USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 36
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TOWN GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED
Within a few weeks from the time of the inauguration of actual oper- ations (such as clearing the land and grading), or to be more exact, on June 9, 1906, an enumeration was taken of those who had enrolled them- selves as residents, and the result was an announced population of 334. That was a sufficient number to ensure a village, or town form of govern- ment, if the residents so desired. The matter was put to vote on July 14, and only one of the thirty-eight votes cast was against incorporation.
The first corporate election was held July 28, 1906. Millard A. Cald- well, Thomas E. Knotts and John E. Sears were chosen as town trustees from the First, Second and Third wards respectively without opposi- tion. C. Oliver Holmes was elected town clerk and Louis A. Bryan, town treasurer. The newly chosen town board met and effected an organiza- tion on July 30. Thomas E. Knotts was elected president of the board ; Londen L. Bomberger was appointed town attorney ; A. P. Melton, town engineer ; and Frank C. Chambers was named as town marshal and act- ing street commissioner. The first members of the school board were T. H. Cutler, C. O. Holmes and Edward Jewell.
Later Town Marshal Chambers was retired and Joseph D. Martin was named in his stead, a position which he continued to hold under the different Knotts administrations. Other appointments were those of William H. Kliver as building commissioner, Joseph J. Feely as fire marshal and Walter Hunter as inspector of plumbing.
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INCREASE OF CORPORATE TERRITORY
When first incorporated the Town of Gary contained less than fifteen square miles, or the tract originally held by the Gary Land Company. But during the first summer of its corporate existence all that territory lying west of Gary and north of Tolleston, including Buffington and Clarke was annexed to the new town. This gave Gary an area of ap- proximately twenty-five square miles, extending east and west along the lake shore a distance of seven miles and having a maximum width, north to south, of about three miles. Tolleston was afterward annexed to the City of Gary, which also incorporated a considerable tract of land on the south side of the Little Calumet River.
BECOMES A CITY
In October, 1909, the Town of Gary was incorporated and organized as a city of the fifth class, and in December, 1910, it became a city of the fourth class under the state law which places municipalities whose population has reached 10.000 in the class named.
The officers who first served under the latter organization were as follows: Mayor, Thomas E. Knotts; clerk. Harry G. Moose : treasurer. E. C. Simpson : city attorney, Harvey J. Curtis: city judge, Ora L. Wildermuth ; chief of police, Joseph D. Martin : chief of fire department. Joseph J. Feely : city engineer. A. D. Melton : building commissioner. William H. Kliver : street commissioner. P. C. Finerty (office abolished) : city comptroller, Joseph Dunsing (office abolished) ; acting street com- missioner, John J. Nyhoff: board of public works, John J. Nyhoff, Thomas E. Knotts, A. D. Melton : board of safety, H. H. Highlands, E. N. White, Frank Borman: board of health, Dr. I. Millstone, Dr. M. S. Foulds, Dr. W. P. Laue: board of education, A. P. Melton, president ; T. H. Cutler, secretary : W. A. Cain, treasurer.
City Council-Councilmen-at-large : William Feuer, Dominick Szymanski, Anthony Baukus. First Ward. Emerson L. Bowser; Second Ward, Ralph E. Rowley : Third Ward, Michael Walsh; Fourth Ward. John Seimasko; Fifth Ward, Maurice N. Castleman : Sixth Ward. Walter Gibson.
MAYOR THOMAS E. KNOTTS
Mayor Knotts was one of the first to settle on the site of Gary. An energetic and educated man of Ohio nativity and Indiana training, he located at Hammond in 1891, there engaged in the real estate and insur- Vol. 1-25
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ance business, and served in various capacities on the police force of that city, including the commissionership, or head of the department. When Gary was founded in 1906, he resigned that position and moved with his family to the site of the future Steel City, erecting a small frame house for his household and at the same time opening a real estate and fire insurance office. He served as Gary's first postmaster, and at the first election, as noted, he was chosen a member of the Town Board and president of that body. When Gary became a city he was chosen its mayor and held office until the fall election of 1913. when he was succeeded by Roswell O. Johnson.
