Westchester Township near Chesterton in Porter County, Indiana — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
100 Years Indiana Dunes State Park
1925-2025
Photographed by Daniel Barriball, October 2, 2026
1. 100 Years Indiana Dunes State Park Marker
This sign honors the dedication and vision of the people who were instrumental in the creation of Indiana Dunes State Park. Each saw the park from their own perspective, experiences, and emotional connections, but all played a role in the creation of a park.
Col. Richard Lieber
"The Father of Indiana State Parks"—Used his business connections in the early 1900s to begin the push for a state park system to commemorate Indiana's centennial in 1916.
"Why should the dunes be saved?...According to scientists our own Indiana sand dunes are the finest in the world...They are poetic, they are beautiful, they are wonderful; they are just about the most beautiful and wonderful thing we have in the Mid-west" (Indiana Daily Times July 29, 1921)
Henry Cowles
The University of Chicago professor discovered a new science studying the dunes and is known as the "Father of Plant Ecology."
"Many of these species are found nowhere for many miles outside of the dune region, so that failure to conserve the dunes would result in the extinction of this wonderful flora for all time."
Bess Sheehan
A local teacher, she began advocating for
this page online
"We must save the dunes now. We must establish the park at once; it is now or never."
Jens Jensen
"Apostle of the Dunes"— A famous landscape architect who emphasized native landscapes and plants, Jensen was dedicated to informing the public of the importance of protecting the duneland.
"We need the dunes; we can never do without them. We who live in the midst of this conglomeration of buildings, cement sidewalks, and stone pavements, how can we ever be without such wonderful vision, a vision that we carry vividly with us until we can make our next pilgrimage?"
Civilian Conservation Corps/CCC
Quote on leaving Indiana Dunes State Park for their new assignment at Pokagon State Park:
"One by one, each member takes one last longing look at Indiana Dunes State Park and, with a feeling he shall never forget, bids farewell to his beautiful Duneland home...Sadly, we are breaking camp; but all of us shall retain happy reminiscences of the picturesque Dunes, alive with Nature's wonders, of Lake Michigan—restless, refreshing and mysterious, of Co. 556, which on November 27, 1934, christened the Dunes with a movement which was to establish a planned program to be later of permanent benefit to the people this park serves..."
The Prairie Club
This
Photographed by Daniel Barriball, October 2, 2026
2. 100 Years Indiana Dunes State Park Marker in context
The Civilian Conservation Corps flagpole is in the background.
"The Dune Country of Indiana represents the work of one hundred times one thousand years, by such artists as the glaciers, water, wind, and sun, until you find there a park perfect, beautiful; a fairy land; a land of dreams; a land of remoteness; a land of solitudes; a land of long beaches; a land on whose frail shore strong waves beat at times with a thunderous roar, a land so fair and fine no city park could be made to equal it by the expenditure of countless millions." (Theodore Jessup, Club member)
Frank Dudley
A famous painter of the dunes, he used his artwork to gain awareness of the initiative to create a park to protect the dunes. Excerpt from a Dudley Memorial Exhibit Folder:
"There is a soul in each of us and when it is awakened there will burst upon everyone a realization of the wonder of the Dune Country." (Mather Report 1917)
Thanks to the Friends of Indiana Dunes for content and funding assistance in the development of this centennial sign.
[Photo caption:] (Left to right) Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service and Richard Lieber, father of the Indiana State Park system. Credit: National Park Service
Erected 2026 by Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indiana State Parks, Friends of Indiana Dunes.
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Charity & Public Work • Parks & Recreational Areas • Science & Medicine • Women. In addition, it is included in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Jens Jensen series lists. A significant historical year for this entry is 1916.
