The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1907-08-17
A CITY TO ORDER.
United States Steel Putting $4,000
600 Into One.

600 Into One.
The news that the United States
Steel Corporation has decided To invest
S45 100000, III addition to the original
appropriation Of $4,000, 900, in the con
struction Of its model city, now rising
on the southern shore Of Lake Michigan,
adds interest to the greatest experiment
in city building in modern times, The
location of what sit promoters claim is
the coming steel capital OF the world
is less than half an hours ride by rail
from the metropolis of the West and
il in Indiana, on the southwestern shore
OF Lake Michigan.
On the site of what was little more
than a year ago a waste of sand and
hillocks and dunes, and at the point
where the sluggish stream called the
Grand Calumet empties into the lake,
the new industrial city, which has al
ready made the desert looking lands
which shade off into the prairies a
scene Of business activity, Ii rising, not
slowly and as q process of growth in
the usual fashion, but as rapidly rs
force of three thousand men, now be-
ing constantly added to, can build it.
Originally planned to accommodate a
population of 100000, the plans have
been expanded to basis OF 100000.
The tract Of land in which the new in
dustrial city is rapidly taking form is
6,000 acres in extent, with q lake 'front.'
age Of more than six miles and with
possibilities as to inland extensions as
boundless as the prairies themselves
Perhaps the preliminary work, most
of which is already done, is the most
interesting, as showing the rapidity OF
modern process Of city construction.
The sand hills and hillocks which to
voYagers on Lake Michigan once formed
such q picturesque sight, looking on a
sumers day with the sun shining on
them like cnmulus clouds on the horizon,
have disappeared along that part of the
lake. They have been leyelled and the
sand has been used to I'll up the shallow
beach, the swemps of Grand Calumet
ana lower lying lands elsewhere in the
\ tract The new city by this process and
By dredging has attained an elevation
OF twenty-five feet above the level of
Lake Michigan, and thus the work Chi
| cago was compelled to do after its found
ing has been performed at Gary at its
beginning. BY dredging also harbor
\ has been formed, deep enough to admit
the heaviest freighters of the Great
Lakes bringing the iron ore from the
Lake Superior region to the iron and
steel mills which are the reasons for the
city's existence.
Naturally the mills and the thousands
of men who win be required to man
them have the first place in the plans
OF the builders. Everything has been
subordinated to their convenience, health
and comfort, and so far as the plans
are strictly severe and utilitarian, but
4 the city has also been laid out with a
view to architectural effect and beauty,
with parks, promenades and all the usual
appurtenanees of modern city life.
The river has been dredged to a uni
form width Of 25o feet, SPAWNED by
! steel bridges for the accommodation OF
the four trunk lines of railway centering
here to distribute the products of the
mills once these are completed and in
| full operation. TO avoid the constant
tearing up of streets for gas, water and
electric mains and conduits, which is
the bane Of elder cities, which grew and
were not planned and built, all pipes
and mains in Gary are laid in the alleys
each at certain level, thereby avoid.
ing the confusion worse confounded in
| cities where pipe laying is matter OF
emergency and suggests mighty maze
without q plan. In Gary everything j.
of today Nothing is left unproyided
that experience has shown TO be re
quisite in a model twentieth century
city. 1t even has Broadway three
miles long, with concrete sidewalks and
with two miles on each side OF bushes:
blocks II will probably also have a
White Way Of its own in imitation Of
its model for to coming steel capital
is not to be altogether devoted to bus
mess, but will have parks, Fairgrounds
theatres and opera houses. These, how
ever, will naturally come later, though
when they do come they win fit har'
moniously into the general plan.
Gary is not TO be another Pullman
but a city which has had the benefit Of
that notable experiment and conse-
quently an improvement upon it. How
far it viii justify the the large and gen
erous hopes Of its founders is ques.
ton that will be partly answered, AT
least, in the near future,-New York
Sun.