Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1910 — THE MAGIC CITY OF GARY. [ARTICLE]

THE MAGIC CITY OF GARY.

New City On the Lake Well Deserves Its Title. < The writer paid his first visit to the new steel city of Gary’ Saturday, and when one reflects that only three or four years ago the site of this splendid new’ city was only a barren tract of waste land and about the most God-forsaken one ever gazed upon, the transformation has been most wonderful indeed. Its principal business street, Broadway, is probably the finest street in the world, certainly much finer than anything in this country. It is 100 feet wide with cement walks 16 or 20 feet wide, is the most brilliantly lighted street anywhere and. the east side especially, is flanked with handsome and' substantial business houses. Broadw’ay, we were told, is to be ten miles in length and will be uniform as to paving, walks, lights, etc., its whole length. Fortunes have been made in real estate there, and business lots on uppr Broadway which sold at the beginning at SIOO per front foot are now’ worth SI,OOO per front foot, and w’e honestly believe that in less than five years time these lots will be worth $5,000 per front foot. Two lots bn Broadway south of the Wabash tracks, which Mayor Knotts paid SBOO each for about three years ago, he sold recently for $30,000. Mayor Knotts owns many pieces of property there and will soon be in the millioniare class. Gary certainly is going to become a great city, and while it now takes more money to swing a real estate deal than it did one, two or three years ago, there are still fortunes to bp made there in our opinion. New industries are coming in all the time and its growth in the next five years promises to surpass that of any city in the history of the world. Another thing, when you read about so much lawlessness and crime in Gary, take it with a grain of salt. These stories are largely drawn from the imagination of the space-writer. There are many foreigners there of course, and many of these are of the undesirable class, but there are hundreds of as nice people there as you will find anywhere. If you have never visited the “Mtigic City” it will pay you to take a day off sometime and see for yourself. An electric car line runs from Hammond over (one block south of Monon depot) and the fare for the entire distance of eleven miles is but ten cents.