Gary Union Station
Indiana
Gary Union Station opened in nineteen ten, just four years after Gary itself was founded by United States Steel as an instant steel city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The station served multiple railroads and handled thousands of steelworkers, migrants, and travelers moving through what had become one of the most industrially intense spots in America. At its peak, Gary's mills poured more steel than most nations on earth.
The station closed in nineteen seventy-one as rail passenger traffic collapsed, and like much of Gary, it fell into ruin as the steel industry declined. The building's Beaux-Arts facade still stands downtown, a grand ruin that captures the ambition of a city that U.S.
Steel built from scratch in a cornfield and that deindustrialization unmade in a generation.
