Homes for sale in
Merrillville.

The land that became Merrillville was originally part of Potawatomi territory and sat astride the Sauk Trail, a major east-west Native American and pioneer route across northern Indiana. The settlement was first known as McGwinn's Village, named for the Potawatomi leader whose band camped at the crossing of the Sauk Trail and a north-south trace near present-day Broadway and 73rd Avenue. European-American settlement began in the 1830s, and by 1848 a man named William Merrill had platted a town site at the crossroads, giving Merrillville its current name. For more than a century the area remained an unincorporated farming community within Ross Township, with grain elevators, a few stores, and scattered homesteads.

The modern town came together in response to a threat. As Gary, Hammond, and other Lake County cities expanded outward in the 1960s, residents of unincorporated Ross Township feared annexation, particularly by Gary to the north. Merrillville incorporated as a town on March 15, 1971, locking in its borders and its tax base. Population growth followed quickly. Southlake Mall opened in 1974 along US 30, becoming Northwest Indiana's largest enclosed shopping center, and the Holiday Star Theatre (later Star Plaza Theatre) opened in 1979 alongside the Radisson Hotel, hosting national touring acts for nearly four decades. Star Plaza was demolished in 2018 after closing the year before. The Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana opened on the former Cinemark site near I-65 and US 30 in May 2021, replacing the riverboat-era Majestic Star casinos that had served Gary's lakefront.