The contours of the land shaped its activities, which changed over time, but not entirely. Consider Gary.

During its first half dozen years, there was no Gary. The trip from Crown Point to Tolleston was so sandy and twisting that the 18-mile trek took two days plus a stopover at the hotel of August Conrad. The route from Merrillville north to Ridge Road was deep sand through dense brush and forest, so difficult that a horse had to be given frequent rests.

Ridge Road, the main line to Chicago, was a comparative flying carpet. It ran through Black Oak, then east again to the village. It was the only route to the county seat.

But you couldn’t beat the scenery. Each spring, the Calumet River would overflow, resulting in a territory covered with tamarack, willow, and scrub oak that was a haven for wild fowl and little beasties, not to mention the wealthy hunters who came from Chicago by special train.

The infamous clubhouse of the Tolleston Gun Club stood at today’s 25th Avenue near Clark Road and became Gary’s first country club, with Captain H. S. Norton as its first president. Small lakes, deep marshes, and rivers abounded with pickerel, pike, perch, and bass.

Gibson Run, a fresh water stream, ran deep and pure from springs south of the Wabash tracks northwest to the Calumet River near Buchanan Street.

The marshes of Long Lake in Miller ran west to Hammond’s city limits and was a fisherman’s paradise and hunter’s retreat. Ducks were shot in great numbers; Chicago sportsmen built clubhouses on what became the coke plant of U.S. Steel. Called the Calumet Heights Gun Club, it comprised about fifteen cabins. Other lodges included one at the far east end of Long Lake operated by Adam Weckler, of Chicago.

The dunes became the locale of Chicago-made cowboy movies and historic epics. If the director needed bad guys for a scene, all he had to do was tap the sand hills and swamps around Miller, rendezvous spots for horse thieves and cattle rustlers.

Horses and cattle that vanished from Chicago often found their way to the hilly territory adjacent to Miller. In 1904, a man named Donahue murdered John Northrup; Donahue was the head of a gang of cattle rustlers and owned a string of fast horses. He fled but was caught in New York state by Lake County Sheriff Charles L. Daugherty.

About this time, the Union Stockyards were scheduled to move to Gary. Engineers of the meat company lived at the Conrad Hotel. The whole business added up to a big event that never happened despite the fact that great herds of cattle grazed in the swamplands near Aetna.

The Gary territory quickly became known as a sinkhole for land investments. To dispute that reputation, U.S. Steel built fine homes and loaned several million dollars on great terms, and real estate money thickened the air. This activity, mainly on the part of the Gary Land Company (of U. S. Steel), encouraged other lenders and stabilized property values.

From that point on, Gary became the magic city - all without the injection of federal funds. "Entitlements" was then merely a word that no one could spell.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.