizens. In Gary a complete Y. M. 
 C. A. building, the building, land, and 
 equipment costing not less than $175,- 
 000, will be given out of hand. 
 
 Two great hospitals will be com- 
 pleted in Gary before the end of the 
 year 1909. Both structures in their 
 architecture and equipment will be un- 
 excelled in any city of the Union with 
 a population of 50,000. It has come to 
 pass that Gary will have in its earliest 
 years what ordinarily would have been 
 acquired only after decades had passed, 
 all through the generosity of those Avho 
 have faith in the city's future great- 
 ness. 
 
THE PERMANENT AND INCREASING GREATNESS OF GARY 105 
 
 THE PERMANENT AND INCREAS- 
 ING GREATNESS OP GARY 
 
 is as certain as that of the United 
 States government. Two factors only 
 are needed for any reasonable man's 
 convincing; first, the continued de- 
 mand for the United States Steel Com- 
 pany's, varied products, and second 
 their equipment for a continuance of 
 the production. 
 
 The demand is multiplying every 
 decade. In every city in the land are 
 being built towering sky-scrapers of 
 steel construction. For instance in the 
 new city hall in Chicago the steel re- 
 quired will weigh two thousand tons. 
 There are five-fold more large iron 
 bridges built each succeeding decade, 
 and the railroad extension and re- 
 equipment is beyond comijrehension. 
 
 James J. Hill, the wonderful head of 
 the Great Northern System, in a re- 
 cent letter to the governor of Minne- 
 sota, declared that "the building of 
 15,000 miles of additional railroad 
 trackage every year for the next five 
 years, at an annual cost of over one 
 thousand one hundred million dollars, 
 is absolutely necessary." 
 
 This will require two million tons of 
 steel rails every year, which is nearly 
 two-thirds of the production of all of 
 the rolling mills in the United States, 
 and of course, its supply will devolve 
 largely upon the great Economical 
 plant at Gary. 
 
 The United States Steel Corpora- 
 tion owns as much land as is comprised 
 in the three states of Massachusetts, 
 Vermont and Rhode Island. 
 
 It employes one hundred and eighty 
 thousand workmen. 
 
 More than one million persons (which 
 equals the population of Nebraska and 
 Connecticut), depend upon it for their 
 living. 
 
 It paid out in wages last year one 
 hundred and twenty-eight million dol- 
 lars, which is more than the United 
 
 States government paid for its army 
 and navy. 
 
 It owns railroad tracks which would 
 extend from New York to Galveston, 
 Texas. 
 
 It owns thirty thousand cars and sev- 
 en hundred locomotives. 
 
 It has ninety-three blast furnaces 
 which run night and day, and fifty 
 great iron mines with ore enough to 
 last one hundred years. 
 
 It makes more steel than Great Brit- 
 ain and Germany. 
 
 It burns ten million tons of coal a 
 year, eleven millions tons of coke, and 
 fifteen billion cubic feet of natural gas. 
 
 Its supply of fuel will last sixty 
 years. 
 
 It paid four hundred million dollars 
 for the great ore beds on the shores of 
 Lake Superior. 
 
 Steel Rails Already. 
 
 To those of us who have been in 
 touch with Gary from the start, the 
 following from a Gary paper of May 
 5, 1909 seems a dream. Never has so 
 great a thing arrived at results so 
 quickly ! 
 
 Loading Steel Rails Here. 
 
 The Sharpies, which wintered at 
 Kingston, brought a cargo of paving 
 stone from Alexandria Bay in the St. 
 Lawrence river. She is loading 2,000 
 tons of steel rails here for delivery to 
 the Great Northern railway at Duluth. 
 This is the third cargo shipped from 
 the Gary mills this spring. 
 
 READY TO BEGIN 
 
 MERCHANT MILLS 
 
 New Era of Construction to Provide a 
 
 "Widely Diversified Output 
 
 at Hand. 
 
 (Written in August, 1908.) 
 
 Tlie important announcement has 
 come from the Indiana Steel Com- 
 
106 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 pany that the construction of the 
 great mills for the manufacture of 
 merchant steel and iron will begin at 
 once. This work will be pushed vigor- 
 ously, which means that there will be 
 no lessening of the army of construc- 
 tion during the coming year. 
 
 The wide stretch now vacant between 
 the rail mill aud the billet mill and 
 the western fence is to be filled up by 
 the immense structures where steel and 
 iron is to be converted into the finished 
 product. Among these structures will 
 be one where car axles will be made, 
 itself a most important industry. In 
 another building structural steel will 
 be produced. All kinds of steel bars 
 for the general trade will come from 
 still another building. 
 
 For many months the engineering 
 corps of the Indiana Steel Company 
 has been at work preparing the plans 
 for one of the most complete merchant 
 mills in the United States, if not in 
 the world. These plans have been so 
 far completed that it will not be long 
 before construction begins by building 
 acres of concrete foundations. 
 
 To Fill Western Part. 
 
 "When these buildings have been 
 completed, the western part of the 
 plant will be as well filled with struc- 
 tures as the eastern half, where the 
 blast and open hearth furnaces are 
 now located. 
 
 Althoiigh the army of construction 
 has been engaged now over twenty-six 
 months in building the Gary mills and 
 a portion of them is about ready for 
 operation, a comparison with what has 
 already been accomplished with what 
 is yet to be done makes it evident that 
 only a fair start has been made. This 
 army of constriietion, now four thou- 
 sand strong, has at least two more years 
 of work before the mills approach any- 
 thing like completion, and even then 
 it will be two years more before the 
 
 ultimate plans of the Steel Corporation 
 take concrete form in buildings and 
 machinery. 
 
 To Push Ore Docks South. 
 
 The iron ore docks have been com- 
 pleted up as far as the first set of fur- 
 naces, but they must be pushed farther 
 south at once to front the second batch 
 of furnaces now under way. One open 
 hearth is now practically ready for 
 operation and a second one is well 
 along, but the foundations are not yet 
 fully completed for the third and have 
 just been commenced for the fourth. 
 There are two more open hearth build- 
 ings, on which nothing has as yet been 
 done. The rail mill is ready for opera- 
 tion. In fact, the sections of the mills 
 which will be given over to the making 
 of steel rails is further along than any 
 other part, and it is likely that the 
 manufacture of steel rails will begin 
 the coming winter. Good progress has 
 also been made on the billet mill, but 
 all that important part of the plant 
 which will be devoted to the manufac- 
 ture of iron and steel in diversified 
 forms for the general trade has yet got 
 no further than the completed plans 
 which are now ready to be passed over 
 to the commanders of the army of con- 
 struction. 
 
