Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1916 — From Nothing to 45,000 In Ten Years Existence. [ARTICLE]

From Nothing to 45,000 In Ten Years Existence.

Indianapolis Star. The city of Gary, Ind., was ten years old Tuesday. It was on April 18, 1906, that the first carload of cinders was dumped as a beginning of the task of transforming into a great industrial center the lake front tract that had been acquired by the steel corporation. The city which was started from nothing a decade ago boasts a population of 45,000, and is only well under way toward its ultimate importance. Those who conceived the idea of a great manufacturing community in northern Indiana planned carefully and with a view to the future of the steel requirements in this country. Gary was an assured success from the outset. At the end of four years the community was able to show to the federal enumerators a population of 16,802. Its development since has been steady, even if rapid, with no signs of slackening. Some cities that have sprung up recently around munition plants in the east, some mining communities in the west and in Alaska have made more phenomenal development, but theirs has been a mushroom growth with nothing to sustain them after the boom bas subsided. But Gary is a real city with a real future, a lasting monument to the foresight and confidence of those who placed it where it is.