WORK OF THE GARY LAND COMPANY
At the present time the limits of the City of Gary extend southward from the lake a distance of about five and a half miles, with a distance of seven miles between the eastern and the western limits. The first and greatest improvements within that area were prosecuted by the Gary Land Company, which laid off and improved what is known as the First Subdivision of Gary, embracing a tract of land approximately a mile in width from north to south and a mile and a half in length, from east to west. Streets sixty feet in width were laid out in rectangular fashion, and under the supervision of competent sanitary engineers a sewer system was planned and installed throughout the territory controlled by the Gary Land Company. All the sewer, gas and water pipes were laid under the alleys, so as to avoid the necessity of disturbing the street pavements for repairing purposes. The land company's subsequent addi- tions were developed and improved in the same manner.
The principal street of Gary, running north and south through the property of the Gary Land Company, and designated Broadway, is 100 feet in width, paved with concrete, and for over a mile is a fine metropolitan thoroughfare. The principal street running east and west named Fifth Avenue, is eighty feet wide and similarly paved. All of the thoroughfares running in that direction are "avenues," designated numerically, and all streets are numbered according to the "one-hundred- in-a-block" system.
Besides laying out the main section of Gary, building sidewalks and pavements and constructing the entire sewer, gas, electric and water systems of the city, the land company has erected more than a thousand residences for employes of the industries controlled by the corporation, as well as several business blocks on Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Two- thirds of the private houses have been erected in the First Subdivision, and vary in cost from $1,500 to $25,000. About three hundred houses in the Sixth Subdivision cost from $1,800 to $8,000.
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ABOUT TO BREAK GROUND AT GARY
BROADWAY IN THE ROUGH
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As a matter of general interest, it may be stated that the Gary Land Company offer building lots at prices representing approximately the cost of the land plus cost of improvements, and a special discount is allowed employes of the companies controlled by the United States Steel Corporation. There are strict requirements as to the character of build- ings to be erected, and purchasers of lots are required to erect buildings of approved character within eighteen months after purchase. The title does not pass to the purchaser until the completion of the building. In the business district the requirements concerning improvements make it necessary for the purchaser of each twenty-five foot lot to construct a building valued at least ten thousand dollars. During the first four years of construction, buildings of two stories were permitted in the business district, while at the present time the requirement is for at least three stories.
With the opening of 1907, the gathering people of Gary saw energetie preparations being made to supply them with water, gas, electric light and heat. This was soon accomplished through the Gary Heat, Light and Water Company, a subsidiary of the corporation, which was organized January 1, 1907. and operates under franchises granted by the City of Gary.
LIGHT, WATER AND POWER
At the present time there are thirty miles of gas mains extending from the company's plant, and forty-one miles of water mains within the city limits. The supply of water is obtained from Lake Michigan, through a tunnel 15,000 feet in length and seventy-two inches in diam- eter. The pumping station is located at Jackson Park, in the heart of the resident district and within a few blocks of the business center. The waterworks tower and power house are handsome structures and the adjacent grounds of the park are beautifully improved with landscaped mounds, sunken lawns, and artistic arrangements of foliage, shrubbery and flower beds. The station has a capacity sufficient to supply a popu- lation of 100,000; and, with all Gary's swing and ambition, it will proba- bly be some time before it will be called upon for the limit of its serviee.
The gas supplied the city is manufactured in the company's own plant, with a present daily capacity of 50.000 cubic feet, while the elec- tricity for both lighting and power is supplied from the works of the Indiana Steel Company.
MONEY EXPENDED ON GARY
Various estimates have been made as to the total amount expended in Gary during the eight years of its existence, including the invest-
PANORAMA OF JACKSON PARK AND WATER WORKS
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ments made by the industries under the wing of the United States Steel Corporation, a very few independent plants, and by the Town and City of Gary. The houses, industrial plants and public utilities which repre- sent the gigantie labors of the corporation are estimated to stand for a money value of fully eighty million dollars, outside expenditures twenty millions, or a total of one hundred million dollars expended on an "eight- year old": surely rather an expensive young city ! But the child prom- ises to pay an even greater interest than it has in the past on this mu- nificent investment.