 To Light Furnaces When Possible. 
 
 It can be stated on authority that 
 fires will be lighted in the blast fur- 
 naces for the making of pig iron the 
 earliest day that they can be got ready. 
 Every effort is being bent to push that 
 day forward as far as possible, but as 
 yet no officials of the Steel Company 
 will make their predictions as to how 
 soon this will be. As soon after as the 
 open hearth furnaces are in shape to 
 begin the making of steel, the pig iron 
 will travel from the blast furnaces to 
 the open hearth, and as soon after that 
 as the rail aud billet mills are ready to 
 
THE PERMANENT AND INCREASING GREATNESS OF GARY 107 
 
 begin turning- out the finished product 
 they will be added onto the chain. 
 
 More Work than Ever Before. 
 
 In the meantime the amount of con- 
 struction under way Avill ecj[ual if not 
 considerably exceed that of last fall, 
 winter and early spring. 
 
 In other words, the force to operate 
 the first section of the plant will come 
 in on top of the army of construction. 
 There is likely to be five thousand in 
 the operating force. Added to the con- 
 struction forces, this will mean that 
 nine thousand men employed in the 
 steel mills must be housed somewhere 
 the coming winter. 
 
 THE FIRST GARY PIG IRON 
 
 (December, 1908.) 
 
 The first pig iron to be made in Gary 
 was turned into the molds of the pig 
 machines at the southeast corner of 
 the mills Tuesday. The pig machines, 
 which will be recognized by passengers 
 who take the Lake Shore trains as the 
 large building to the northeast of the 
 station, have been ready for about a 
 month. 
 
 First Furnace Satisfactory. 
 
 The first furnace, which was lighted 
 Monday forenoon, has operated to the 
 great satisfaction of the officials of the 
 Indiana Steel Company. After a twenty- 
 four-hour run nothing had occurred in 
 the operation of the new furnace which 
 had not been anticipated. There were 
 a few minor leaks, some slight, insig- 
 nificant explosions as the gas found its 
 way for the first time through the 
 great pipes. There was nothing seri- 
 ous enough, however, to be called a 
 mishap and the furnace was doing its 
 work well. 
 
 It will take from four to six days to 
 get gas enough to run one of the gas 
 engines in the electric power station. 
 In the meantime the blowers are being 
 
 operated by a steam turbine engine. 
 As soon as there is a sufficient quan- 
 tity of gas to make the tests of the gas 
 engines, that final link in the making 
 of steel at the Gary mills will begin to 
 be welded. 
 
 A Week Before the Next One. 
 
 It will be a week or ten days before 
 the next or second furnace is lighted. 
 The two furnaces will then work in 
 pairs until the time comes to start the 
 open hearths and the rail mill. 
 
 The second pair of furnaces is now 
 practically ready to be operated, but 
 the fires in them will not be lighted 
 until the open hearths and the rail 
 mills begin operations. 
 
 The production of pig iron noAV un- 
 der way is not for the purpose of hav- 
 ing pig iron, but to get the gas Avhich 
 is generated in its production. In other 
 words, the furnaces are being operated 
 to secure a by-product rather than 
 what is ordinarily the more important 
 output. When the mills are in full 
 operation, there will be no pig iron 
 made except Saturday nights and Sun- 
 days. All the metal will continue hot 
 from the time it leaves the furnaces 
 until it comes out as finished product 
 from the rail or billet mills. 
 
 Most Delicate Work Ahead. 
 
 The work ahead of the construction 
 department now is perhaps the most 
 delicate that the forces of construction 
 have encountered since ground was 
 broken thirty months ago. In the elec- 
 trical power station are the great gas 
 engines stretching for a quarter of a 
 mile, which must be gotten into work- 
 ing order before the open hearths and 
 the rail mill can begin. These gas en- 
 gines are among the largest ever con- 
 structed. They are connected directly 
 with electrical generators, and alto- 
 gether they make the greatest display 
 of resistless power as one glances in 
 either direction from the balconies that 
 
108 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 has ever been seen. But not one of 
 them has yet been tested. They have 
 been installed with great care, of 
 course, and the electrical generators 
 have been built up alongside. Nothing 
 more can be done until the gas with 
 which they are to be operated can be 
 supplied. 
 
 Tryout to Begin Soon. 
 
 As soon as the two furnaces produce 
 a sufficient quantity of gas to be stored 
 in the great gas-holder which stands 
 between the furnaces and the electrical 
 power station, the tryouts of the big 
 gas engines will begin. It is expected 
 that the engines and the electrical gen- 
 erators will be found to work satisfac- 
 torily, as the greatest care has been 
 taken in their installation, but no 
 doubt changes will have to be made 
 here and there. Some minor things 
 will be found out of order and will 
 have to be replaced. 
 
 It is for this reason that the steel 
 officials decline to make even a guess 
 as to when the open hearths and the 
 rail mill will begin operations. Both 
 have been completed and are practi- 
 cally ready for the turning on of the 
 electric power. There are a few little 
 things yet to be done, of course, for 
 the officials have known that there 
 would be considerable delay at the 
 electrical power station and have taken 
 their time in piitting on the finishing 
 touches at the open hearth and the 
 rail mill. 
 
 Second Pair of Furnaces Ready. 
 
 The second pair of furnaces are in 
 the same shape as the open hearth and 
 the rail mill. They are practically fin- 
 ished, but will not be started until the 
 manufacture of steel begins. 
 
 The second furnace will be operated 
 solely because it is necessary to have 
 a pair of furnaces worldng together in 
 order to get a steady supply of gas. 
 The supply of gas, of course, runs up 
 
 and down with each furnace, but when 
 the two are operated together the ups 
 and downs offset each other and a 
 comparatively steady supply of gas 
 for use in the gas engines will be 
 secured. 
 
