General Casimir Pulaski and the Pulaski Neighborhood
Near Chicago Lake Michigan, Indiana
This honors General Casimir Pulaski, the Polish nobleman called the father of the American cavalry, and the Gary neighborhood that carries his name.
Pulaski came to America in seventeen seventy-seven after meeting Benjamin Franklin in Paris. He is credited with saving George Washington's life at the Battle of Brandywine and died of wounds at Savannah in seventeen seventy-nine. Hundreds of American places honor him, and Northwest Indiana's deep Polish roots made him a natural namesake.
The surrounding Pulaski neighborhood was settled by white ethnic steel mill workers from the nineteen twenties into the fifties, drawn by the great mills of Gary and the Indiana Harbor. It also became one of the first neighborhoods in Gary to integrate, as African American families moved in during the nineteen fifties. The monument is a small piece of Polish memory in a steel city.
