Presiding over Gary's lakefront for 93 years, the Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium has been a focal point, an eyesore, a hazard, a condemned building and finally, a monument to the resilience of Gary and its residents.
Constructed in 1921, the Gary Bathing Beach Aquatorium, then known as the Gary Bathing Beach Bathhouse, was designed by architect George W. Maher in the neoclassical style.
During the structure's first few decades, Gary was a young and prosperous city, with many residents making weekly pilgrimages to Marquette Park each summer to relax. But by the 1960s, the Aquatorium had fallen out of use. It was officially closed in 1971 and boarded up, the building slowly filling with sand.
In 1991, Chanute Aquatorium Society began its multimillion dollar project to restore the Aquatorium and transform it into a monument to early aviator Octave Chanute, whose historic test flights soared off the sand dunes just west of the building. Extensive restoration and reconstruction has been completed, as well as new construction built to honor Chanute and those other storied aviation pioneers, the Tuskeegee Airmen.
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Today, the Aquatorium hosts private events in its unique and picturesque setting and is once more the jewel in the crown of Marquette Park’s historic lakefront.