HISTORY OF GARY, INDIANA
“Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States, 25 miles (40 km) from downtown Chicago, Illinois. Gary is adjacent to the Indiana Dunes National Park and borders southern Lake Michigan.[6][7] Gary was named after lawyer Elbert Henry Gary, who was the founding chairman of the United States Steel Corporation. The city is known for its large steel mills and as the birthplace of the Jackson 5 music group.[8]
The population of Gary was 80,294 at the 2010 census,[9] making it the ninth-largest city in the state of Indiana. Once a prosperous steel town, it has suffered drastic population loss due to overseas competition and restructuring of the industry, falling by 55 percent from its peak of 178,320 in 1960.[10] As with many Rust Belt cities, it suffers from unemployment, decaying infrastructure, and low literacy and educational attainment levels. It is estimated that nearly one-third of all houses in the city are unoccupied or abandoned.”
Founding and Early Years
Gary’s fortunes have risen and fallen with those of the steel industry. The growth of the steel industry brought prosperity to the community. Broadway was known as a commercial center for the region. Department stores and architecturally significant movie houses were built in the downtown area and the Glen Park neighborhood.
In the 1960s, like many other American urban centers reliant on one particular industry, Gary entered a spiral of decline. Gary’s decline was brought on by the growing overseas competitiveness in the steel industry, which had caused U.S. Steel to lay off many workers from the Gary area. The U.S. Steel Gary Works employed over 30,000 in 1970, declined to just 6,000 by 1990, and further declined to 5,100 in August 2015. Attempts to shore up the city’s economy with major construction projects, such as a Holiday Inn hotel and the Genesis Convention Center, failed to reverse the decline.[13][14]
Rapid racial change occurred in Gary during the late 20th century. These population changes resulted in political change which reflected the racial demographics of Gary: the non-white share of the city’s population increased from 21% in 1930, 39% in 1960, to 53% in 1970. Non-whites were primarily restricted to live in the Midtown section just south of downtown (per the 1950 Census, 97% of the black population of Gary was living in this neighborhood). Gary had one of the nation’s first African-American mayors, Richard G. Hatcher, and hosted the ground-breaking 1972 National Black Political Convention.[15]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Gary had the highest percentage of African-Americans of U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more, 84% (as of the 2000 U.S. census). This no longer applies to Gary since the population of the city has now fallen well below 100,000 residents. As of 2013, the Gary Department of Redevelopment has estimated that one-third of all homes in the city are unoccupied and/or abandoned.[16]
U.S. Steel continues to be a major steel producer, but with only a fraction of its former level of employment. While Gary has failed to reestablish a manufacturing base since its population peak, two casinos opened along the Gary lakeshore in the 1990s, although this has been aggravated by the state closing of Cline Avenue, an important access to the area. Today, Gary faces the difficulties of a Rust Belt city, including unemployment, decaying infrastructure, and low literacy and educational attainment levels.
Recent History
Gary has closed several of its schools within the last ten years. While some of the school buildings have been reused, most remain unused since their closing. As of 2014, Gary is considering closing additional schools in response to budget deficits.[17][18]
Gary chief of police Thomas Houston was convicted of excessive force and abuse of authority in 2008; he died in 2010 while serving a three-year, five-month federal prison sentence.[19][20]
In April 2011, 75-year-old mayor Rudy Clay announced that he would suspend his campaign for reelection as he was being treated for prostate cancer. He endorsed rival Karen Freeman-Wilson, who won the Democratic mayoral primary in May 2011.[21] Freeman-Wilson won election with 87 percent of the vote and her term began in January 2012; she is the first woman elected mayor in the city’s history.[22] She was reelected in 2015.[23] She was defeated in her bid for a third term in the 2019 Democratic primary by Lake County Assessor Jerome Prince. Since no challengers filed for the November 2019 general election, Prince’s nomination is effectively tantamount to election, and officially succeeded Freeman-Wilson on January 1, 2020, two days after he was sworn in as the city’s 21st mayor on December 30, 2019.[24][25]
To read more about Gary, click on the ink below.
