Miller Beach - Geography

Geography

Miller Beach sits at Lake Michigan's southern tip, and at the northeastern tip of Lake County. The majority of Gary's lakefront is occupied by heavy industry, Miller Beach is the only residential area within Gary's municipal boundaries with unspoiled lake frontage. The shoreline of Miller is publicly owned either by the municipal or federal governments, and beachfront homes are separated from the lake by "an apron of dunes".

Protected lands separate Miller Beach from most of its neighbors, except for the smaller Gary neighborhood of Aetna to the southwest. To the west, the Miller Woods area of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore lies between Miller and U.S. Steel's Gary Works. To the east, Miller borders on the Lakeshore's West Beach area. To the southeast and south, the Little Calumet River corridor largely separates Miller from the cities of Portage and Lake Station. Although mostly in private hands, the land along the Little Calumet is largely protected from development by flood-control easements. In addition, a strip of National Lakeshore property separates Miller's northern and southern halves, making the northern half of Miller Beach one of four beachfront communities entirely surrounded by the National Lakeshore.

As a legacy of the cycles of expansion it has undergone since the 19th century, Miller Beach contains a number of distinct neighborhoods. Miller's traditional core, The Grandlake Historic District, between Lake Street and Grand Boulevard, is home to Miller's oldest homes and civil structures, many built during the period of Miller's political independence such as Miller Town Hall and Miller School. The northern part of Miller Beach is chiefly residential and surrounded entirely by national parkland. At the far northeast corner, along County Line Road, Miller's most expensive development, East Edge, rubs shoulders with the Miller Village apartment complex.

West of Miller's downtown is another multi-block apartment complex, Duneland Village, containing a small baseball park, the 3.47-acre Gibson Fields, home field of Miller Little League for generations. In the opposite direction, more than a mile to the east of downtown on the Dunes Highway, the isolated Inland Manor subdivision lies in the midst of the National Lakeshore. All property in Inland Manor has been acquired by the US government, but many residents remain in their homes under reservation of use and occupancy agreements.