Elbert Gary – 1846-1927

A powerful corporate attorney and noted jurist, Elbert Gary was elected chairman of U.S. Steel after its merger with Federal Steel in 1901. For the next 26 years, he presided over the enormous growth of the steel industry and was the personification of a captain of American industry. When U.S. Steel created a company town around its principal mills in Indiana in 1906, it named it Gary, after the chairman.