 1,000 Tons of Pig Iron Daily. 
 
 The furnace already in operation 
 will make from 450 to 500 tons of pig 
 iron per day. As yet it is not produc- 
 ing to its full capacity, and it may take 
 a week before it reaches its maximum 
 output. The pair will tiirn out about 
 1,000 tons a day. All of this pig iron 
 will have to be stored for use later on 
 after the open hearths begin operations 
 in making steel. 
 
 In the operation of the furnaces 
 from 200 to 400 men, working in shifts 
 of twelve hovirs eaeli, are required for 
 eacli furnace. The variation in num- 
 ber is due to the amount of handling 
 required for the product. It is ex- 
 pected that until the open hearths and 
 the rail mills begin, the furnaces will 
 furnish employment to between 700 
 and 800 men. 
 
 Recruited from Many Points. 
 
 The force at work at the furnaces 
 has been recruited from many points 
 and the skilled men were selected with 
 great care and are a picked force. 
 
 OPPOSITION HAS NOT HARMED. 
 
 Tlae Standard Oil Company has been 
 given the reputation of crushing its 
 small competitors. The United States 
 Steel Corporation, through all the years, 
 has kept itself free from this charge. 
 But in the fall of the year 1908 what 
 are now spoken of as the independent 
 companies, aggregating quite a large 
 steel production, entered upon a united 
 eifort to get more orders. This was 
 probably due to a depression in the 
 steel trade resulting from the sudden 
 
OPPOSITION HAS NOT HARMED 
 
 109 
 
 and decisive slump in business condi- 
 tions in October, 1907. The Steel Cor- 
 poration promptly met this movement 
 by necessary cuts in their selling 
 prices, which in many things, and for 
 a number of months, were so material 
 as to cause a widespread impression 
 throughout the United States that the 
 Steel Company's former immense earn- 
 ings might neA^er be realized again. 
 The market value of both their com- 
 mon and preferred stock decreased. It 
 is now evident that this decrease was 
 from the same causes that decreased 
 values in everything else, and not from 
 competition by the Independent Com- 
 panies. 
 
 Within the last week the quarterly 
 statements of the Steel Corporation to 
 March 31, 1909, have become public, 
 and sliow that for the first quarter of 
 this year the net earnings were much 
 larger than any of the numerous un- 
 official estimates liad indicated, being 
 $22,921,268 as compared with $18,229,- 
 000 in the corresponding quarter of 
 the year 1908. They also show un- 
 filled orders on the books calling for 
 3,542,591 tons of material as compared 
 with orders for 3,603,527 tons on Dec. 
 31, 1908, and 3,765,343 tons on March 
 31, 1908. It is said that in addition to 
 the orders on hand on March 31, 1909, 
 the April bookings were not only very 
 large, but that tliese orders are "live" 
 ones, that is, for immediate shipment, 
 whereas in the preceding quarter, 
 while contracts were made, buyers 
 were in no hurry to have them filled 
 and many of them stood on the books 
 for weeks Mdtiiout a ton being turned 
 out against them in the mills. 
 
 The earnings for the last quarter as 
 above, are significant when we remem- 
 ber that the principal official cut in 
 selling prices was made in February 
 of this year. 
 
 The usual dividends were declared, 
 and stock market quotations show 
 that few stocks have rallied so favor- 
 
 ably from the general depressed prices 
 of both common and preferred as in 
 the case of the Steel Company. 
 
 The Chicago Examiner of May 2, 
 1909, in speaking of any probable effect 
 of the tariff elianges on tlie Steel Cor- 
 poration's ijrosperity, says: 
 
 "An official of the trust has boasted 
 that with the Gary jjlant steel can be 
 made $5 cheaper than by any competi- 
 tor, thus placing the trust beyond fear 
 of competition or of tariff reform. The 
 report of $22,900,000 earned for the 
 first quarter of tliis year was more than 
 a million greater than anybody expect- 
 ed. But of greater significance than 
 this was the volume of orders on hand. 
 
 In January orders disappeared en- 
 tirely when the cut in prices was made 
 and they came in volume only after 
 the public understood that the bottom 
 had been reached. Orders have been 
 hurried by the announcement of an in- 
 crease in prices by the trust and by 
 several leading independents in the 
 past weelv. " 
 
 Of course all talk of $5.00 per ton 
 is unreasonable. Two dollars a ton dis- 
 advantage would paralyze any steel 
 mill. 
 
 A SUGGESTION FOR 
 
 CHICAGO FRIENDS 
 
 We are at an age of impatience with 
 having our home life confined to the 
 strenuous city. Except during the 
 winter season, Ave long for a comfort- 
 able rural home, however humble. The 
 rich are )neeting this desire with ex- 
 pensive country houses erected on acres 
 of possibly slowly increasing value. 
 Their children may not want them, 
 and great depreciation in the value of 
 the buildings will be evident Avhen a 
 sale must be made. 
 
 Why should not you and I select and 
 purchase now, a tew or many acres, 
 not in Gary, but in the Gary region, 
 
no 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 and get the benefit as we grow older, 
 of the sure great increase in value of 
 the land, and in the meantime enjoy 
 onr summers on it in a modest but 
 comfort bungalow, for which I have 
 200 architect's plans, to which you are 
 welcome ? 
 
 There are many areas of desirable 
 properties for such a move. There are 
 plenty of trees; soil that is good, or 
 can be made good, scores of paved 
 roads being built, quiet, respectable 
 rural neighbors, feasible deliveries of 
 food supplies, fuel, ice, etc. ; nearby 
 stores, churches, physicians, mail de- 
 liveries, telegraph and telephones, 
 and such splendid steam and electric 
 transportation to Chicago (much of it 
 on fifty minute trains) that we could 
 attend to our Chicago business daily. 
 
 I would like to take this up prompt- 
 ly with some of my friends, as the 
 ground should be purchased now, even 
 though not used until next spring. 
 
 GARY'S HARBOR 
 
 IS NOT EXCELLED. 
 
 HOW IRON ORE 
 
 WILL BE RECEIVED. 
 
 Human Labor Largely Eliminated in 
 
 Taking Cargoes from Ships and 
 
 in Feeding the Furnaces. 
 
