East Gary, Indiana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

East Gary is the former name of the city of Lake Station, Indiana. The city was known as Lake Station from as far back as 1852 when it served as a depot on Michigan Central Railroad's Detroit to Chicago line. The name was officially changed to East Gary in 1908 in an attempt to lure executives from the nearby US Steel plant in Gary, Indiana into creating a suburban community.

With another name change in 1977, to primarily disassociate itself from the urban decay and crime of Gary, the city reverted to its more historical designation of Lake Station.

[edit] References in Popular Culture

East Gary was immortalized by Darrell Scott in his song, "East of Gary". He describes the decline of the city and the changing of the name as mentioned earlier in this article. "Well they changed the name of my hometown | When we moved away | Now it’s more than words that I don’t recognize| That kid down at the filling station | Tried to keep my change from a twenty | I could see that cold assurance in his eyes"