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Memorial Auditorium

By Gary Public Library
Auditorium
Auditorium Built in 1927, as a memorial to war veterans, Memorial Auditorium provided many thousands of Garyites of all ethnic backgrounds with indelible memories, whether it was hosting an athletic event that they participated in or watched, or a graduation ceremony in which they were either participants or witnesses. Nationally and even world-famous people spoke and/or performed in this building. Source: Gary Public Library Date: c. 1927

Memorial Auditorium, located in Gary’s downtown, was built in 1927 and for 43 years, it served as the city’s only convention and social center, gymnasium, art gallery, music, and performing arts center. The Auditorium represents Gary’s building boom, when many of the city's most impressive buildings were constructed. The Auditorium provided a central location for learning and social events that city officials enthusiastically supported to showcase the city. The public, especially students, contributed money to help build it. The Gary Land Company, a steel mill subsidiary, donated the land. Named in honor of those who served and died in World War I (1915-1918), it also became the city’s first war memorial. 

As the cornerstone for Memorial Auditorium was laid, several large buildings, all within  walking distance of each other, opened or began construction on the same day, October 12,  1927. This included the cornerstone for the new City Hall, the formal opening of the new ten story Hotel Gary along with the new 2nd floor home for the Commercial Club, the forerunner to  the Chamber of Commerce, and the new building for the local newspaper, the Post-Tribune.  

The building of Memorial Auditorium provided a promising start to present Gary, long considered a suburb of Chicago, as a cultured city itself. The gymnasium and auditorium would also support, reinforce, and expand the school curriculum and educational concepts already in place in each school building, especially in music and the arts. Memorial Auditorium hosted sectional and regional basketball tournaments, city-wide music festivals, concerts, performances by nationally known personalities, visits by Presidents and astronauts, and of course, school productions and high school graduations.

Soon after it opened, local African American leaders took immediate actions to squelch what was perceived as segregation in the Auditorium and claimed their rights to the building they helped to build.

In the early 1970s when the school corporation could no longer afford to keep it open, the Auditorium was closed. Efforts made by a private citizen in the early 1990s to revitalize the  building were not realized. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places before a fire in 1997 destroyed two-thirds of the building. Until 2020, when it was finally demolished, only the façade stood for passersby to view.

Images

Auditorium
Auditorium Built in 1927, as a memorial to war veterans, Memorial Auditorium provided many thousands of Garyites of all ethnic backgrounds with indelible memories, whether it was hosting an athletic event that they participated in or watched, or a graduation ceremony in which they were either participants or witnesses. Nationally and even world-famous people spoke and/or performed in this building. Source: Gary Public Library Date: c. 1927
The Annex News
The Annex News The Annex News, Roosevelt School’s student newspaper, highlights the laying of Memorial Auditorium’s cornerstone in its premier issue, October 15, 1927. The Annex News reported on the participation of all Gary Public School students and what each school contributed to be placed in the cornerstone. Roosevelt students contributed a bottle of sand as a symbol of what was here before the steel and the schools. It was reported in the local city newspaper “at the present time, no other Gary school has a newspaper.” Source: Gary Public Library
Hotel Gary
Hotel Gary When Hotel Gary opened in 1928, the ten-story hotel in the heart of Gary’s downtown was within walking distance of Memorial Auditorium. It was most likely where performers at the Auditorium would stay when in Gary. While the actual number of events and performances that took place in the Auditorium were many and varied, Mahalia Jackson, BB King, The Annual City-Wide Music Festival, Golden Gloves Boxing, and The Hoosier Art Salon exhibits were just some of the events held there. There were also conventions, rallies, trade shows, and special speakers including President Harry S. Truman, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., astronaut Frank Borman, singer Marian Anderson, activist Paul Robeson, entertainers Sammy Davis, Jr., Bob Hope, and Ray Charles. The hotel closed in the 1970s and reopened as Genesis Towers, a senior citizens high rise. Source: Gary Public Library Date: c. 1940
Facade
Facade Built in a Venetian style of design by Gary architect, Joe Wildermuth, Memorial Auditorium includes a tile roof, a tapestry of brickwork, and stone balconies. Four large stones surround the top of the building on the north, east and west, each engraved with one word to highlight the building’s purpose - Music, Art, Drama, Athletics. As stated in the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, “It was the only place, besides the mill, where people of different backgrounds came together.” Source: Gary Public Library Creator: Maria Strimbu Date: c. 1994
Concert Program
Concert Program A tradition since the late 1930s, employees of the steel mills would perform at Memorial Auditorium for the community in a variety of choruses and orchestras until the late 1960s. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1940
American Day
American Day "I am an American Day" was part of a celebration hosted nationwide. Starting in the late 1930s, this event, celebrated in early May, was a time when many foreign-born residents became American citizens. Emphasizing an American value of appreciating the contribution of immigrants to society, this event is also thought, in part, to have served the purpose of countering “May Day” celebrations that occurred at the same time of year. Very popular during the World War II period, the name of this event would be changed to “Citizenship Day” in later years. In Gary, the event was held in Memorial Auditorium. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1941
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson The first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955, Marian Anderson first became well known when she was not allowed to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. in 1939 due to racism, and performed instead at the Lincoln Memorial to a desegregated audience. She retired from singing in 1965 but continued to travel and speak at various events. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1945
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra Sinatra was invited to sing in Gary’s Memorial Auditorium to help quell Gary’s 1945 school strike at Froebel School. The Anselm Forum, a group dedicated to, among other things, “interracial fellowship,” invited Sinatra who came on November 1 and performed as well as meeting with students. But it would take something more substantive to end the strike: a commitment on November 12 from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Clement T. Malan that he would investigate student conditions at Froebel School. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1945
Van Cliburn
Van Cliburn Van Cliburn was a celebrated pianist from a young age, who played at Memorial Auditorium in 1966. During the Cold War he competed and won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia, and was the only musician to be given a ticker tape parade in New York City on his return home. The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has been held every four years since 1958. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1966
Survival Crackers
Survival Crackers This All Purpose Survival Cracker tin, from Memorial Auditorium, is a remnant of the Cold War, a time from the 1950s to the mid-1960s when Americans constructed and prepared their own fallout shelters in the event of a nuclear war. At that time the Auditorium may have served as such a shelter for the community. This tin holds 372 crackers that were mass-produced and distributed in 1962 through a government program. The program ended in 1964 and produced 20 billion crackers. Source: Gary Public Library Date: 1962

Location

99 E 7th Ave, Gary, IN 46402

Metadata

Citation Info

Gary Public Library, “Memorial Auditorium,” Discover Indiana, accessed October 23, 2026, https://discoverindianahistory.org/items/show/606.

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