 (Written in 1908.) 
 
 In many important Avays the harbor 
 at Gary Avill stand in the front ranks 
 of the harbors of the world. In the 
 rapid handling of iron ore, which, of 
 course, will be the chief commodity of 
 the new harbor, it will be without a 
 rival anywhere. Every device known 
 to man which tends to save time and 
 labor will be installed on the water 
 front. Most harbors have grown up 
 from small beginnings, and plans for 
 their development have had to be made 
 to meet existing conditions. In Gary 
 
 the plans were made first. The result 
 will be to give a harbor of unequaled 
 facilities, with no limit on labor-saving 
 appliances. 
 
 Straight into the sand dunes a chan- 
 nel is being dredged 250 feet wide and 
 25 feet deep. For a mile this channel 
 or harbor will be lined Avith concrete 
 docks on the side toward the mills. 
 This solid wall of concrete rises ten 
 feet above the water line. 
 
 For Railroad Tracks. 
 
 The dock is 62 feet wide. Tracks are 
 laid on each side of the dock on which 
 the vessel-unloading machines will 
 travel. Between these great tracks 
 four railroad lines will be constructed. 
 The purpose of the railroad lines is to 
 enable the vessel-unloaders to drop 
 their burdens directly into railroad 
 cars when ore is to be shipped from 
 the docks to Joliet and otlier points. 
 
 Next to the unloading dock are the 
 receiving bins for iron ore to be used 
 in the furnaces. These reservoirs are 
 divided by heavy concrete walls 87 
 feet apart. When the mills are fully 
 completed the reservoirs will extend 
 nearly a mile in length. With the 
 present construction, they will have a 
 capacity of about one million tons, 
 which will be ample to supply the mills 
 with iron ore for the five months dui-- 
 ing the winter and early spring, wheu 
 )ake navigation is closed by ice. This 
 capacity will be more than doubled 
 when the mills have been entirely com- 
 pleted. 
 
 Gigantic Ore Bridges. 
 
 Tracks are laid on the top of the 
 concrete walls of the reservoirs, and 
 over these tracks will run the great 
 Hoover & Mason bridges, which will 
 be used to carry the ore from the place 
 where it is dropped by the vessel-un- 
 loaders to the bins where it is pre- 
 pared for the furnaces. These iron on; 
 bridges are the largest ever constructed 
 
GARY'S HARBOR IS NOT EXCELLED 
 
 111 
 
 in the world. They rise 85 feet above 
 the floor of the reservoirs and are 497 
 feet long. The clam-shell appliances 
 with which the bridges are equipped 
 will scoop np and carry away fourteen 
 tons of iron ore at every trip. 
 
 Aiter the ore has been carried to the 
 bins it will be dropped into the Brown 
 hoisting bins alongside the furnaces. 
 More railroad tracks will be located 
 at this point for the transfer cars to 
 carry the ore direct to the furnaces. 
 The cars are used on account of the 
 fact that it is easier to move them than 
 to move the great bridges. From the 
 ears the ore is shot into elevators and 
 talcen to the top of the furnaces, ready 
 for use. The bins are built double, 
 with one part for iron ore and one 
 part for coke. 
 
 Not Touched by Hands. 
 
 From the time the steamer with its 
 10,000 or 12,000 tons of iron ore reaches 
 the harbor, no human hand touches the 
 iron ore in moving it. The clam-shell 
 of the vessel-unloader is dropped into 
 the hold of the ship and automatically 
 seizes its load of ten tons, which it 
 swings around and drops into the res- 
 ervoir or into the waiting cars. It 
 takes less than one minute for the ves- 
 sel-unloader to seize its great load, 
 drop it, and be back in position to 
 take the next. 
 
 The great clam-shell grab of the 
 bridge drops under the pile of iron ore, 
 where it has been left by the vessel- 
 unloader, seizes in its capacious grasp 
 14 tons, lifts its load from 50 to 75 
 feet into the air, and carries it a tenth 
 of a mile toward the furnaces as rap- 
 idly as the human eye can move. There 
 the ore is dropped into cars or into 
 bins, as the case may be, and from 
 there the ore is again moved without 
 the touch of a shovel on its rapid prog- 
 ress toAvard the mouth of the furnace. 
 
 Does the Work of Hundreds. 
 
 In his little house on the vessel- 
 
 unloader one man does the work of a 
 hundred under the old way of han- 
 dling iron ore with shovel and hoist. 
 In another little house, far up in the 
 air on the bridge, another man, by 
 the simple turning on of a current of 
 electricity, performs the labors of hun- 
 dreds more Avith their shovels and 
 AvheelbarroAvs. The labors of another 
 hundred are saved by the automatic 
 unloading of the cars Avhich transport 
 the ore to the furnace elevators. Every- 
 Avhere it is electricity which furnishes 
 the power to move these great quan- 
 tities of ore at lightning speed from 
 the holds of ships to the gaping mouth 
 of the furnace. This power is no in- 
 significant item, for the easy SAvinging 
 of a load of fourteen tons high in the air 
 for 500 feet, takes not only immense 
 poAver, but unlimited strength. One 
 of the A'essel-unloaders has been com- 
 pleted and noAv sits at the sea Avail 
 like a battleship, ready for the coming 
 fray. The first of the bridges has also 
 been completed. Four more unloaders 
 and four more bridges Avill be placed 
 on the Avater front before the first ship 
 arrives Avith iron ore next summer. 
 Part of the steel for their construction 
 is already on the ground and the rest 
 is due Avithin a short time. This equip- 
 ment is but half of what will be placed 
 on the sea Avall AA'hen the full plans of 
 the steel mills are carried out. 
 
 Fastest in the World. 
 
 The results obtained in the rapid 
 handling of iron ore are Avithout prec- 
 edent in the Avorkl. Ships carrying 
 from 10,000 to 12,000 tons can be un- 
 loaded on the Avater front between sun- 
 rise and sundoAA'n. At the iron ore 
 shipping ports these same ships can be 
 loaded in from three to six hours. But 
 a little over a Avorking day on each 
 round trip of 2,000 miles Avill be taken 
 up Avith the handling of cargoes. The 
 story of cheap lake transportation is 
 told in the labor-saving devices on the 
 
112 
 
 IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909' 
 
 Gary docks. It is because ships can 
 load and unload their cargoes so 
 quickly that iron ore can be carried 
 1,000 miles at 80 cents per ton, or less 
 than it could be handled by teams 
 across town. 
 
