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Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium

Buildings and structures in Gary, IndianaHistory museums in IndianaMuseums in Lake County, IndianaNational Register of Historic Places in Gary, IndianaPark buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana
Science museums in IndianaTransportation museums in Indiana
Aquatorium
Aquatorium

Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium, formerly known as Lakefront Park Bathhouse and also known as Chanute Aquatorium, is located at One Marquette Drive at Miller Beach in Marquette Park, Gary, Indiana. The aquatorium was designed by George Washington Maher and constructed in 1921. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 25, 1994. It has been converted to a museum of flight, honoring Octave Chanute and the Tuskegee Airmen. It was built as a shower/bathroom/changing facility in 1921 and was dubbed the Lakefront Park Bathhouse. It was a major focal point of the Miller Beach community for decades. The building is architecturally significant as one of the earliest examples of pre-cast concrete modular construction. Ninety percent of the building is built with only six basic cast blocks, the most basic being the T-Block, a precursor of today's standard concrete block.By the 1960s the facility was falling into major disrepair. In 1971 the building was closed to the public and boarded up.The Aquatorium was rescued from demolition by the Chanute Aquatorium Society in 1991. The Society invented the word Aquatorium meaning "place to view the water" in order to disassociate the structure with the word bathhouse.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium
Oak Avenue, Gary

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.619722222222 ° E -87.256666666667 °
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Oak Avenue 6892
46403 Gary (Miller Beach)
Indiana, United States
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Aquatorium
Aquatorium
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Indiana City, Indiana

Indiana City was a notional community in northern Lake County, Indiana, at the mouth of the Grand Calumet River. It was located in present-day Marquette Park in Miller Beach, near the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Indiana City was one of a handful of early contenders to be a port city on southern Lake Michigan, alongside Chicago, City West, and Michigan City. Plats for the town were drawn up in 1836 or 1837, but it was never built. Like City West to its east, the Indiana City project was doomed by the panic of 1837. The plat was not recorded until January 1838, and it is uncertain whether any plots were ever sold. Had it been built, the town would have stretched for 25 blocks, covering much of present-day Miller Beach from the lakeshore to the former Indian boundary line.The site's strategic location at the river mouth had attracted attention early on. Bennett's Tavern, which served the stagecoaches that ran along the lakeshore, had been built near the site in 1833 and remained in operation for several years thereafter. The tavern was the first regular European habitation in Lake County. Even earlier, in the 1820s, Joseph Bailly purchased 2,000 acres in the vicinity, and laid plans for a town to be called Bailly's Harbor; but like Indiana City, this never came to fruition.In subsequent years, the mouth of the Grand Calumet drifted shut, creating the Miller Lagoons, which are now the headwaters of a river that flows in the opposite direction from that of the 1830s.

Miller Beach
Miller Beach

Miller Beach (also commonly known as Miller) is a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana on the southernmost shore of Lake Michigan. First settled in 1851, Miller Beach was originally an independent town. However, the "Town of Miller" was eventually annexed by the then flourishing city of Gary in 1918. Located in the northeastern corner of Lake County, Indiana, the former town is now known as "The Miller Beach Community." Miller Beach borders Lake Michigan to the north, Porter County to the east, and is largely surrounded by protected lands, including Indiana Dunes National Park. Miller Beach is also the closest beach/resort community to Chicago, and has been a popular vacation spot since the early 20th century. As of the 2000 US census, it had a population of 9,900.Home to some of the world's most threatened ecosystems, Miller Beach contains a high proportion of legally protected land. Miller encompasses the westernmost part of Indiana Dunes National Park, which is part of the United States National Park system, and includes both the Miller Woods and Long Lake areas. Indiana Dunes' West Beach area lies immediately to the east of Miller Beach. The entire shoreline of Miller is public beachfront. Miller's large lakefront park, Marquette Park, is a national landmark containing architecturally significant and historic structures, two bronze sculptures and the location of early experiments in aviation which predate the Wright Brothers flights. Less than an hour from downtown Chicago by car, Miller Beach has attracted Chicagoans as tourists and residents for more than a century. The most affluent area within the municipal boundaries of Gary, Miller Beach contains multiple business districts, including the Miller Beach Arts and Creative District, a robust civil society, and numerous public and charter schools. The community is within a mile of exits on four major interstates, and is also served by South Shore Line commuter trains. Having defied regional trends toward racial polarization and environmental degradation, Miller Beach exhibits extraordinary socioeconomic, racial and bio diversity. The community has been described as "an island of integration and natural beauty".

Aetna (Gary)
Aetna (Gary)

Aetna is a neighborhood in northeastern Gary, Indiana, south of Miller Beach and east of Interstate 65. As of 2000, the neighborhood had a population of 4,942, which was 83% black and 11% white.Aetna borders directly on Miller Beach to the northeast, but is separated from the Emerson and Pulaski neighborhoods to the west by the industrial corridor along Interstate 65, and from the town of Lake Station to the south and east by the floodplain of the Little Calumet River. Aetna is divided from the Miller Beach neighborhood by Route 20 with Aetna being the area of Gary East of I65 but south of U.S. 20. Aetna's housing stock is dominated by small single-family homes, with 89% occupancy and 66% owner-occupancy as of 2000. Aetna's housing prices are significantly below the city average. This contrasts to homes in neighboring Miller Beach, which are among the city's most expensive. Aetna shares with Miller Beach the U.S. 20 retail corridor, one of the major retail areas in Gary. It is home to a 3.5-acre city park, Aetna Park. Aetna is also near the much larger recreational areas of Miller Beach, such as Marquette Park and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It is served by a single bus route of the Gary Public Transportation Corporation; the same route also serves Miller Beach. Aetna was founded in 1881 as a company town for the Aetna Powder Company, a munitions manufacturer. The location was chosen in part for its remoteness, in rolling dune and swale country nearly a mile from the small town of Miller. The factory employed about 500 workers, most of whom lived in Aetna although some commuted from nearby towns. Originally the munitions had to be carted to the train station in Miller for shipment, but the arrival of the Wabash Railroad in 1895 gave Aetna its own train station. The plant suffered from frequent violent explosions, often fatal; a 1912 explosion caused six deaths, and another in 1914 broke windows as far away as downtown Gary. During World War I, the factory employed 1200 people. However, it closed after the war, and Aetna's population shrank to fewer than 100.Aetna was incorporated as a town in 1907. It was annexed by Gary in proceedings lasting from 1924 to 1928.