| 1862 |
Robert
Carr settles on Lake Michigan shore near present-day
Lake Street in Miller |
| 1874
| Robert
Carr marries Drucilla |
| 1896
SPRING |
A
gravel road is built all the way to the south
end of the present Marquette Park Lagoon with
a 200-foot wooden bridge built across the Grand
Calumet River at that point. |
| 1896
SUMMER |
Octave
Chanute, a Chicago engineer, uses the new gravel
road and bridge to bring himself, his party, and
his equipment to Carr’s Beach to begin experiments
in aviation. |
|
1896 JULY |
Chanute
flies the first heavier-than-air craft in North
America off the dunes 600 feet west of the Gary
Bathing Beach Aquatorium. At that time nobody
had ever heard of the word airplane or the word
Aquatorium. |
| 1906 |
The City of Gary is incorporated. |
| 1911
|
US
Steel attempts to gain control over Lake Street
Beach. Drucilla Carr, now a widow, fights them
to a legal standoff until she dies in 1936. |
| 1912 |
The City of Gary wishes to annex Miller. Local
Miller residents rally and promptly incorporate
their town in order to avoid annexation. |
| 1919 |
The “Annexation Never” party wins
the Miller Town Board election. |
| 1920
JANUARY |
The
“Annexation Never” party Town Board
members are sworn into office and immediately
vote to annex to the City of Gary. (Town folklore
insists to this day that the three “Annexation
Never” Town Board members were later given
high level jobs by a big corporation headquartered
in Pittsburgh.) |
| 1920
OCTOBER 4 |
Now that Miller is a part of the City of Gary,
work is begun on Lakefront Park which eventually
becomes Marquette Park. |
| 1921
JUNE |
The
Gary Bathing Beach Bathhouse opens with a huge
celebration. The City of Gary provides 5,000 bathing
suits for people to rent for only 50 cents. You
could change your clothes in the Bath House, rent
a bathing suit, and enjoy fun in the sun. |
| 1927 |
The newly formed Army Air Corps., the fore-runner
of our present Air Force, conducts a “scientific
study” which concludes that African Americans
are emotionally, intellectually, and physically
unfit to fly aero planes. |
| 1936 |
US Steel, now in control of Lake Street Beach,
sells it to the City of Gary. |
| 1940
DECEMBER |
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt assembles leading black
Americans in the White House to have lunch with
her husband, the President. During this luncheon
the idea was conceived to have a portion of the
Army Air Corps be all black, from the top to the
bottom, as a true test as to whether or not African
Americans were fit to fly aircraft. The black
airmen became known as the Tuskegee airmen, named
after the Alabama institute where they received
their training. |
| 1945
MAY 8 - VE Day |
The
results are in and the all black Tuskegee wing
of the Army Air Corps. had not lost one bomber,
had the most kills, and had the fewest number
taken as prisoners of war of any wing of the Army
Air Corps. |
| 1948
|
President
Truman, citing the results of the Tuskegee Airmen
experiment, integrates the armed forces and starts
America on a path of desegregation. |
| 1953
|
For
inexplicable reasons, the Gary Park Department
remodels the Gary Bathing Beach Bath House, destroying
most of the original balustrades and capstones
that had been on the building. This remodeling
contributes to the deterioration of the building.
|
| 1956 |
Gary celebrates its 50th anniversary. The town
is booming. Most people still ride buses. Every
warm summer day, hundreds, if not thousands, of
people go to Marquette Park on the city buses.
|
| 1966
|
People
are no longer riding buses in America, the move
to the suburbs has begun, and the cities begin
to deteriorate. |
| 1971 |
The City orders the bathhouse closed. It is boarded
up and posted “No Trespassing”. |
| 1980s
|
The
Gary Bathing Beach Bathhouse begins to seriously
deteriorate and people begin calling for its demolition.
Fortunately, the cast concrete building is so
well-built that the cost of tearing it down is
prohibitively high. |
| 1991
|
The
newly formed Society for the Restoration of the
Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium and Octave Chanute’s
Place in History (an organization with one of
the longest names on record including an entirely
new word, “Aquatorium”) opens the
Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium to the public, takes
down the “No Trespassing” signs, and
cleans up the graffiti.
A new roof was put on the building at a cost in
excess of $150,000. |
| 1992
|
New
balconies are put on the front of the building,
replacing poured concrete where the destroyed
balconies had been. |
| 1994 |
The balconies on the north end are replaced. |
| 1995 |
A new sewer system is put into the Aquatorium
and a new sidewalk system is set up around the
building. |
| 1996
|
The
100th year of aviation is celebrated at the Aquatorium
with people coming from across the country. The
Chanute Aquatorium Society raises a record amount
of money to put into the building. |
| 1997
|
Parapet
walls are replaced in front of the building. They
had completely deteriorated. The building starts
to take on a remodeled look. |
| 1998 |
The Tuskegee Wing of the building is begun. |
| 1999
|
The
newly built Tuskegee Wing of the Gary Bathing
Beach Aquatorium is dedicated July 24, 1999. |
| 2000
|
The
top deck of the Aquatorium is completely redone
with a new waterproofing coat that will allow
museum space on the first floor. The original
balustrades and capstones taken out in 1993 are
remade and replaced. |
| 2001 |
After receiving a matching grant of $10,000, the
Society Board of Directors determines it will
erect statues to Octave Chanute and the Tuskegee
Airmen in the front of the building. Fund raising
begins for the statues. |
| 2002
|
A
nationally known sculptor, Michael Dente, is commissioned
by the Society to begin development of statues
of Octave Chanute and the Tuskegee Airmen. |
| 2003
DECEMBER 17 |
Statue of Octave Chanute pointing to the very
dune where he conducted his experiments in 1896
is dedicated on the 100th anniversary of the Wright
Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk. |
| 2004 |
Talk Theatre, a fund raiser for the Tuskegee statue,
recounts the story of how feminism began in Miller
Beach with the relationship between noted Chicago
author Nelson Algren and French philosopher Simone
Bouvier. Bouvier tells Algren in their Miller
Lagoon cabin that she has been studying the plight
of women most of her life but can’t put
it into any context. Algren suggests that she
look upon women world-wide as white Americans
look on African Americas, as second-class citizens.
The following year Bouvier publishes “The
Second Sex” and the era of feminism begins.
|
| 2005
MAY 8 |
The Tuskegee statue is dedicated in front of the
Tuskegee Wing of the Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium.
The dedication takes place on May 8, 2005, exactly
60 years from the end of World War II in Europe.
An end hastened by African American pilots who
fought in the European Theater thereby exposing
the 1927 Study of the US Army Air Corps. a complete
fabrication. |
| 2006
SPRING |
The Miller Room of the Aquatorium is dedicated
with historical pictures of Miller and Gary. |
| 2007
JULY 28 |
For the 17th consecutive year, the Society for
the Restoration of the Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium
will have a successful fund raiser in which it
will be reported that everyone had a good time
and generally felt better about themselves for
having contributed to the only successful historical
preservation project in Northwest Indiana. |
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