Talk:Miller Beach

Suggested item to add?
If it's not a conflict, I would like to recommend adding the History of the Indiana Dunes as a see also item at the top of the History section. It's growing slowly, but is becoming a compilation of history before there were any settlements and then it might or might not (depends on suggestions) continue with the activities to preserve the pre-settlement lakeshore, i.e., Marquette Park, Indiana Dunes State Park, and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. {Chris Light (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)}

Merge to Gary
Any particular reason why this brief material on a neighborhood of Gary merits its own article? Xenophon777 (talk) 19:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Xenophon777... Miller Beach is not simply a Neighborhood of Gary!!!! It is it's own town with its own history and atmosphere independent of the city of Gary... My house in downtown Miller was built in 1894 Gary didn't even exist until 1906. The town of Miller was forcibly annexed by Gary in the 20's. the citizens of Miller were overwhelmingly again annexation... Gary and U.S. Steel used their money and political power to force the annexation of Miller. At the time of annexation, Gary was a wealthy and overwhelmingly white city and Miller was against annexation then ... race and class has nothing to do with th matter... Even when Gary was booming Miller citizens did not want to be part of that City and to this day Miller Citizens still don't want to be part of what's left of the city of Gary...Read your history.. The battle for Miller's independence is a matter of self determination and self rule.We in Miller want the freedom to make our own decisions and to govern ourselves. We just want the freedom to be left alone to make our lives better... Why does this bother you so much???

How would you feel if Gary was annexed against its will by by Merrillville and people insisted on calling Gary, "a section of Merrillville, Indiana" and kept changing the Gary Wikipedia entry to say that Gary was "just a neighborhood of Merrillville" Do you see why at would be upsetting??? Gary was there way before Merrillville and has its own history, just as Miller was here for almost a hundred years before it was foricibly annexed by Gary, it has is own history.. So Please stop changing our article and leave us alone... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.209.200.48 (talk) 20:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

This article is totally biased and is not based on fact. There is no proof whatsoever that most Miller residents "resent Gary", or don't consider Miller as "Gary". I grew up in Miller and me and everybody I know who grew up in Miller consider it Gary. Our mail, licenses, and zip codes all say Gary, therefore it is Gary. That's like saying "South Carolina isn't a part of America, because we didn't all agree to being a part of America, after the Civil War".

The difference between the Gary/Merrilville argument is that Merrilville was a part of Gary that took the necessary steps to become it's on town in 1971, therefore Gary and Merillvile are separate. Miller is and has been for 80 years Gary. Get used to it. The only people I know that don't consider Miller as Gary are those "lakefront-liberals", who don't like telling their well-off families and friends that they live in "Gary", because they're ashamed to live here. Half of them don't even live here full time. They come here for the "summer". Bring their rich artsy friends here and neglect to tell them that they're standing in the former "murder capital of America".

And don't even say there's no racial component to it. There's a section about the White flight right in the middle of the Gary article. We all know what happened.

--Scott Evil (talk) 06:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: Merrillville was NEVER a part of Gary. Prior to 1971, the area that is now Merrillville was unincorporated Ross Township and consisted of neighborhoods such as Merrillville, Turkey Creek, Deep River and others. The residents of Ross Township voted on becoming a town, with most sections of Ross Township (the exceptions being those neighboring Hobart and Crown Point) approving the move. Just setting your facts straight.

This article is totally biased and is riddled with opinion, not fact. This guy is like the people still waving a Dixie Flag, wishing the Confederacy would've won the Civil War. It's over you were annexed. Miller has been Gary for almost 100 years now. Get over it.

--Scott Evil (talk) 06:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

To the editor who does not sign his (or her) posts: The fact is that Miller is a section of Gary. A neighborhood, if you like. It may well have had a short history prior to its incorporation into Gary (but, then, Gary, too, had a history prior to its incorporation). However, I note that this article is not a history piece about the Miller Beach of the 1890s through 1906. It purports to be more, and, but for some vigilant editing, occasionally tries to misstate the facts by implying that Miller is separate from, and "bordering" Gary, the city of which it is a part. Does every neighborhood of every city rate a notability level that a separate article, a separate thread, needs to exist? Incidentally, the article and the Wikipedia is not "yours" in the sense of being your separate, private property. In addition to my notability concerns, editor Scott points out some additional POV concerns. So far I've not actually seen a credible response addressing why the Miller Beach article should not be merged into the Gary article. Xenophon777 (talk) 12:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I added the "Today a neighborhood of Gary, ..." It looks like the prior editor tried to make this into a historical piece on the former town of Miller/Miller Beach, and that's cool. I would not in that case have added the bit about Miller's being now a neighborhood of Gary, except that the article still then goes on to talk about present-day Miller... so the fact that it's a neighborhood of Gary is still relevant. Xenophon777 (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Continued NPOV edits to Miller Beach
You state, ''Miller is made up of several neighborhoods including Downtown Miller, Glen Ryan,Duneland, The Moats and others... call it a Bourough of Gary thats fine just but its more thanjust a neighborhood.''

Miller has been a part of Gary for nearly 100 years. There was never a "downtown Miller" in the original town of Miller, there was only Miller Station itself; Glen Ryan is a 1950s era subdivision of Aetna, which was not a part of the original town of Miller; Duneland is a post-war era housing project that had nothing to do with the town of Miller. The original town of Miller was the area immediately surrounding the old Miller Station itself, primarily along present-day Miller Avenue between Lake Street and Grand Blvd. The old town limits did not extend to the south of the present day South Shore tracks, nor to the north of the old New York Central elevated tracks to the north of that area.

