Everything in Gary was owned and operated by US Steel. There were 14 "coal camps" consisting of one or more mines, and a community. Each community had a number and a name but all were considered to be Gary i.e. Gary#1=Wilco, Gary #2=Venus, Gary#3=Main Gary, Gary #4=Thorpe, etc. Each had a company store that sold everything you could imagine. Most communities had churches. Main Gary had a drug store, bakery, gas station and couple of restaurants. Gary #7 had a pool room/bowling alley and a movie theater. The most interesting aspect of each community is that since all houses were owned by USS and rented to employees, you were assigned a house commensurate with your position. Common laborers lived in the valley in three room ranch style homes with outside toilets. Salaried employees lived on the slopes of very steep hills arranged in an obvious organization chart manner. Most addresses were on routes but going up the hill would be streets and they would have names, many of which had an obvious origin i.e. Powerhouse Row (the generation plant was at the end which produced 25 cps current for all the Garys.) "Lovers Lane" was a street in Main Gary that had been a dirt road that led to the trash dump. You can easily imagine that company guards (police) did not bother to check o cars parked there at night thus how it got its name. Middle management, engineers, accountants etc. lived on it after it was paved and lined with houses. At its peak during WW II, the population of all of Gary was about 14,000. While company guards protected USS property there was one real cop (a deputy sheriff) and basically zero crime! There was one in and out road, very torturous, and no speed limit signs although George the deputy would pull teenagers over and lecture them if he felt it necessary. If your dad was a manager, there would be a phone and George would call him. If your dad was a laborer, George would put him on a list and go tell him what you were doing after first checking what shift he was on and he would be home and not sleeping.

Long answer but your question got me thinking about that life and it seemed like something from another planet. I made a little spending money selling chicken manure that I got from the chicken house at our company store. I put it into my red wagon and sold it to house wives for their little gardens. I was a real entrepreneur!