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The Battles for the Indiana Dunes
The 1966 Legislation | 1967-1976 | 1977 to 1980 | 1981 to 1986
PART II: Making the Park a Reality -- 1967-1976
After the passage of the 1966 legislation, the Save the Dunes Council focused on what had been won, not on what had been lost. Almost from the beginning of 1967 we had to face numerous unexpected challenges, without our good friend Senator Paul Douglas, who lost his re-election bid.
We quickly learned a harsh but valuable legislative lesson. The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was a reality, but only on paper. It was "authorized," but not funded. To staff the park and to begin land purchases, Congress had to appropriate money -- a separate legislative action. President Johnson's 1968 budget requested $6-million for land acquisition for the Dunes. Park opponents, including northwest Indiana's Congressman Charlie Halleck, succeeded in eliminating all funding for the Lakeshore in the House Appropriations Committee, despite the efforts of Congressman Sidney Yates (IL) to include a token amount to keep the issue alive.
Fearing that a National Lakeshore park that owned no land could soon disappear, the Council established a Lakeshore Trust Fund to raise money to buy land within park boundaries to donate to the park. We also sent a small band of volunteers to Washington, D.C. to plead for immediate federal funding. Indiana Senator Birch Bayh succeeded in restoring funding in the U.S. Senate, the House concurred, and land acquisition for the National Lakeshore was allocated $4 million. Even after funding was assured, a number of threats to the new park sprang up. The Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad -- which bought 27 acres within Lakeshore boundaries after the passage of the 1966 legislation but before the Park Service had acquired the land -- began negotiating with the Park Service to allow it to build a 1000 freight car marshaling yard inside the Lakeshore's authorized boundaries. A regional site selection study done for the Lake-Porter Regional Planning Commission (predecessor of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission) recommended construction of a 10,000-acre Jetport east of Chesterton -- with the nearest runway about 1-1/2 miles from the Indiana Dunes State Park.
In January 1969, an Indiana state senator introduced a resolution in the Indiana General Assembly to abolish the fledgling Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. An outraged public deluged the state house with telegrams and phone calls, and the resolution died a well-deserved death.
Dunes supporters led many hikes and tours of areas proposed to be added to the National Lakeshore, such as this one of dunes in Miller. (All photos courtesty of Save the Dunes Council and Herbert Read.)
Also that year, hearings were held on a proposed tri-state Cross-Wabash Waterway, a super barge canal. The canal would connect the Ohio River in southern Indiana with Lake Erie on the east via the Maumee River, with the Illinois Waterway on the west near Joliet, and with Lake Michigan on the north in Porter County. The location of the proposed connection in the Dunes was generally in line with Salt Creek, heading north to the lake.
In 1970 Northern Indiana Public Service Company filed its application for construction of a nuclear power plant adjacent to the Lakeshore's Cowles Bog Area. This marked the beginning of a decade-long and ultimately successful battle to stop construction of the Bailly plant, which ultimmately involved such diverse interests as the Save the Dunes Council, the Izaak Walton League, steel workers, the Bailly Alliance, the city of Gary, residents of Dune Acres, and Businessmen for the Public Interest.
Congressman Earl Landgrebe (Charles Halleck's successor) introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to slash the size of the Lakeshore from 8,500 acres to 2,500 acres, under the guise that the National Lakeshore boundaries had never been set.
Despite these and other on-going problems, in 1970 a committee of volunteers from the Council and from a number of scientific and conservation groups put together a comprehensive proposal for additions to the park. The additions would save lands of rare ecological, recreational, geological or historic value not already included in the 1966 legislation; protect and enhance the values of present park lands; and improve the balance, capacity and unity of the Lakeshore. All of the areas recommended had been cited by scientific or public authorities as desirable for park conservation purposes or were part of earlier, unsuccessful dunes bills.
Their recommendations were compiled in a report, Legislation to Protect and Enlarge The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore), known as the Green Book. It proposed 4,640 acres of duneland and wetland for outright purchase and 2,380 acres along the Little Calumet River and Salt Creek to be protected through conservation easements. For the first time lands in Lake County were included. These proposals formed the basis for H.R. 10209 introduced July 29, 1971 by Representative J. Edward Roush (IN, 5th), and S. 2380 introduced July 30, 1971 by Indiana Senator Vance Hartke. No hearings were set on either bill because the Interior Department had not studied the proposed legislation.
