Gary Union Station

Gary, Indiana was a planned steel city incorporated in nineteen oh six by U.S. Steel, and within four years the company needed a proper gateway for the workers pouring in from across the country and around the world.

Gary Union Station opened in nineteen ten, a Beaux-Arts structure in steel-reinforced concrete sandwiched between two elevated rail lines. It was a fitting symbol for a city that literally manufactured the material it was built from. The station channeled laborers into the mills, and for six decades it served as the front door of one of the most productive industrial corridors on earth.

Passenger service ended in April of nineteen seventy-one. The building stood empty for decades, slowly deteriorating, until a preservation group called the Decay Devils began raising money to transform it into a cultural and museum space. Listed on the National Register in twenty nineteen.