Please stop inserting your personal point of view into this article. You have done so under multiple IP numbers, and I will ask once again before asking for this article to be protected from further vandalism. --Mhking (talk) 17:05, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Due to continued attacks from the dynamic IP, whose views lack any support on this Talk page, I have extended the semi-protection for another year. EdJohnston (talk) 23:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

First sentence
Per WP:MOSBEGIN, general practice on Wikipedia is that when an article's subject can be defined, "the first sentence should give a concise definition." Given that Miller (Beach) is first and foremost a neighborhood of Gary (albeit a very distinctive one), it is difficult to see how the first sentence can adequately define the article's subject without mentioning this fact. In my opinion, then, the first sentence should be something like this: "Miller Beach is a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana, located on the shore of Lake Michigan." I will implement this now, but welcome further discussion. -- Visviva (talk) 02:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Added re the additional arguments raised:
 * Many neighborhoods in many cities have histories that predate their annexation; this applies, for example, to the Gary neighborhoods of Aetna, Black Oak, Glen Park, and Tolleston. This doesn't make them any less neighborhoods of Gary today, and it isn't definitional of the article's subject unless the article is entirely about that historical period.  Aetna and Tolleston were, like Miller, incorporated as independent towns for a brief period in the early 20th century, and the same applies to many neighborhoods elsewhere, such as Pullman in Chicago; but this is at best peripheral to what they are today: neighborhoods.
 * Similarly, many neighborhoods in many cities have distinct sub-neighborhoods; for example, Pulaski contains Marshalltown, Tolleston contains Tarrytown and Small Farms, and so forth. Elsewhere in America, Manhattan's Upper West Side contains Manhattan Valley, and the Chicago Loop contains Printer's Row, etc. etc.; nothing prevents one neighborhood from containing another.
 * "Community" is a highly ambiguous word with a very wide range of meanings; it does little to actually define the article's subject.
 * I understand the urge, evident in many of these edits, to downplay both Miller's connection to Gary and the racial aspects of its past and present; but I do not believe that this sort of distortion serves the long-term interests of either the Miller community or Wikipedia. -- Visviva (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Many neighborhoods in Chicago, for example, were originally separate communities that were long ago annexed by the city, but this isn't stated in the first two sentences of those neighborhoods' wiki entries; nor should it be.  The first sentences of those entries state that they are neighborhoods of Chicago, and the history (including annexation) is stated further down the page if it's important enough to include.  This entry needs to be set up similarly.  Miller's history as a separate community is interesting and may well deserve mention further down the page, but the first paragraph needs to describe Miller as it is currently defined, not as it was defined nearly a century ago.  The article is not at all currently written in a consistent encyclopedic manner. 50.102.189.237 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 20:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC).

The beaches of Miller Beach
The cited page names four beaches, from west to east: Lake Street Beach, Marquette Beach, Miller Beach and Wells Street Beach. Unless we have an alternative source that is more authoritative than the City of Gary, I'm afraid we have to accept that there is in fact a beach called Miller Beach. In terms of how to describe these four beaches ... if "public" is too ambiguous, perhaps "publicly accessible" will do? -- Visviva (talk) 02:42, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Further on the "public" question: I checked out the Lake County Surveyor's GIS: everything north of the Lake Shore Drive right-of-way, including Wells Street Beach, is owned by the City of Gary. The relevant parcel numbers are 45-05-33-201-001.000-004, 45-05-33-226-001.000-004, 45-05-33-126-001.000-004, 45-05-33-101-001.000-004, 45-05-32-201-002.000-004, and 45-05-32-202-005.000-004. (These last two are actually registered to the "Gary, Miller Joint Park Board," an entity that presumably ceased to exist in 1918 when Miller was annexed.) The Wells Street parking lot and concession stand are -- I presume -- privately owned and operated, but the beach itself appears to be entirely city-owned. -- Visviva (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Historic & arts districts
Search results for these two are not promising:, ...  If they haven't been covered in reliable sources, then sadly we can't cover them on Wikipedia either, although they are without doubt highly meritorious and coverage-worthy projects. -- Visviva (talk) 07:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Underground railroad
I have not been able to locate any support in the cited source (Gary, Indiana: A pictorial history) or elsewhere for the claim that there was a stop on the Underground Railroad in or near Miller. I have accordingly removed that sentence for now.

What the cited source does include, as do many others, is a description of a fugitive slave by the name of Davy Crockett, who escaped from slavery during the Civil War and fled north to the Miller dunes, where he dwelt for many years. Crockett may deserve a mention here, but he doesn't seem to have been connected to the Underground Railroad. -- Visviva (talk) 04:29, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110810214431/http://www.in.gov/gov/files/031908_Governor_signs_property_tax_relief_and_reform_bill.pdf to http://www.in.gov/gov/files/031908_Governor_signs_property_tax_relief_and_reform_bill.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150202063353/http://www.indianaacademyofscience.org/Documents/Proceedings/V108-109/PIAS_v108_v109_p3-10.aspx to http://www.indianaacademyofscience.org/Documents/Proceedings/V108-109/PIAS_v108_v109_p3-10.aspx

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External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111007193031/http://highwayexplorer.com/EndsPage.php?id=1051&section=1 to http://highwayexplorer.com/EndsPage.php?id=1051&section=1

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