In April, 1910, when the Federal census was taken, the population of Gary was 16,802.
FIRST STREETS OPENED BY THE TOWN
As stated in the annual report of the heads of municipal departments for the year ending December 31, 1910: "One of the first problems that engaged the attention of the first town board in 1906 was that of seeur- ing better communication with the outside world. The most pressing need was a road westward and this was secured by opening and grading Eleventh Avenne from Broadway to Main Street in Tolleston. This avenue was macadamized and made passable for teams at a cost of $3,200. Then Broadway was roughly opened up, through a succession of sand hills and sloughs, at an expense of $875, and Washington Street was graded from the Michigan Central tracks to Nineteenth Avenue to afford a traffic route for terms while Boardway was being paved.
EXTENSION OF BROADWAY
"The town board early realized the necessity of a wider and longer Broadway. At first this now famous thoroughfare extended with a width of one hundred feet from the mill gates to the Wabash tracks. The first step toward a greater Broadway was the condemnation of a strip fifty feet wide between the Wabash tracks and the Pennsylvania Railroad, and this was followed by the widening of the street from the Pennsyl- vania tracks to the Little Calumet River. Later, Broadway was widened to the full width of one hundred feet to the southern city limits and the board of county commissioners last year was induced to extend the great Broadway southward to Merrilville and it is planned ultimately to extend it as far south as Crown Point. Broadway is now paved for a distance of four miles and has no equal of its kind in the country.
SIMPLE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT
"The old town of Gary began doing business without a dollar of its own, although having an assessed valuation of nearly three million dol-
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lars. Arrangements were made with the First National Bank of Ham- mond whereby all warrants of the town were cashed without the necessity of a bond issue. Then as fast as the taxes came in the town treasurer was directed to take up the outstanding warrants with accrued interest. For this accommodation the town was charged but 5 per cent interest and it may be said that the arrangement was unique in simplicity and economy."
CITY AREA AND TOPOGRAPHY
The city civil engineer has incorporated much suggestive and striking information in his 1910 report, of which the following are illustrations : "Gary has included within its corporate limits 31 square miles of terri- tory, its greatest length being 7 miles from east to west and 712 miles from north to south. The area has been increased during the year by about 101% square miles, having annexed the Town of Tolleston contain- ing 51/2 miles, also 41/2 square miles lying south of the Little Calumet River and about one-half square mile of other contignous property.
"As to topography, the city is traversed from east to west by the Grand Calumet river about one mile south of Lake Michigan and by the Little Calumet river about four miles south of the Lake, the intervening territory consisting of sand ridges with depressions between, the eleva- tion above lake level varying from 20 feet to 70 feet. The Little Calumet river runs through a broad marsh or valley a mile or more in width, the elevation above lake level being from 12 to 18 feet. South of the Little Calumet river the sand ridges rise to an elevation of 100 feet while the intervening depressions have an elevation of about 40 feet.
"The soil consists entirely of sand in the higher portions and is easily graded and makes an excellent foundation.
"Of the 31 square miles, several are being held in reserve by the Steel Corporation for future industrial developments, while six square miles have been subdivided, making about 36,000 building lots.
STREET MILEAGE AND IMPROVEMENTS
"The total mileage of all streets is 151, of which 36 miles have been improved with first class city pavements, also in addition to these pave- ments the city has 19 miles of stone and gravel macadam roads, making a total of 54 miles of roads and pavements. [Editor: This was written in 1910; at the close of 1913, Gary had 180 miles of paved streets. ]
"On the first contracts that were let by the Board of Trustees in 1907, difficulty was had in getting bids, on account of the undeveloped condi-
GARY CITY HALL AND MUNICIPAL HEADQUARTERS, SEVENTH AVENUE AND MASSACHUSETTS STREET
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tion of the country, difficulty of hauling materials through the deep sand, and uncertainty of the value of street improvement bonds. The first streets and sewers were built in the woods, the trees being cut and right of way graded through sand hills and across sloughs in order to get a roadway to haul materials, the prospect not being an enticing one either to contractors or bond buyers.
