Van Buren Terrace Historic District, Historic residential district in Gary, United States.
The Van Buren Terrace Historic District is a residential neighborhood with ten homes along Van Buren Street, built in the Craftsman style with practical layouts. The houses sit close together and display consistent architectural details from the early 1900s, featuring simplified ornamentation and solid construction.
The homes were designed in 1910 by architect D.F. Creighton for the United States Sheet & Tin Plate Company, a steel firm that employed many workers in Gary. The project drew on housing concepts developed by Thomas Edison to create affordable homes for working families.
The buildings show how factory workers lived in early 20th-century Gary, with compact layouts designed for people working nearby mills. Walking through, you notice how closely the homes are built together, reflecting the tight-knit working-class neighborhoods of that era.
The district covers addresses 336 to 354 on Van Buren Street in Gary's First Subdivision and is easy to explore on foot. The exteriors are visible from the street, allowing visitors to observe the architecture and street layout of this early residential area.
The homes were built using Thomas Edison's concepts for mass-produced housing solutions that could be erected quickly and affordably. This experimental approach to workers' housing was uncommon for its time, making the district a rare example of industrial-era residential planning put into practice.
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