Elbert Henry Gary
| Elbert Henry Gary | |
|---|---|
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Gary circa 1915
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| 1st President of U.S. Steel | |
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In office 1901–1911 |
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| Succeeded by | James Augustine Farrell, Sr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
October 8, 1846 Wheaton, Illinois |
| Died | August 15, 1927 (aged 80) |
Elbert Henry Gary (October 8, 1846 – August 15, 1927) was an American lawyer, county judge and corporate officer. He was a key founder of U.S. Steel in 1901, bringing together partners J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles M. Schwab. The city of Gary, Indiana, a steel town, was named for him when it was founded in 1906. When trust busting President Theodore Roosevelt said that Gary was head of the steel trust, Gary considered it a compliment. Gary, West Virginia was also named after him. The two men communicated in a nonconfrontational way unlike Roosevelt's communications with leaders of other trusts.
Elbert Gary was born near Wheaton, Illinois, on October 8, 1846, to Erastus Gary and Susan A. Vallette. He attended Wheaton College and graduated first in his class from Union College of Law in 1868. The school later became the Northwestern University School of Law. Gary started to practice law in Chicago in 1871 and also maintained an office in Wheaton. He was a co-founder (with his uncle, Jesse Wheaton) of the Gary-Wheaton Bank that merged with Bank One Corporation in the middle 1990s.
While he was working as a young corporate attorney for railroads and other clients in the years after the Great Chicago Fire, Gary was elected president of Wheaton three times, and when it became a city in 1892 he served as its first mayor for two terms.
He served two terms as a DuPage County judge from 1882 to 1890. For the rest of his life he was known as "Judge Gary." It was a common custom in the nineteenth century for men to be addressed by military, political, or academic titles after those titles were no longer current.
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