Jefferson Street Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

From the record

“Jefferson Street Historic District is a national historic district located at Gary, Indiana. The district encompasses 81 contributing buildings in an exclusively residential section of Gary.”
Wikipedia article Jefferson Street Historic District (Gary, Indiana), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 88 National Register listings published here for Lake County · listed in 2013 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by Washington St., 37th, 35th, Jefferson & Madison Aves., Gary, 46408
When was it listed? September 2013
Category. district
Also known as. Historic Residential Suburbs in the United States, 1830-1960 MPS
Township. Calumet township
National Register reference number. 13000723 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

244 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 244 fires within 5 miles of Jefferson Street Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 4,964 acres in total. 9 started naturally. 19 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Railroad operations and maintenance	110
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	49
Debris and open burning	33
Arson/incendiarism	19
Natural	9
Equipment and vehicle use	8
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Recreation and ceremony	4
Other causes	4
Smoking	2
Fireworks	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 September 1995	Railroad operations and maintenance	7.0 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	TENNESSEE
5 September 1995	Railroad operations and maintenance	53 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	MANY
26 September 1995	Arson/incendiarism	2.1 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	DIAMOND
19 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	2.0 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	BUFFALO
16 September 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	LIBERTY
9 August 1999	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	NEW HIRE
8 August 1999	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	1-5
7 August 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore	TENNESSEE

Every fire recorded in Lake County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Jefferson Street Historic District: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Samoki Brothers Sand Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Lake County

Storms near this property

29 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Gary, the town this property stands in, in 29 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 19 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 3 lightning, 1 rip current. The reports record 1 death and 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2001	Rip Current	Gary	1 killed	no account filed
May 2007	Lightning	Gary	1 hurt	A 15 year old boy was standing near a tree when it was struck by lightning. The teenager received burns on his back. His clothes and shoes were ripped off. A relative standing near the teenager said she saw blue light reflected off of him.
September 2013	Lightning	Gary	$75,000	A house at 1180 Jefferson Court was struck by lightning starting a fire which engulfed about 50 percent of the home. An adult and a 9-month-old child were home at the time of the fire. The adult was killed and the baby was in critical condition as it was transported to the hospital. An investigator said that there were no signs that the adult had been struck by lightning and that they died due to smoke inhalation.
May 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	$60,000	Fifteen large pine trees were uprooted at the Indiana University Northwest campus in Gary. Some of the trees fell on several cars. Windows in some buildings were also blown out.
July 2006	Lightning	Gary	$50,000	A home near 48th Place and Whitcomb Street in Calumet Township was struck by lightning, which started a fire on the second floor. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and the attic were gutted.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	East Gary	$25,000	A large pine tree was uprooted and fell onto a home near the intersection of Warrick Street and Central Avenue.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	$5,000	Trees, tree limbs and power lines were blown down across many areas in northeast Lake County.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Minor structural and tree damage was found along 20th Pl just east of Ernie Pyle Elementary School.
March 2025	Tornado (EF0)	Gary	-	A tornado touched down near Norton Park, just south of West 13th Avenue in Gary. This brief tornado blew tree debris across roadways and uprooted several small trees east of the Gary Business District with estimated winds of 70 mph. The tornado dissipated around MLK Drive, just north of East 7th Avenue before reaching the Dunes Highway.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Structural damage was found on a home near 8th Ave and Harrison St.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	A large tree limb snapped along 17th Ave near McKinley St.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Lake County EMA reported power poles snapped in Gary.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Large trees and numerous tree limbs were blown down in Gary.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Wind gusts to 70 mph were estimated near downtown Gary.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Estimated gust to 60 mph in downtown Gary.
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Wind gusts were estimated to 60 mph.
March 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Large tree down.
July 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Trees, limbs and power lines were reported down.
September 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	Trees blown down.
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	A cooperative observer at Trump Casino at Buffington Harbor in Gary recorded a 58 mph wind gust.
June 1995	Hail	Gary	-	Golf ball- to ping-pong ball-size hail fell at Hammond. Half an inch to three-quarters inch hail and 54 mph winds occurred at Gary Airport. Tree limbs and power lines were downed throughout the northern part of the county.
July 2015	Hail	Gary	-	no account filed
August 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	no account filed
June 2013	Hail	Gary	-	no account filed
September 2009	Hail	Gary	-	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Gary	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	no account filed
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	no account filed
April 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Gary	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lake County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
North Gleason Park Community Building	0.6 miles	2021
Morningside Historic District	1.4 miles	2009
Barney Sablotny House	1.4 miles	2012
Theodore Roosevelt High School	1.7 miles	2012
Andrew Means Park Manor Historic District	1.9 miles	2024
Louis J. Bailey Branch Library-Gary International Institute	2.3 miles	2004

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 13000723 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Lake County	All 88 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.