"While Gary has paved a mileage of her streets equal to about one- third the paved mileage of each of the following cities: Minneapolis, Memphis, Denver, Jersey City, Omaha, Atlanta, Richmond and Seattle, this work has all been done in four years; under a town government for three years and under a fifth class city form for one year, making proper organization for carrying on the work difficult.
"In most cities the procedure in building streets has been first to grade and make a passable roadway, later graveling or macadamizing and when the street has become well built up, to construct a modern pavement on the foundation which has been thoroughly consolidated by traffic. In Gary, however, it has been necessary to construct many pavements imme- diately, which is very well on solid ground but which does not give the best results on marshy or filled ground, as there is more or less settlement and consequent deterioration in such cases.
"However such a course could not be well avoided at the beginning as pavements of a modern character were necessary for the very rapid building up of the city, and for the deevlopment of the outlying property.
WORK OF THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
"The Engineering Department was created by the Board of Trustees of the Town of Gary on August 18, 1906, A. P. Melton being appointed town engineer, and opening up the office October 1st of that year.
"At that time there was not an improved street, sewer or drain, large portions of the town consisting of sand ridges and sloughs, impassable except for a few sand trails through the woods, Hobart Road coming north on what is now Broadway and turning west on Twenty-fifth Ave- nue, being the only improved country road within the city limits. In this wilderness enterprising real estate men had laid out hundreds of acres into subdivisions of 'town lots' many years before, making their plats in most cases from maps at the county seat and very seldom having an actual survey made, with the result that many of the plats were decidedly inac- curate, in that the plats did not conform one to another, and the various streets, boulevards, and alleys laid out through the woods in the different subdivisions were in many cases not co-terminous, each owner laying out his property in such manner as to get the greatest number of lots.
GARY-CARNEGIE PUBLIC LIBRARY, FIFTH AVENUE
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"The department at once set about to procure the official plats on record of all subdivisions and to locate the streets on the ground, having much difficulty in interpreting vague descriptions, and in distributing surplus and shortage, which occurred in nearly every case, as well as the physical difficulties of making a way through the almost impenetrable swamps and jungles. By the process of vacation and condemnation some of the worst discrepancies were adjusted.
" The first office of the department was a space 8x12 feet in the office of the old Police Station, which served until the spring of 1907, when one of the school houses near Fourth and Broadway was preempted and used until September when school started, and there being very few office rooms to be had a friendly real estate man kindly offered the use of a small room over the Bormann saloon at Tenth and Broadway, where the work was carried on until the first of the year 1908, when the office was moved to the Knotts Building at the corner of Seventh and Broadway, where it remained until the City Hall was completed, when permanent quarters were moved into November 3, 1909."
THE CITY HALL
Gary's City Hall and municipal headquarters at Seventh Avenue and Massachusetts Street was built in 1908 and dedicated in 1909, cost- ing $50,000. It is a substantial and rather striking structure of brick, with stone trimmings, and contains not only the offices of the mayor (with the Common Council chamber), clerk, treasurer, controller, engi- neer and building commissioner, but the city jail and central head- quarters for the police and fire departments. The other fire station is at Nineteenth Avenne and Adams Street.
GARY PUBLIC LIBRARY
No institution in Gary can be named whose influence is broader or better than the Publie Library. It is a Carnegie foundation and is housed in one of the finest structures of the kind in the state. The Gary Public Library is a city institution, as it is maintained and controlled by the municipality in a manner similar to other libraries founded by the steel magnate, and whose generosity may have been somewhat gov- . erned by a fellow feeling for the founders of the city itself.
The library, both as an institution and a building, was of slow growth-according to the Gary standard. The first meeting of the board was held in March, 1908, its small collection of books being of- fered to the public at a store room on West Seventh Avenue. On Au-
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gust 1, 1911, the library was moved to larger rooms at No. 64 Wash- ington Street.
