By the mid-1950s, steel mills across the nation were booming and plants in the Chicago metropolitan area were producing one-quarter of the national steel output. Even as production soared, analysts for Bethlehem Steel, Inland Steel, and the Illinois Institute of Technology concluded that consumption of steel in the Chicago region already exceeded production. Industry advocates predicted that this gap would increase as demands for steel grew. Industrial developers saw great potential for expansion along the sparsely developed lakeshore in Porter County, Indiana. In 1956, Bethlehem Steel purchased 4,000 acres of prime duneland to the east of the still undeveloped Midwest Steel property.

Creator: U. S. Senator Homer Capehart
Source: Calumet Regional Archives, Indiana University Northwest, Gary (CRA#113, b.1, f.4)