GARY

city, Lake county, extreme northwest Indiana, U.S. It lies at the southern end of Lake Michigan in the Calumet district east of Chicago. In 1906 the town (named for Elbert H. Gary, chief organizer of the United States Steel Corporation) was laid out as an adjunct of the company's vast new manufacturing complex. The site was chosen because it lay on navigable water midway between the iron ore beds to the north and the coal region to the south. Large areas were drained, sand dunes removed, and a meandering river was rerouted. Steelworks were then built along the lake shore, with the city to the south. The Gary Land Company, a U.S. Steel subsidiary, laid out its part of the city, constructed the streets and sidewalks, installed the sewage system, and built the waterworks and electric plant. The first blast furnace was fired in December 1908, and steel production began early the following year. Although Gary has some diversified manufacturing, it is essentially a one-industry city and has periodically suffered from declines in steel production and labour disputes. During World War I a sizable number of African Americans moved north to work in Gary, and in the 1930s they constituted one-sixth of Gary's population. World War II drew many more, and in 1967 Richard G. Hatcher became one of the first African Americans to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city. Gary was the scene of a significant early 20th-century development in public education when William Wirt established the work-study-play school, popularly known as the platoon school, designed to attract underprivileged children. A new civic centre in the city's downtown area was completed in the early 1980s. Gary is the seat of Indiana University Northwest (1922). Inc. town, 1906; city, 1909. Pop. (1990) city, 116,646; Gary PMSA, 604,526; (1998 est.) city, 108,469; (1996 est.) Gary PMSA 622,303.