 Spectacular Sights. 
 
 While the vessel-unloaders and the 
 bridges will be the great, spectacular 
 sights on the water front, the great 
 iron ore reservoirs will attract much 
 attention from visitors to the mills. 
 Their walls of concrete are from five 
 to eight feet in thickness. They have 
 concrete floors eighteen inches thick, 
 five feet above the lake level. When 
 fully completed these reservoirs will 
 extend along the harbor for nearly a 
 mile. It is said that nowhere else in 
 the world has it been possible to secure 
 such unlimited storage for raw mate- 
 rial at any of the great steel plants. 
 There will be millions of tons of iron 
 ore within easy reach of the gigantic 
 grab which drops down from the 
 bridges. There will be no extra hand- 
 ling, and not a single item to increase 
 the cost of production from the time 
 the iron ore is dropped into the holds 
 of ships on Lake Superior until the 
 steel comes out as a finished product. 
 
 SOMETHING NEW EVERY WEEK 
 
 The reader must not expect this book 
 to remain up to date, even until it 
 reaches him. Gary, even in the large- 
 ness of its things, develops swiftly. The 
 writer has tried to avoid mention of 
 things that are "going to be." 
 
 On February 1st of this year an an- 
 nouncement came from Pittsburg that 
 
 the Steel Company had abandoned its 
 work on additional coke ovens in 
 Pennsylvania, which were to have 
 been built at the cost of .$3,000,000 and 
 that in their stead an enormous by- 
 product eolving plant was to be estab- 
 lished in Gary. The project abandoned 
 included 700 ovens at Filbert, 500 
 ovens at Ralph and 500 ovens at Sar- 
 ah, Penn. 
 
 And now, as these pages are about 
 completed, comes the announcement 
 of the beginning, at once, of the con- 
 struction at Gary of 560 by-product 
 ovens as the first section of the enor- 
 mous coking plant there contemplated. 
 The site is just east of, and adjoining, 
 the new turning basin, the east side 
 of which is to be converted into docks 
 for the unloading of steamers bringing 
 coal from the Lake Brie ports, the 
 turning basin to be enlarged and thus 
 becoming an important part of the 
 harbor. 
 
 Between 6,000 and 7,000 tons of coal 
 must be handled every twenty-four 
 hours with the first lot of ovens to be 
 built. Enough gas will be manufac- 
 tured in the coke ovens to supply Chi- 
 cago and many other towns in Illinois 
 and Indiana, but of course its consump- 
 tion will be throughout the local field. 
 The plant will effect a great saving in 
 the cost of making coke which will be 
 put on the market as fuel in competi- 
 tion with coal, and in as much as coke 
 is a smokeless fuel, it Avill have much 
 to do with preventing the smoke nuis- 
 ance in Gary. 
 
 By-product ovens have been in suc- 
 cessful operation in Germany many 
 years and experiments with them in 
 the United States in the last five years 
 have proven remunerative. 
 
FOR THE PESSIMIST 
 
 113 
 
 A FEW PAGES FOR 
 
 THE PESSIMIST 
 
 SomeA\'here between the beginning 
 and end of this volume the pessimistic 
 reader's faith may balk and he will 
 think : " It 's too much even for this 
 age. It cannot keep up this marvelous 
 pace. A slump is coming. Something 
 adverse must happen about now in 
 this great enterprise." Let sueh a 
 reader consider the following: 
 
 FIRST— TITE STEEL COMPANY'S 
 CONSTRUCTION WORK AT GARY 
 IS ONLY FAIRLY UNDER WAY. 
 It will not be many weeks now before 
 the mills will end the period of tests 
 and get down to work on the first 
 orders on the books. These orders call 
 for about 100.000 tons of open hearth 
 steel rails of the most approved stand- 
 ard, and it is expected that deliveries 
 will begin on them early this spring. 
 
 By the time this book reaches its 
 readers the fourth of the blast fur- 
 naces will be lighted. It is now ready 
 for the match. 
 
 Most Remarkable Period of Develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Then will begin a most remarkable 
 period of development. 
 
 In the operation of the mills, close to 
 5,000 men will be reqiiired. But at the 
 same time that operation begins, the 
 army of construction, at least 5,000 
 strong, will return to the mills. While 
 a vast amount of work has already 
 been done to get the mills to a point 
 where steel rails can be made, the con- 
 struction has but fairly started. It has 
 been kept up to some extent during 
 the wiuter, but the forces have not 
 been as large as a year ago, because it 
 was found that the best results were 
 not obtained by laying concrete in cold 
 weather. 
 
 The full force is now returning. 
 Four more furnaces, pushed along as 
 far as possible last fall, are to be 
 
 rushed to completion. The great billet 
 mill, now only inclosed, is to be made 
 ready for operation. 
 
 A Square Mile to be Covered. 
 
 All the merchant mills on the west 
 side of the plant extending to the west 
 fence, nearly a square mile in area, are 
 to be built and ec^uipped. 
 
 While all this is being done, the 
 foundations of the third and fourth 
 bunches of furnaces and the third and 
 fourth open hearth buildings must go 
 in, and the superstructures, like great 
 exposition buildings, must go up. 
 
 One-Third Completed. 
 
 It is a fair statement that the con- 
 struction already covered by appro- 
 priations from the United States Steel 
 Corporation and for which the funds 
 have been set aside is not one-third 
 completed. 
 
 By the most conservative estimates 
 of the Steel Company's officials, at 
 least 10,000 men will be employed in 
 the plant by early summer. 
 
 At the American Car and Foundry 
 Company's site, engineers have been 
 at work all winter, preparing to begin 
 building operations in the spring. The 
 entire tract must be graded and the 
 Grand Calumet river must be straight- 
 ened at that point before actual con- 
 struction commences, but a consider- 
 able force will be recjuired from the 
 outset in preparing the site. 
 
 The engineers of the American Loco- 
 motive works have also been over the 
 site for its great plant east of the city, 
 and the architects and construction en- 
 gineers are now formulating plans. 
 