Location. 41° 39.582′ N, 87° 2.989′ W. Marker is near Chesterton, Indiana, in Porter County. It is in Westchester Township. It is on Trail 7 near County Road 100 East, on the right when traveling north. This marker stands in the Outdoor Program Area near the Nature Center within Indiana Dunes State Park. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: Trail 7, Chesterton IN 46304, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Northwest Indiana, specifically on the Indiana Dunes and Lake Michigan Shore, and in the Calumet Region. It is also in the American Midwest and in the Corn Belt. Globally, it is in North America, on the Great Lakes, in the Western Hemisphere, in the Western World, and in the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once the territory of the Mississippian Culture and also the Northwest Territory.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker: Civilian Conservation Corps Flagpole (a few steps from this marker); The Prairie Club Fountain (within shouting distance of this marker); Dunes Nature Preserve (approx. 0.2 miles away); "Works of a Public Nature" (approx. 0.2 miles away); Mt. Tom: A View of Ancient Shorelines (approx. 0.4 miles away); Indiana State Parks: the First 100 Years 1916-2016 (approx. 0.6 miles away); Le Petit Fort (approx. 0.7 miles away); Daylighting: Getting Dunes Creek Out of the Pipe (approx. 0.7 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Chesterton.
Another marker is no longer nearby. The J.D. Marshall (was within shouting distance of this marker but has been permanently removed).
More about this marker. The content of this marker was the result of a collaboration between the Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center staff and the board of the Friends of Indiana Dunes.
Regarding 100 Years Indiana Dunes State Park.
Indiana Dunes State Park was created due to a decade long effort by dedicated citizens to preserve the Indiana Dunes from industrial and commercial development.
Dr. Henry Chandler Cowles of the University of Chicago brought the Indiana Dunes to the attention of the scientific world. He studied the varied habitats and enormous plant diversity of the region. His work established the concept of ecological succession in the budding science of ecology in the United States.
Construction began in 1906 on U.S. Steel's Gary Works, which ultimately flattened 9,000 acres of dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. Many expected the rest of the dunes to go the same way. Concerned citizens began to work to preserve at least part of the remaining dunes in a park. One of the first groups to take an interest was the Prairie Club. Founded in 1908 in Chicago, its members were soon riding the South Shore electric railroad from downtown to hike in the Indiana Dunes. In 1911, the club built a beach house in what later became Indiana Dunes State Park. Members of the Prairie Club began advocating for the creation of a national park to save the dunes. Jens Jensen, the Apostle of the Dunes, was a Prairie Club member and a tireless advocate for a Sand Dunes National Park. The club also counted among its members Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, and Frank Dudley, the artist of the dunes. Dudley would eventually establish a studio in the dunes where painted many of his works. He used his paintings to demonstrate the beauty of the dunes so that people could see why they should be saved.
While the Prairie Club advocated for a park from Chicago, the residents of the Indiana Dunes country also worked for the creation of a park. In 1916, many of these locals formed the National Dunes Park Association, whose secretary was Bess Sheehan, a Gary high school teacher. All of these advocates worked together to try to get a national park established in the Indiana Dunes. In September 1916, they convinced Senator Thomas Taggert to introduce a resolution to require the brand-new National Park Service to write a report on the feasibility of creating a Sand Dunes National Park in Indiana. The resolution passed. On October 30, 1916, Mather, the NPS director, held a hearing in Chicago at which Henry Cowles, Jens Jensen, and many others spoke in favor of a national park. Mather's report was released in December, and was favorable to a national park in the dunes. Momentum seemed to be building for the proposed national park. Unfortunately, the entry of the United States into World War I in April 1917 took the wind out of the sails of the national park effort as priorities shifted away from conservation. The opposition of local businessmen also hurt the park efforts.
Over the next couple of years, park advocates realized that there was not enough support to get Congress to pass a bill creating a national park. Efforts turned to creating a state park. Bess Sheehan, the aforementioned secretary of the National Dunes Park Association, was also a rising star in the women's club movement in Indiana. She was named the chair of the Dunes Park committee of the Indiana Federation of Clubs, a statewide organization of many local women's clubs. In that capacity, she crisscrossed the state for several years, speaking to women's clubs and anyone else who would listen about the urgent need to preserve the Indiana Dunes before development destroyed them. She built political support among Indiana women for a Dunes park.
Richard Lieber, the father of Indiana State Parks, had been a supporter of a Sand Dunes National Park, but once that effort faltered, he began working for a Dunes state park. He had spearheaded the establishment of Indiana's first two state parks, McCormick's Creek and Turkey Run, in 1916 to celebrate Indiana's centennial, and in the intervening time he had added Clifty Falls and had been named the director of Indiana's new Department of Conservation. He began lobbying legislators and the business community to establish a state park in the Indiana Dunes.
