42 Facts About Gary Indiana

1. Gary Indiana dropped from 38th to 41st among states in overall health.

2. Gary Indiana was the first western state to mobilize for the United States in the war, and soldiers from Indiana participated in all the war's major engagements.

3. Gary Indiana is often ho-ho funny when rocking his flamboyant theatrics.

4. Gary Indiana served as the art critic for the Village Voice weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988.

5. Gary Indiana is a two-party state, the Republicans having held a slight advantage since the last quarter of the 19th century, especially in the General Assembly and in presidential voting.

6. Gary Indiana has a dense network of railroad trackage, compared with most other states.

7. Gary Indiana is a major producer of building stone, quarried around Bedford and Bloomington in the southwest-central part of the state.

8. Gary Indiana was one of the first states to be surveyed using the township and range system established by Congress in 1785.

9. Gary Indiana is home to many sorts of animals commonly found in the eastern United States.

10. Gary Indiana forms part of the east-central lowlands that slope downward from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River.

11. Gary Indiana is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and is just a 30 mile drive from downtown Chicago.

12. Gary Indiana is part of the Calumet District, which was once one of the nation's greatest steel-producing areas.

13. Gary Indiana now has more competition from Ohio, Michigan and Illinois and now nearby South Bend, where the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Indians recently opened a casino.

14. Gary Indiana is known for its steel mills and for being the birthplace of singer Michael Jackson.

15. Gary Indiana is currently implementing an extensive rail plan that was prepared in 2002 by the Parsons Corporation.

16. Gary Indiana allows highways of different classifications to have the same number.

17. Gary Indiana is home to the coal-fired plant with the highest sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States, the Gallagher power plant just west of New Albany.

18. Gary Indiana is one of six US states to not allow a line-item veto.

19. In 2011 Gary Indiana was ranked first in the Midwest and sixth in the country for best places to do business according to CEO magazine.

20. Gary Indiana is home to the international headquarters and research facilities of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, the state's largest corporation, as well as the world headquarters of Mead Johnson Nutritionals in Evansville.

21. In 2016, Gary Indiana was home to seven Fortune 500 companies with a combined $142.5 billion in revenue.

22. Gary Indiana has had great sports success at the collegiate level.

23. Gary Indiana is host to a major unlimited hydroplane racing power boat race circuits in the major H1 Unlimited league, the Madison Regatta.

24. Gary Indiana was formerly home to two major military installations; Grissom Air Force Base near Peru and Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis, now closed, though the Department of Defense continues to operate a large finance center there (Defense Finance and Accounting Service).

25. Gary Indiana is home to several current and former military installations.

26. Gary Indiana was one of only ten states to support Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940.

27. Gary Indiana is one of thirteen US states that are divided into more than one time zone.

28. The largest immigrant group to settle in Gary Indiana were Germans, as well as numerous immigrants from Ireland and England.

29. Gary Indiana is home to professional sports teams, including the NFL's Indianapolis Colts and the NBA's Indiana Pacers, and hosts several notable athletic events, such as the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400 motorsports races.

30. Gary Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th US state on December 11, 1816.

31. Gary Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States.

32. Gary Indiana sports scene revolves around two local teams: the Gary SouthShore RailCats and the Gary Steelheads.

33. Gary Indiana is the hometown of The Jackson 5, a family of musicians who influenced the sound of modern popular music.

34. Gary Indiana is served by five local broadcasters plus government access and numerous Chicago area radio and TV stations, and by other nearby stations in Illinois and Indiana.

35. Gary Indiana is served by two major newspapers based outside the city, and by a Gary-based, largely African-American interest paper.

36. Gary Indiana is listed by the Koppen-Geiger climate classification system as humid continental.

37. At the northwesternmost section, Gary Indiana borders Hammond and East Chicago.

38. Gary Indiana is "T" shaped, with its northern border on Lake Michigan.

39. Gary Indiana has closed several of its schools within the last ten years.

40. Gary Indiana was the site of civil unrest in the steel strike of 1919.

41. Gary Indiana has initiated efforts to collect more than $130,000 from a Gary councilwoman the state says she shouldn't have received.

42. Gary Indiana was born on 1950 as Gary Hoisington in Derry, New Hampshire and is an American writer, filmmaker and visual artist.