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We rarely get the chance to witness a town actually become a ghost town, but sadly, Indiana is home to just that.
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Gary is a city in Lake Country, Indiana. It’s not technically a ghost town, but it’s been greatly depopulated and is now filled with derelict and abandoned buildings. Many Ghosts of America He finds going to Town fun, exciting, time he may be Warp, or Educational, but for many it is somewhat depressing because it is the city in which Gary lives. You may feel like you are.
For those who want to see Ghost Town, which is now a state park ghost town, visit Bodie, California. At one point, Bodie was once one of California’s most important settlements.
The Founding and Rise of the Rustbelt City
Gary was founded by US Steel in 1906 and the sprawling Gary Works factory was built there. The jobs it produced have drawn people from all over the world to the state-of-the-art factories.
- Founded: 1906 US Steel
- name: Gary is named after lawyer Elbert Henry Gary (not the snail from Spongebob Squarepants, unfortunately)
Those who came to Gary included European immigrants and African Americans fleeing Jim Crow laws in the South at the time. By 1950, he was said to be one of the most isolated cities in the country.
- Richard G. Hatcher: was one of the country’s first African-American Mayers
In its heyday, it was a very diverse and prosperous city. It was once called the “City of the Century”. But then, with the onset of White Flight in the 1970s, fortunes changed dramatically. Since then, the city of Gary has one of the highest proportions of African Americans in America.
Like many other American urban areas that depend on one industry, the city was vulnerable. The steel industry’s growing international competitiveness has forced U.S. Steel to lay off workers. In 1970, US Steel Gary Works employed him over 30,000, but by 1990 he had 6,000 and by 2015 he had 5,100. Steel mills continue to be major steel producers, but with only a fraction of their former workforce.
Gary’s decline
As time went on, more and more people migrated from the cities to the suburbs, followed by businesses. This meant less money in cities, which meant cities became even less attractive and more people moved out…
In 1993 Gary earned the enviable title of “America’s Murder Capital” according to Abandoned America and the Chicago Tribune. At that point, the murder rate was 91 per 100,000 for him, triple that for Chicago (2018 U.S. murder rate for him was 5 per 100,000). This hasn’t improved much in 2020, suffering from a murder rate of 78 per 100,000 people, making it one of the worst in the country.
- 1993: The Year Gary Was America’s Murder Capital
One of the scariest, spine-chilling stories is that of serial killer Darren Deon Van who was arrested in 2014. I won’t go into details here.
This does not mean that the city is necessarily dangerous to visit, but reasonable precautions should always be taken. There are many Rustbelt cities that I avoid at all costs.
Gary has closed several schools over the past decade. Parts of the building have been reused, but most are left unused.
Gary Today
Gary is just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from downtown Chicago and borders Indiana Dunes National Park, which borders Lake Michigan in the Chicago metropolitan area.
- Located: 25 miles or 40 kilometers from downtown Chicago
The city is adjacent to Lake Michigan, so just one foot below the surface is pure sand. There is so much sand here that he has been mined for over a century, especially to make glass. The city lies at the southern end of the former lake bed of prehistoric Lake Chicago.
Today, the city is in rapid decline, peaking in 1960 when its population peaked at 178,320. Since then, it has been in a continuous decline, dropping to just 69,093, or a 61% decline, in the 2020 Census.
- Peak population: 178,320 in 1960
- Population today: 69,093 in 2020
- autumn: 61%
- One third: Percentage of population estimated to be abandoned
It is estimated that nearly a third of all housing in the city is vacant or abandoned. A 2015 study claimed about 13,000 (more than a third of the buildings) were in disrepair.
In common with many Rust Belt cities, it suffers from above-average unemployment and declining infrastructure.
Various plans and initiatives have been implemented, but none have worked. The 2020 Census eased another 13.9% decline in population since 2010, down 21.9% from 2000.
For urban explorers out there, Gary is full of abandoned, decaying buildings.
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