Dunes advocates tried to get a Dunes park bill passed through the Indiana General Assembly in its 1921 session but were unable to get a bill introduced. In the 1920s, the General Assembly met every other year. Lieber, Sheehan, and others began laying the groundwork for the 1923 session. When that session opened, Bess Sheehan went to Indianapolis and stayed there for five weeks to work for passage of a state park bill. A Hammond legislator introduced a bill to create Indiana Dunes State Park. Sheehan and Lieber lobbied for passage. The women of the Seventh District of the Indiana Federation of Clubs arranged for Sheehan to speak to the members of the General Assembly on the evening of January 29, 1923, in the House chamber of the Indiana Statehouse. She spoke for two hours and impressed upon the legislators the urgent need to preserve the Indiana Dunes before they were gone. In the remaining weeks of the session, Lieber and Sheehan worked to convince reluctant legislators to vote for the bill. In early March the Indiana General Assembly passed the Dunes park bill after it squeaked by in the Indiana House. Governor Warren McCray signed the bill to create Indiana Dunes State Park on March 6, 1923. He gave the pen he used to sign the bill to Bess Sheehan in recognition of her work to get the bill passed. Sheehan was ever after known as the Dunes Lady.
Land acquisition began in 1925 and Indiana Dunes State Park opened to the public in 1926. During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps built infrastructure in the park. Remaining examples of their work include Wilson Shelter and the flagpole near the Nature Center.
The idea of an Indiana Dunes National Park never completely faded. After World War II, development again threatened the remaining dunes. After a protracted battle by Dorothy Buell and her Save the Dunes council, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was created in 1966. In 2019, it was renamed Indiana Dunes National Park.
Also see . . .
1. Henry Chandler Cowles. Indiana Dunes National Park
For over 30 years, Cowles was an authority in the field; he led scientific organizations, pursued conservation work, and continued mentoring students on excursions at the Indiana Dunes and across the country. Both his direct and indirect influence has preserved thousands of acres of land and inspired generations of researchers and conservationists. Cowles’ legacy continues today as new students come here to follow his footsteps and make their own observations about this captivating place.(Submitted on October 2, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana.)
2. The Beginning of Indiana State Parks. Indiana State Parks
"I hope and trust that the small beginning we have made will have laid the foundation for a comprehensive system of State Parks which will not only stand forever as a token of the past, but which will bring health, wealth and happiness to our own generation and the many that will come after us."(Submitted on October 3, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana.)
- Col. Richard Lieber in the State Parks Committee Report to the Indiana Historical Commission, 1916
3. Bess Sheehan. Indiana Dunes National Park (Submitted on October 3, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana.)
4. Jens Jensen. Indiana Dunes National Park
What I want to impress on your minds is the beauty and grandeur of this dune country. There are no dunes in America like those over there. The dunes on the various ocean coasts, the dunes that are salt water dunes, are of an entirely different type. They totally lack the poetic inspiration those dunes of Indiana have.(Submitted on October 3, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana.)
5. Frank Virgil Dudley. Illinois Historical Art Project
“He has been known as an interpreter of moods and phases of light. In his Dunes exhibition, however, one felt that he had employed their faculty to the best end possible uniting mood with theme and producing pictures that are both descriptive and emotional. A peculiarity of Mr. Dudley’s work is that one appreciates it better the more one sees of it. Not unusual in the monotonous feeling experienced on viewing a one-man show; in fact, such an exhibition is a test of any man’s versatility, a gauge of how many tunes he can pipe, and how much he really has to say. With Mr. Dudley we experience just the reverse, for in his Dunes exhibit his muse seemed as variable as nature herself and, like nature, always charming.”(Submitted on October 3, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana.)
Credits. This page was last revised on October 9, 2026. It was originally submitted on October 2, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana. This page has been viewed 7 times since then. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on October 2, 2026, by Daniel Barriball of Chesterton, Indiana. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
