Indiana Dunes Administrative History

The First Operations Evaluation

On August 6 and 7, 1970, Chief of the Office of Operations Evaluation James W. Godbolt arrived at Indiana Dunes to conduct the park's first evaluation. Northeast Regional Director Hank Schmidt subsequently approved Godbolt's report on February 2, 1971. The document reveals the park's development (primarily at West Beach) since the first visitor season in 1967.

The seasonal ranger force remained at four with an equal number of seasonal laborers for maintenance. Work schedules were arranged to match weekend peak visitation periods. While Portage police provided flexible patrols, rangers had to contend with vandalism and misuse of the area by motorcycles, dune buggies, and other vehicles as well as trash—dumping which continued unabated. The small Park Service force had access to three park vehicles. Park Service trash barrels were placed all along the beach and were collected regularly by maintenance personnel who deposited the garbage in a central bin which was emptied twice a week by a contractor. Under a rental contract, four portable chemical toilets were placed next to the parking area. Nearby stood a small storage building for tools, supplies, and a telephone for official communications. The West Beach parking area was privately owned with fees collected by the owner on weekends.

Visitation records at West Beach were first maintained beginning July 1, 1970, by taking a head count at two o'clock every afternoon. This figure was augmented by thirty percent to achieve the July total of 5,015. This number also included the substantial number of boaters who enjoyed coming to the national lakeshore because it was the only place in the area where boats could anchor or beach. During July 1970, there were 455 boats anchored offshore. Most of these visitors were area residents who did not understand the distinction between the national lakeshore and the state park. Godbolt explained:

The local people know very little about Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and the resources now under Federal ownership. There is confusion as one might suspect in agency identity between the National Lakeshore and Indiana Dunes State Park. Many users believe the West Beach Unit is a State operation; a part of Indiana Dunes State Park. A few, however, are aware of the National Lakeshore status. Rangers are beginning to make more and more people aware that the area is a National Lakeshore and administered by the National Park Service as they contact visitors during patrols and other personal services activities. [39]

While area beaches prohibited the use of alcoholic beverages, such was not the case at West Beach. With the presence of ranger patrols, however, there were few serious incidents. Adverse effects by off—road vehicles (ORVs) had declined through signage and the erection of barricades at the intersections of trails and roads. Open fires were prohibited after one grassfire destroyed two hundred yards of vegetation on one prominent dune. For protection of property and good public relations, Godbolt recommended the Director's prohibition on permanent Service quarters be reevaluated for the West Beach area. His other recommendations follow:

1. Additional seasonal park rangers be employed to provide late—hour patrols.

2. Recruit law enforcement—oriented seasonal employees.

3. Initiate a law enforcement training program.

4. Establish a radio communications system.

5. A strong law enforcement background should be required for the second permanent supervisory park ranger position authorized in Fiscal Year 1972.

6. Hire lifeguards to service designated, protected sections.

7. Develop operating standards for visitor use activities and resource management.

8. Acquire a four—wheel drive vehicle with a slip—on pumper for fire suppression activities.

9. Negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding with area fire—control organizations.

10. Develop a Natural Resources Management Plan.

11. To reduce Park Service maintenance workload, negotiate Special Use Permits to provide for landscape maintenance on Federal lands between private residences.

12. Instead of burying dead fish along the shoreline, they should be hauled away.

13. Vehicular and equipment needs should be evaluated; a one and one—half ton dump truck and a tractor with a front end loader and other attachments should be acquired. [40]

The Nixon Administration's "Lukewarm Attitude"

When President Lyndon Johnson left office in January 1969, the Republican Party led by Richard M. Nixon took control of the Executive Branch and appointed Governor Walter J. Hickel (Republican—Alaska) to be Secretary of the Interior. In his 1970 State of the Union address, President Nixon delivered an environmental message in which he stressed parks and public recreation areas. Nixon further embraced and elaborated on the "parks to the people" concept. [41]

For political reasons, this goodwill did not translate into enthusiasm for Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. As discussed previously, partisan politics targeted the national lakeshore as a "Democratic" park. Lakeshore supporters charged the Nixon Administration with being "lukewarm" toward the park. This resulted in the Department adopting a cautious approach which delayed planning for development. Park Service stewards privately agreed with this assertion. [42] For the Nixon Administration, Indiana Dunes was "a park that was shoved down their throats." [43]

In fact, hostile legislative activities began soon after the 1966 Lakeshore authorization with bills to reduce the park's size. In 1969, Indiana Representative Earl F. Landgrebe, who succeeded Charles Halleck as Second District Congressman, introduced legislation to have a three—unit park composed of 2,000 acres. [44] Landgrebe's action was an effort to appease his many anti—lakeshore constituents. Because both houses of Congress were controlled by the Democratic Party, Landgrebe knew his bill stood little chance of being considered and no chance of being passed. Nonetheless, Landgrebe sent a clear message that the lakeshore's adversaries had not been silenced by President Johnson's November 1966 action, but would remain vocal in their opposition. [45]

Advisory Commission Chairman Thomas E. Dustin accused Landgrebe of "needlessly and wastefully resurrecting old controversies which reasonable men long ago put behind them." Dustin pledged to do all in his power to defeat the initiative which he termed a deauthorization bill. [46] Because the bill continued to languish in committee, Secretary Hickel and Director Hartzog remained silent on it until late 1969, when, in a response to the Save the Dunes Council, Under Secretary Russell Train revealed the Department did not plan to consider it. Train added, "Secretary Hickel stands firmly behind the concept of bringing parks to the people, and will do whatever he can to see the lakeshore completed and opened to the public as rapidly as budgetary constraints will permit." [47]