 Ready to Begin Construction. 
 
 It is said that the American Bridge 
 Company, subsidiary of the United 
 States Steel corijoration, is ready to 
 begin construction. 
 
 The coke plant has progressed to a 
 point where the engineers of the steel 
 
114 
 
 'IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 corporation are now preparing the 
 plans. This work, -in itself a big nn- 
 dertaking. is well along. 
 
 Many Small Manufacturing Plants. 
 
 At least half a dozen smaller con- 
 cerns, which will supply the big plants, 
 have been allotted sites, and will be- 
 gin construction as soon as the build- 
 ings of the American Car and Foun- 
 dry and the American Locomotive 
 works begin to take shape. These 
 smaller concerns would be considered a 
 rich prize by ordinary cities, but here 
 they are simply lost sight of in the 
 grand whirl of industrial development. 
 
 But it is in the city itself that the 
 most feverish activity will be shown 
 this year. The rush to build homes has 
 already commenced. At least 300 
 houses and flats are now under con- 
 struction within the city limits. 
 
 Three Big Public Structures. 
 
 Bids have been taken from contract- 
 ors for three extensive public struc- 
 tures. Perhaps first among them is 
 the Union passenger station of the 
 Lake Shore and the Baltimore & Ohio 
 at Broadway. This structure is the 
 most elaborate passenger station on 
 
 either road between their terminals, 
 and will cost about $200,000. Bids 
 were received at Baltimore some 
 weeks ago, seventeen of the principal 
 construction companies of the United 
 States competing. The award would 
 have been made before this and the 
 building commenced, but for the sud- 
 den death of Chief Engineer Crouth- 
 ers of the Baltimore & Ohio. 
 
 Half a Million in Company's Hospital. 
 
 The plans for the hospital which the 
 United States Steel Corporation will 
 build for its employes in Gary, are now 
 in the hands of contractors, and bids 
 will be opened in a few days and the 
 contract closed. It is estimated by one 
 of the leading Gary contractors, who 
 has put in his bid, that the cost of 
 building outside of steel and one or 
 two other items, which the steel cor- 
 poration reserves for itself, will be 
 about $ 200,000. 
 
 The big stretch of sand between the 
 elevated railways and the Grand Cal- 
 umet river for half a mile will be con- 
 verted into park grounds for the hos- 
 pital. The total cost of the building 
 and grounds is placed at $.500,000. 
 
 GARY'S NEW CITY HALL. 
 
FOR THE PESSIMIST 
 
 115 
 
 City Hall Soon to Go Up. 
 
 Bids will soon be opened for the new 
 City Hall at Massachusetts street and 
 Seventh avenue. This building will 
 cost about $50,000. 
 
 Electric Line to Be Built. 
 
 In tlie way of electric roads, the line 
 froin Valparaiso and Hobart will be 
 built this season, at least between Gary 
 and Hobart. 
 
 Crown Point capitalists are moving 
 heaven and earth, so to speak, to get 
 their line twelve miles long, built in 
 the spring. Public sentiment runs so 
 high in Crown Point that local capital 
 will not wait for the promoters any 
 longer, but will eo ahead on then- own 
 account, as they have kept the fran- 
 chise in the control of the citizens' 
 committee. 
 
 doiibtless be built on schedule time. It 
 comes into Gary a.t Fifteenth avenue. 
 The Gary & Interurban now also in 
 the grip of the Shonts group, is obli- 
 gated bj' its franchise to build its 
 Fifth avenue line this year. This is 
 about two miles long. In addition to 
 these electric lines, there is another 
 planning to get into Gary from Whit- 
 ing. It has obtained franchises in 
 AVhiting and East Chicago. 
 
 Gary & Western Ready. 
 
 The right-of-way of the Gary & 
 .Western is completed, ready for trains 
 as soon as the New York Central lines 
 decide to begin running them. It is 
 given out that the Gary & Western 
 service will start in May at the latest. 
 
 In addition to all these improve- 
 ments requiring an army of men, all 
 .the streets in the first subdivision are 
 
 THE PJNZEN'HOF REST.VURANT— PUBLIC HALL ON THE SECOND FL( 
 
 Still Another Interurban. 
 
 The New York and Chicago Electric 
 Air Line has annoanced its intention 
 of reaching Gary by midsummer. 
 Since the Shonts group of financiers 
 got hold of the road, there is ample 
 capital back of it, and the line will 
 
 to be paved and sidewalks laid in the 
 spring. The work is now only about 
 half done. On the south side, outside 
 of the Steel Corporation's property, 
 and in ToUeston, there will be a great 
 rush in the building of houses and the 
 improvement of streets. Many public 
 improvements have been ordered by 
 
US 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN '1909" 
 
 the trustees of both Gary and ToUes- 
 ton. 
 
 At Least 20,000 Men At Work. 
 
 By Midsuranier next there will be at 
 least 20,000 men employed in Gary. 
 This is not an offhand estimate, but is 
 the result of careful estimates by offi- 
 cials and by the contractors who will 
 do the work. 
 
 The above and other large matters 
 are mainly for the present year. For 
 each of the following years there will 
 be as much or more. The American 
 Steel & Wire Company,, being a subor- 
 dinate company of the United States 
 Steel ComiDany, makes it almost certain 
 that their contemplated immense plant 
 will be built next year, by which time 
 there will also have been completed 
 such large works as the Plate Mill and 
 other similar adjuncts of the steel 
 works. 
 
 SECOND— THF: incoming OF 
 INDEPENDENT P^ACTORIES, IN 
 AND ABOUT GARY, IS BARELY 
 STARTED AND WILL CONTINUE 
 FOR YEARS. 
 
 The significance of this is far frora 
 trifling. 
 
 The American Car and Foundry 
 Company, first of the great manufac- 
 turing concerns of the country not al- 
 lied with the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration to locate in Gary, will start 
 immediately on the construction of its 
 plant west of the city. 
 
 The Gary works of the American Car 
 and Foundry Company, when com- 
 pleted, will turn out 200 cars a day and 
 will employ from 8,000 to 12,000 men. 
 The building of this great plant is not 
 only a great boom to Gary, but the 
 town 01 ToUeston, which lies directly 
 south of its site, will be largely bene- 
 fited. 
 
