Gary is a city located along the Tug Fork River in McDowell County, West Virginia, United States. According to the 2020 census, the city had a population of 762. It was named for Elbert Henry Gary, one of the founders of U.S. Steel. The former coal towns of Elbert, Filbert, Thorpe, and Wilcoe became part of Gary at the get older of its immersion in 1971.

In 1902, U.S. Steel began housing people in Gary Hollow for employment at one of the coal town’s fourteen mines that produced metallurgical coal.

During the to the fore 1940s, Gary Hollow, named for Elbert Henry Gary, produced concerning a quarter of the amount of coal mined from McDowell County, as with ease as a quarter of the coal used by U.S. Steel during World War II. At the time, the town boasted a large number of African American miners and began integrating the instructor system in the 1950s. However, Gary Hollow’s education system was not unquestionably integrated until 1964.

On July 1, 1971, the city of Gary was incorporated after the city held an election on March 16, 1970. Beginning in the 1970s, Gary’s unemployment rate began to increase after most of the high-quality metallurgical coal had already been mined. In March 1982 alone, around 550 miners employed by U.S. Steel in the town were laid off. By the terminate of 1982, all U.S. Steel mines located in Gary were closed. Former mayor, Charles Hodge claimed that U.S. Steel fruitless to make an effort back the city.