The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-22

there 10 growing up. in the nisht uino as 1t were. an Indiana city that has promised itself and it's promoters that 1 if will some day rival Chicago. This will be no city grown from village. with streets that were once bridle paths; and with system of progress ! that has followed no law but the lines of least resistance. For just as Major | L'Enfant laid out Washington. and | Briwharn Young planned Salt Lake City SO. Gary, Indiana. has been plan ned. and eagle-eyed business men are going to see that there Is no deviation from the rules made.
 | Gary was started by the United states Steel Corporation two years ago.
 It had become necessary to enlarge the | works and instead of adding to the ! existing plants they decided to build | a city of their own with good shipping | facilities that could be expanded in- | definitely to meet the needs of the | manufacturers. The site they selected | is twenty-six miles south-east or | Chicago, long stretch of sand dunes | and shalIows cut by the Calumet river and as unpronisinK a prospect as the novice in city building could imagine. | But they who have started to build there havo seen further than the super l ficial things that the novice sees, ana II | of worth, just as Golden Gate Park tn | San Francisco, came to crown the re- claimed sand dunes beyond the city. In the fall of 1906 there stood on the present site of Gary solitary gun club house, while the passing trains seemed to hurry to get away from the I ienelIness Of the sand and the sea. To- | day there is well-defined city with blocks of business houses of stone ana l brick and cement, several miles of sur I face dressed macadamfzed streets. ! hotels, schools churches. residences I and banks with a population of lb.ooo. | people. It Is expected that in ten | years the population will be 100000, if | not more, for the steel works alone I expect to employ 5O,0O0 or e0.000 work 1 men. Plans for city of sso,00o have l already been made.
 I The principal thoroughfare, Broad | way. is laid out 100 feet wide. The residence streets are sixty and eighty l feet and the alleys thirty feet. On I the main streets a new kind of con l crete paving has been successfully ex- kperimented with. The residence streets
 are naacadamized, with Q granite | screeninR there are twenty -four inch Rutterst and curbines of concrete. while | the sidewalks in the business district are six and seven feet wide, and. those ! In the residence district five feet The ! soc residences now completed cost 1 from &2.000 to s15.00o each and con. | form with the city ordinance that re- quires aIl4 building to be no less than two stories high. and have base ment.
 Water, gas and electric light systems have been in operation "a year, there | Is a complete telephone system and a street railway. besides the interurben | line connecting with Chicago and South
 Bend. In fact, Gary bears in many re- spects the air of settled. long-ltved in city, without the attendant disad- 1 vantages of old houses. abandoned 1 rookeries and unsanitary conditions It has not however, the look of the city that has started by accident or l with a probleTpatic future, for t start" I ed with It's future guaranteed.
 within the two years many of the 4 sand dunes have been levelled. the
 shallows are disappearing. and grass | and trees are reclaiuing the lands that l have not already been pre-empted Tor
 building purposes.
 Last year 2.o00 trees were set out and this year 2.000 more. Two parks have been laid out and are being in1- proved, and next summer a theatre VIII be built. modelled after the Colonial l of Chicago. 4 stone school house was finished in September, and the school population so far .overfiiled 1t that an- 1 other, to cost several hundred thousand dollars has already been begun. It is all very much like story of Aladdin and his wonderful Lamp. The giant | brains of a big corporation said: Here we build a city. Hero will be the
 streets, there the housesY there the mills, there the depot. there the pub lie buildinss." And apparently from
 nowhere Bprang engineers, architects, workmen and machinery, and each thing appeared as the corporation said 1t should, and all Is coming about with little appearance of haste.
 There must be a union depot. declar- cd the builders. And instead of wait ing until the whole thing would be I done at once. with consequent detri- | ment to traffic and inconvenience to
 the traveller they had the railway tracks entering the city elevated to the proper height before the. city was born. and put In the concrete foundation and | arcifways, the long corridors and ap- breaches that win soon be crowned by a e300.0o0 structure. Just now the pas senger leaving Gary goes into the con. crete under structure. passes up a wide stairway and finds himself on a great
 wind-swept platform that will next
 year form a part of the concourse of the new station. He has his baggage checked in a box car that fs acting as
 understudy for the future we'll ap- .E Epointed baggage room, and all the | while he feels 6 conscious pride in the fspirit of preparation that has made the city build all things for permanence, ready for additional structure, so that
 nothing need be torn down. The
 majority of the railroads will run into the union station, though three below
 the city will not. However. the Gary and Western Union Line Belt will con- meet practically all the roads.
 Improvements on the lake for ship l ping facilities have resulted in the
 building of slip where on last July the first ore vessel was unloaded, and | where since hundreds of vessels with 1 their burdens have put in. Further Improvements will make the whole
 lake front a series of gigantic Jocks for sea- going vessels. and the Calumet
 river will be deepsned. and cut through.
 and made into a ship canal that will
 offer further shipping facilities. The
 trackage in the railroad yards about
 Gary already approximates 800 miles l or more, and the city, like the work I of the big corporation for whose use
 1t was created. sees no stopping place In its expansion. Judge F. F. Gary.
 for whom the future rival of Chicago
 was named. sees in the development
 of the steel industry an assured future
 for Gary that will bring bigger popu-
 latIon each year, until within a decade
 1t win rival St Louis in size and pow
 CT.