 The engineers' surveys of the ground 
 and the plans for the buildings and 
 machinery were filed away, ready for 
 future use. Payments were made to 
 
 the Gary Land Company for the 160 
 acres of land which had been contract- 
 ed for. This land lies just south of 
 the Baltimore & Ohio right-of-way 
 west of the Grand Calumet. It is a tri- 
 angular strip with the Grand Calumet 
 at its south-eastern boundary. In ad- 
 dition to the 160 acres originally pur- 
 chased, the American Car and Found- 
 dry company, on the advice of its en- 
 gineers, selected 52 acres more in or- 
 der to complete the site. This gives 
 the company 212 acres all of which 
 will be occupied by buildings and sid- 
 ings. 
 
 Before the end of the week the en- 
 gineers will be back on the ground 
 making their final surveys. There is a 
 great deal of work to be done in lev- 
 eling off the tract which is covered 
 with small sand dunes before actual 
 construction can be commenced. It is 
 expected that before the end of the 
 year the company will be ready to let 
 the contract for the grading. 
 
 A Great Corporation. 
 
 Tlie American Car and Foundry 
 Company is one of the great aggrega- 
 tions of capital in close touch with, but 
 not subsidiary to, the United States 
 Steel Corporation. It is capitalized at 
 $60,000,000. It has plants now at De- 
 troit, Jefl'ersonville, Chicago, St. Louis 
 and a dozen other points and builds 
 the larger portion of the cars in use on 
 American railroads. The Gary plant 
 will excel in size any of those now in 
 operation. 
 
 The Car Axle Plant. 
 
 It was to supply the American Car 
 and P'oundry Company with car axles 
 that the Steel Company added to its 
 mills a department to turn out steel 
 car axles. This industry has hitherto 
 been largely supplied from Pittsburg, 
 and the Gary car axle plant is the first 
 large institution of its kind in the 
 west. Although but a part of the In- 
 
FOR THE PESSIMIST 
 
 117 
 
 diana Steel Company the ear axle cle- 
 partmeut is in itself a large industry 
 and one which would be welcomed to 
 any of the smaller cities as being an 
 event worthy of a big celebration. 
 
 In preparing the ground for the 
 American Car and Foundry Company 
 a new channel will be dug for the 
 Grand Calumet river, which, instead 
 of winding through the lowlands will 
 be straightened and deepened at the 
 southern boundary of the car manu- 
 facturing plant. 
 
 American Locomotive Works. 
 
 The recent location of the American 
 Locomotive works in Gary is the most 
 important event in the history of the 
 "Magic City of Steel" since the com- 
 ing of the American Car and Foundry 
 Company. 
 
 It can no longer be said that Gary 
 is but a one-company town. Besides 
 the United States Steel Corporation, 
 with its great subsidiary companies, 
 there will be the American Car and 
 Foundry Company, the largest manu- 
 facturer of steel cars in the world, and 
 the American Locomotive works, which 
 builds more locomotives than any other 
 company in America. 
 
 Both the American Car and Foundry 
 Company and the American Locomo- 
 tive works are outside the Steel Cor- 
 poration. They have selected Gary as 
 sites for their new plants on account 
 of its unexcelled transportation, and 
 also to the advantage of having their 
 plants in proximity to the source of 
 raw material at the Gary steel mills. 
 
 The location of the American Loco- 
 motive works is particularly fortu- 
 nate, for in the building of locomotives 
 the large majority of the men are high- 
 priced, skilled Avorkmen. There is but 
 a fraction of common labor in such 
 plants. 
 
 The announcements made in the 
 newspapers from the office of the com- 
 pany in New York state that from 12,- 
 
 000 to 15,000 men will be employed in 
 the new works. These figures are 
 based on the ultimate plans of the 
 company and may not be reached for 
 tM'o or three years. The first unit of 
 the plant, the construction of which 
 will begin immediately, will employ 
 at least 4,000 men. Of these, at least 
 3,000 will be highly-skilled mechanics. 
 
 To property-owners in the present 
 business center of Gary the location of 
 the locomotive works to the eastward 
 is an admirable balance to the Amer- 
 ican Car and Foundry on the west. It 
 assures for all time the maintenance of 
 Broadway in its present standing as 
 the business center of Gary. 
 
 The Economist magazine of Chicago 
 must have had inside information of 
 the coming of the American Locomo- 
 tive works when it announced that 
 "engagements already entered into 
 contemplate the employment of 75,000 
 men and a population of 250,000 in the 
 near future." This statement was tak- 
 en as perhaps too roseate a forecast 
 when it was made, but the figures are 
 now rapidly approaching it. 
 
 The Annual Report of the United 
 States Steel Corporation 
 
 at the beginning of this year states, 
 among other things, that "At the close 
 of the year, there was unexpended on 
 appropriations authorized for construc- 
 tion and improvement at Gary, $22,- 
 500,000." Of the former appropria- 
 tion of $50,000,000, there was an un- 
 pended Dec. 31, 1908, balance of $7,- 
 202,770.43. This sum, according to the 
 understanding of the officials of the 
 Indiana Steel Company is in addition 
 to the $22,500,000 reported above. 
 
 What Was Expended in Previous 
 Years. 
 
 During the first year of Gary the 
 corporation expended $19,316,555.27 
 and during the second year $18,848,- 
 472.19. 
 
118 
 
 "IF I HAD^KNOWN ABOUT GARY IN 1909" 
 
 The estimated expenditures for 1909 
 are slightly less than for either of the 
 first two years, but the expenditures 
 for those years included large sums for 
 real eslate, and did not represent as 
 much money paid for actual construc- 
 tion as it is now estimated will be paid 
 during the current year. 
 
 THIRD— Many VERY LARGE 
 THINGS IN GARY'S GREAT FU- 
 TURE ARE AS YET RARELY 
 TITOUGI-IT OF OR SPOKEN ABOUT. 
 If you will asli any old resident of 
 Chicago he will tell you that the one 
 great thing of early force in Chicago's 
 growth and greatness, was what we 
 now call the old Illinois and Michigan 
 Canal, the then outlet (now inlet) of 
 wliich was at the Chicago point on 
 Lake Michigan. 
 