In the summer of 1910 Andrew Carnegie gave the new city $65,000, under the usual conditions regulating gifts to libraries. At the same time the Gary Land Company donated ten lots for a site, on Fifth Ave- nue between Adams and Jefferson, the value of which was $35,000. The architect of the classic building was Henry D. Whitfield of New York, and its construction was completed under the direct supervision of J. J. Verplank, of Gary. It was dedicated on the 17th of November, 1912, with an address by Rev. John Cavanaugh, president of Notre Dame University. Besides Mr. Carnegie's donation, the Library Board ex- pended over three thousand dollars in the completion and furnishing of the building.
The Gary Library, which combines in its architecture some of the classic features with the English Gothie, has three floors-the first. containing an auditorium for 300 people and used by various clubs and social organizations for their meetings, besides bookcases, work rooms and other equipment : the second floor, embracing the main library de- partment, with references reading and delivery rooms; and the third floor, which includes a large club room, art collections and additional storage space.
The library building has a book capacity of 60,000 volumes, with an actual collection of some twenty-three thousand. In December. 1910, the library facilities were extended by the establishment of the Tolleston branch, with a collection of 1,500 volumes accessible three days in the week. More recently, a library station was opened in the Emerson School as a direct service to the public educational system of Gary. The Froebel School has also been similarly accommodated. The entire annual circulation of books by the Gary Public Library is now about 160,000 volumes. As well stated by a friend and admirer of the institution. "These figures prove that the Gary Public Library is performing its serv- ice to the people, and the spirit of the entire management is one to invite increased use of the institution, rather than to make it exclusive for a certain portion of the population." Much of this work of broad public usefulness is credited to the librarian, Louis J. Bailey, who has been the active head of the institution since its inception.
THE GARY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
There is probably not a well posted educator in the country who is not to some extent familiar with the facilities and the quality of instruc- tion offered to the rising generation through the Gary schools. The
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educational service afforded by the Gary public schools is unsurpassed by those in any of the larger cities and most progressive communities in the United States, and the local system has again and again been a sub- ject of description and comment not only in school journals but in the general newspaper press.
It is probable that no community of its size in America has a more cosmopolitan population to serve through its public schools than Gary. The 20,000 inhabitants of this city represent at least thirty-eight na- tionalities, and it is an important fact that not alone the second genera- tion of these polyglot people supply the scholastic enrollment of the schools, but hundreds of these immigrants themselves, earning their daily livelihood by work in the mills and factories, attend the various classes of instruction offered by the public schools and through other organized educational centers of the city.
To provide the schoolhouses and the other material equipment for the educational service of such a community is alone a tremendous achieve- ment for a new community like Gary, and in this article first attention will be called to the economic side of the public school.
During the fiscal year of 1912-13, the city of Gary spent the sum of $195,343.01 in the permanent improvement of the various school build- ings of the city. Of this amount the larger portion was spent on the Froebel School, and with such improvements the various school proper- ties of the city are valued as follows : Froebel. $340,000; Emerson, $320,- 000; Jefferson, $120,000: Beveridge, $21.000; Glen Park, $15,000; Am- bridge, $2,000; West Gary, $2,000; Clarke Station, $3,000; Twelfth Ave- nue, $400; School Farm, $22.000; Buffington, $100; Twenty-first Ave- nue, $1,000; Fourteenth Avenne, $3,000. The total valuation of school properties in Gary is $831,800.
The records for the various schools show that during the year just mentioned 4,188 children were enrolled, distributed as follows: Froebel, on Madison Street, 1,260; Emerson, Seventh Avenue, 961; Jefferson, on the street by that name. 728; Beveridge, Roosevelt Street, 516; Glen Park, Broadway and Thirty-ninth Avenue, 145; Ambridge, in the suburb founded by the American Bridge Company, 87; West Gary, Ninth Avenue, 27; Clarke Station, Tenth Place, 28; Twenty-fourth Avenue, 336: Twelfth Avenue. 93.
The total cost of instruction in the Gary schools was $104,370.55, of which amount more than one hundred thousand dollars was paid out as salaries to teachers, supervisors and principals. Besides these sums the operation of the schools cost $28,881.01, while the maintenance of the schoolhouses and grounds cost $7,531.01. The evening schools and the summer schools are an expensive but useful feature of the Gary school
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