Work on the building of the steel plant and city was started April, 1906. To the Indiana Steel Co., a subsidiary of the Illinois Steel Co., and especially organized for the purpose, was given the task of erecting the steel plant, while the Gary Land Co. was organized and put in charge of the creation of the city.

How gigantic was the task of building Gary may be gathered from its cost to the Corporation. The construction of the steel plant and the creation of the town has involved an expenditure of over $100,000,000, and work is yet to do. Of the fifty-six open-hearth and other steel furnaces contemplated in the original plan, forty-seven have been completed so far. The first heat of pig iron was produced on December 21, 1908, and the first steel ingots early the following year.

The Gary plant is probably the largest single steel plant in the world. It consists of twelve blast furnaces, forty-seven steel furnaces, a rail mill, billet mill, plate mill, five merchant mills, slab mills, an axle plant, and a by-product coke plant of ten batteries, each of seventy ovens. With these are auxiliary shops, machine shop, roll shop, electric repair shop, boiler shop, blacksmith shop, etc., and the necessary electrical equipment.

Sixteen gas engines of 2,000 H. P. each, supplemented by four 3,000 H. P. steam engines, are used to operate the blast furnaces. The power required to run the open-hearth furnaces and steel mills is supplied by seventeen 3,000 H. P. gas engines, driving an equal number of electric generators, the gas for these engines and for the blowing engines being supplied from the blast furnaces. In this way the power required for the entire plant is supplied by blast furnace by-product gas. Part of the power generated is transmitted to Buffington, five miles away, where it is used to run the machinery of the Universal Portland Cement Works. The rail mill is driven by three electric motors, each of 6,000 H. P.

The annual capacity of the big plant is as follows:

TONS
Pig iron2,173,200
Coke3,360,000
Ingots3,030,000
Billets, blooms and slabs1,544,600
Sheet bars104,000
Rails750,000
Finished steel, including rails1,997,900

During the construction of the plant, over 10,000,000 cubic yards of material were excavated and over 1,200,000 cubic yards of concrete placed. More than 150,000 tons of fabricated steel were used in its construction. The plant covers an area of 1,250 acres, and a plot of land of approximately the same size and adjoining the existing plant is being reserved for possible further extensions.

Gary, the town, was incorporated in June, 1906, only a few months after the foundations for the first buildings were excavated. At the first election for town officials, only 33 votes were cast. Seven years later, in 1913, over 9,000 voters marked the ballots.

When the Steel Corporation decided to build Gary it determined to make it both a modern and a model city. The town was carefully laid out by competent engineers and ample provision allowed for growth. It now covers several square miles. Its principal thoroughfares are Broadway, 100 feet wide, and Fifth Avenue, 80 feet wide. These are paved with concrete block and the other streets with macadam.

Citizens of New York and other big cities, accustomed to seeing their important thoroughfares constantly torn up for the laying of sewers, electric wires, etc., would find a pleasant change from these conditions in Gary, where it is never necessary to do such work in the principal streets. All gas and water mains and sewer pipes are laid in wide alleys between the streets and thus all repairs and improvements can be carried on without any obstruction to traffic.