 The livest large topic of national de- 
 velopment now before the Amei-ican 
 people is the coming great Water Way 
 from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of 
 Mexico and from thence through the 
 Panama Canal to the Orient. It is mor- 
 ally certain that the Lake Michigan in- 
 let to this great water way, or at least 
 one of two such inlets, will be through 
 the bed of the Grand Calumet River at 
 Gary, and the writer predicts among 
 other great things (now rarely spoken 
 of in Gary's great future) that it will 
 be the principal Port on all the Great 
 Lakes. 
 
 For years there has been continued 
 friction between what are called the 
 rural representatives in the New York 
 state legislature and representatives of 
 the interests of New York City. The 
 
 same condition has for a long time ex- 
 isted between those representing the 
 City of Chicago and representatives of 
 the rest of the State of Illinois. It will 
 require wise thinking and some lines 
 of policy hardly to be expected, if this 
 conflict does not soon come into exist- 
 ence in Indiana. Gary is fast becom- 
 ing the great city of Indiana. Already 
 there is in New York State a forceful 
 agitation and contention for the set- 
 ting apart of New York City and its 
 surroundings as a new state. The 
 writer prophesies that the present gen- 
 eration will see a new state formed of 
 the northern part of Illinois, including 
 Chicago, and the northern part of In- 
 diana, and will see Chicago and Gary 
 one city, extending from Waukegan to 
 Michigan City. 
 
 Chicago is now probably the great- 
 est manufacturing city in the world. 
 The writer has reason for believing 
 that its manufactures lead the world, 
 not only in the aggregate of value in 
 dollars, but in quantity by carloads. 
 
 When to this wonderful third city of 
 the world is added the coming hun- 
 dreds of thousands along the southern 
 shore of Lake Michigan, forming the 
 world's center for the great Iron and 
 Steel Industry with the unparalleled 
 development of municipal conditions, 
 attractiveness as a place of residence, 
 any many, many times multiplied 
 values of its real estate, thousands who 
 have not read this little volume will 
 say: 
 
 "IF I HAD KNOWN ABOUT GARY 
 IN 1909." 
 
"Dont's. 
 
 >> 
 
 Do not arrive at Gary exiDecting the privilege of going through the immense 
 mills, unless j^ou have: 
 
 1st. A permit, which can only be obtained in Chicago. 
 
 2nd. A strong pair of legs with high shoes for tramping perhaps a half day 
 through the sand. 
 
 Do not write to me about obtaining at Gary employment or a business open- 
 ing, as I am neither informed nor situated to answer such letters. 
 
 Do not write me for maps, etc., as the map in this volume is the only one I 
 could send. It is one of the best and latest. 
 
 Do not write asking as to the character or standing of any real estate operator 
 at Gary or the quality or value of his'property. 
 
 Do not write to me at Gary or expect to meet me there except bj' appoint- 
 ment, and if by appointment let it be definite as to the minute and place, and keep 
 it promptly. I am on the go about half the time keeping posted on Gary. Unless 
 we are personally acquainted, it is better to call on me in Chicago briefly at first, 
 arrange for an}^ desired advice and make appointment for an hour or a day later. 
 Such an appointment, however, can be arranged by mail. If you bring or send 
 a friend, have him read this book before coming — it will save time and talk. 
 
 Do not take a dancing lesson on a vacant lot nor buy or talk real estate on a 
 street or sidewalk. If a real estate man cannot arrange to first see you in his 
 office, you can do without him. 
 
 Do not seem foolish and say: "If that man's real estate is worth what he 
 asks for it, he would not sell it for that," and do not continue foolish and say: "If 
 that man will give me my price for my Gary land, it must be worth more and I 
 will not sell it." That kind of reasoning would stop all buying and selling, except 
 in necessaries. Take a fair profit and let the buyer also make something. 
 
 Do not be inconsistent, and say: "That land the owner offers for $1,000 an 
 acre only cost him -1600 an acre a year ago, hence I won't buy it," when you know 
 very well that if the value and price of the land was not increasing you would not 
 think of buying it. 
 
 Do not disclose paresis b)^ asserting that the Steel Company is expending 
 a hundred million dollars at Gary in order to sell some thousands of dollars worth 
 of land. 
 
Three Stories. 
 
 Mr. Brown came to Chicago, where he knew no one, to buy an automobile, 
 about which he knew nothing. On his arrival at Chicago, he felt favored in fall- 
 ing in with a stranger on the street who "could tell him all about all of the different 
 kinds of automobiles," and took him to one salesroom and kept him away from all 
 others, and his purchase had so much "fat" in it for several people, he never could 
 have sold his machine, even new, for within $500 of what he paid for it. 
 
 
 
 Mr. Smith went to Chicago for the same purpose, under the same conditions, 
 except that he did not fall in with the street friend. He visited fifteen salesrooms, 
 saw sixty different kinds of automobiles, and talked for hours on a subject he did 
 not understand, with scores of men he did not know. He heard so many bad things 
 at each place about the fourteen other places and their machines, that he became 
 discouraged and went home without buying. 
 
 
 
 Mr. Jones also went to the city on the same errand, but un his arrival in Chicago 
 before talking with any automobile people, he went to a man who knew a great 
 deal about automobiles and did not represent an}' of them. He had satisfied him- 
 self that this man was both posted and honorable, and then told him he wanted 
 an hour of his time, information and advice and was willing to pay ten dollars for 
 it, to which the man agreed. At the end of their talk the man informed Jones that 
 it was quite feasible and customary for him to go with Jones to several of the sales- 
 places, and, while fairly and honorably helping Jones to a right selection and a 
 low price, to get from the sales department, a part of the commission on the sale. 
 
 This pleased Jones very much, as he wanted still more of the man's time and 
 advice, so for several days they together looked over the subject and Jones made 
 his purchase at a reduced price and the man not only received from the company 
 pay for his time, but returned to Jones what he received for his first interview. 
 Jones bought the same kind and size of automobile that Brown bought, but for a 
 thousand dollars less than Brown paid. 
 
iUN 10 iao9 
 
,Piil-l!ii-ili