Additions to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, as proposed by the Green Book, were grouped as follows:
1. West Beach Area Expansion (which included Miller Lagoons and Woods)
2. Inland Zone Dune and Marsh Additions
3. Beverly Shores Additions, i.e. the "Island", the "Parkway," and Crescent Dune
4. Little Calumet River Additions
5. Pinhook Bog Buffer Zones
6. Detached Additions: Nippissing Dune Ridge and Swale (West Gary), Hoosier Prairie
The Lakeshore was formally dedicated September 3, 1972, in a ceremony at the Indiana Dunes State Park. Interior Secretary Rogers Morton attended, along with Indiana Governor Whitcomb, Senator Bayh, and Congressmen Roush and Madden. The event took place under the intense scrutiny of the Secret Service due to the presence of Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Council founder and president emeritus Dorothy Buell was seated on the stage in the rear but was not invited to speak. Despite the glowing words about bringing "Parks to the People" heard at the dedication, no formal support for the Dunes bill materialized from the Nixon Administration and the legislation went nowhere.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower spoke at the dedication of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Who is missing? Dunes advocate Dorothy Buell.
Early in 1973, Congressman Roush introduced his second Dunes bill, H.R.3571. Changes and refinements resulted in a net reduction of nearly 1700 acres for a total of 5328 acres. The Senate companion bill was S. 820. A promotional/educational brochure, "Missing Pieces of the Indiana Dunes" laid out this expansion proposal complete with map, pictures, and a detailed description of each area proposed.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service's Denver Service Center revealed and then vigorously defended elaborate plans for development of West Beach, the first major facility planned for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. In a heated public hearing in Portage, both park supporters and opponents criticized the plan, which called for two bath houses, a three-story parking garage, swimming pools, an artificial dune, three large pavilions, play lots and picnic facilities. The Park Service ultimately scrapped the plan in favor of more modest development, but experience made the Council very wary of the National Park Service's centralized Denver Service Center planning.
Council President Sylvia Troy met with Secretary of Interior Morris Udall and Congressman Floyd Fithian
We soon realized that if Dunes legislation were to succeed, the Council needed someone in Washington, D.C. to help get a dunes bill passed into law. Edward R. Osann, son of Ruth and Ed Osann, then studying for a master's degree in Washington, filled that vital role. In July of 1974, Congressman Morris Udall, a member of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, and a cosponsor of H.R. 3571, toured selected areas of the bill under the sponsorship of Save the Dunes Council to help promote dunes expansion legislation. In the closing days of the Congress, the House Subcommittee approved H.R. 3571 but Congress adjourned before final action could be taken.
In 1975, newly elected Second District Congressman Floyd Fithian held local hearings at Chesterton High School January 31 and February 1 on expansion of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. In March, just 6 weeks after the hearings, Fithian introduced his own Dunes expansion bill, H.R.5241.
During the year, National Steel announced plans to build a $1-billion primary steel plant at its Midwest Division in Portage, including both coke making and iron smelting facilities. The company claimed that the new facilities would have "no appreciable impact on air quality in the area."
The House Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation held hearings on the two Dunes bills on May 9. A bus chartered by the Council took Dunes-savers to and from the hearings in Washington, D.C. -- at a cost of just $35 each. Just before the end of the session, the subcommittee reported out an expansion bill containing 4,050 acres of the Fithian bill. The bill did not include Hoosier Prairie and reduced the size of the NIPSCO Greenbelt. It allowed NIPSCO to continue dumping fly ash adjoining Cowles Bog.
On February 17, 1976, the House of Representatives passed a revised Dunes expansion bill, now re-numbered H.R. 11455, containing 4300 acres, including Hoosier Prairie. In the spring, Indiana Senators Birch Bayh and Vance Hartke introduced their Dunes expansion bill, S. 3329. The Senate Interior Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation held a hearing May 26, 1976. Two field inspection trips followed: one by Interior staff; the second by Senators Johnston, Hansen, and Hartke.
The Senate Dunes bill stalled, was further compromised to less than 4000 acres, and finally passed the Senate September 24, 1976. An important if not deciding factor in its passage by a vote of 74-0 was the announcement made on the floor during Senate debate that Senator Paul Douglas had just died. In Sacred Sands, author J. Ronald Engel put it this way: "Once again it was the reputation of Paul Douglas that saved the dunes." The 650-acre Beverly Shores "Island," the 50-acre U.S. 12 Highway Strip in the town of Beverly Shores and the 90-acre NIPSCO Greenbelt were dropped from Lakeshore additions. Instead, the National Park Service was to study the three areas and report its conclusions to the Congress. The House accepted the Senate version.
Aerial view of the shoreline of Beverly Shores in the 1970s
Uncertainty clouded the Council's annual fall dinner in October of 1976 as we waited in vain for word that President Gerald Ford intended to sign the Dunes bill into law. On October 21, 1976, with Indiana Governor Otis Bowen at his side, President Ford signed H.R. 11455 into law.
As the year ended, the Council emerged from its first "Expansion Bill" battle with a sense of accomplishment that the six year battle to expand the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore had ended in partial victory; a sense of loss over the areas that had been dropped from the final bill; and both hopes and fears about the future of the Indiana Dunes.
--Charlotte J. Read
This is the second in a series of articles on the history of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Copies of the first article are available from the Save the Dunes Council, 444 Barker Road, Michigan City, IN 46360. (219-879-3937)
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