With the resignation of Secretary Hickel in the fall of 1970, President Nixon appointed his replacement in January 1971: Maryland Representative Rogers C. B. Morton. The Save the Dunes Council and other conservation groups did not welcome Morton's appointment because he had voted against the park's authorization in 1966. There was reason for alarm. In early 1971, Secretary Morton instructed the National Park Service to prepare a justification for the deauthorization of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Assistant Director for Park Management Edward A. Hummel passed the assignment on to Northeast Deputy Regional Director George Palmer,* who dutifully prepared the deauthorization position paper in which he stressed the political consequences of the move. Apparently, park opponents in Beverly Shores had succeeded in influencing friends in the Department to investigate deauthorization. The Indiana Dunes Advisory Commission was not particularly concerned that the effort had much support, but did regard it as a threat because of Department of the Interior involvement in it. The effort proved to be an exercise in paperwork. Political reality soon consigned the deauthorization papers to a file drawer. [48]

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*George Palmer decided against telling J. R. Whitehouse about his distasteful task. Whitehouse recalled, "George... told me at a later date, two years later. If he'd told me then it would have been too much! At that given time, I was having a hard time just surviving the situation." See Whitehouse interview, 11 March 1987.

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Concurrent with the Morton appointment was the revelation that no development funds for Indiana Dunes were listed in the Administration's new budget. Indiana Senator Birch Bayh, a dark horse candidate for president, committed himself to obtaining the funding through negotiating with the Department and Service. Failing that, Bayh pledged to attach a rider to the Interior appropriations bill. [49]

In May 1971, Senator Adlai Stevenson (Democrat—Illinois) asked the Senate subcommittee on Interior appropriations to add $1,440,000 for Indiana Dunes planning and construction. Stevenson stated that since the financial restraints of 1970 had eased, there was no longer any reason not to move ahead with construction activities. [50]

The following month, the House approved $455,000 for planning, thanks to the efforts of Representative Sidney R. Yates (Democrat—Illinois). The action resulted in making the national lakeshore's first development funds available on July 1, 1971. [51] The struggle in obtaining the appropriation proved the effectiveness and vitality of the Save the Dunes Council—led conservation coalition against the administration's "lukewarm attitude."

In a May 1971 Oval Office meeting, President Richard Nixon asked Florida environmentalist Nathaniel P. "Nat" Reed to serve as Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks and preside over the greatest dispersal of conservation monies in the nation's history under the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Nat Reed, who served in Interior until the expiration of President Gerald R. Ford's term in January 1977, credited the evolution of the "lukewarm attitude" to the growing public pressure to expand Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore: "It was sort of a Democratic Park; it was considered a political park. Its creation had been a political decision, not on a resource basis. Secondly, it was hideously expensive real estate to acquire." [52]

In the fall of 1970, President Nixon had been sold on the two Gateway National Recreation Areas in San Francisco and New York City on the condition that these two areas serve as models for the states and that no more Gateway—type units be added to the National Park System. Nixon did not want to trigger the proliferation of national recreation areas and face bankrupting the U.S. Treasury. Nonetheless, fear gripped the Nixon Administration when the horrendously steep appropriations for the two Gateways became a sobering reality concurrent with "new Gateway" proposals being introduced in Congress, including Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio, Chattahoochee River in Georgia, and Santa Monica Mountains in California. This paranoia helped to bolster Nat Reed's own view of Indiana Dunes, that it was not a recreation area and therefore less expensive to develop. Reed believed Indiana Dunes was too fragile to be a recreation area. Recreation development belonged exclusively along the shoreline to be devoted to swimming and only on a limited scale. The remainder of the park, Reed believed, should be disturbed only by foot trails to give visitors a truly "quiet experience." [53]

Collapse of Compromise: The Question of Lakeshore Expansion

The push to change the status quo at Indiana Dunes first came in late June 1971, when the two Senators from Illinois, Adlai E. Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy, introduced a bill to rename the national lakeshore after former Senator Paul H. Douglas. Support in the House came from Sidney R. Yates (Democrat—Illinois).* Congressman Earl Landgrebe denounced the move as "insensitive," adding, "To most residents of the Indiana Dunes area, the name of Paul Douglas represents every effort by Chicago interests to keep us in a state of economic serfdom." [54] Landgrebe called Douglas's fight for the park a "front" to stop construction of the Port of Indiana.** Although not as vehement, bipartisan opposition to the name change formulated. With most Hoosier politicians against the change, Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton stated the long—held policy of not renaming a park, especially after someone still living. [55] The Indiana Dunes Advisory Commission concurred with the position during its July 30, 1971, meeting. [56]

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*Both Percy and Yates were former students of Paul Douglas at the University of Chicago; both men considered Douglas their political mentor. See Whitehouse interview, 11 March 1987.

**Landgrebe was so incensed by the move that he attempted to discredit it by poking fun at it. Selecting the noted native son of Peru, Indiana, Landgrebe introduced a bill suggesting that Congress rename the park "Cole Porter's National Lakeshore." See Whitehouse interview, 11 March 1987.

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Encouraged to act in part by Congressman Landgrebe's ongoing hostility, the Save the Dunes Council published a proposal in April 1971 to expand the national lakeshore. While many perceived the action as a collapse of the compromise achieved in the 1960s, the Save the Dunes Council only sought to recover all of the lands promised in the original, so—called compromise bill. As Landgrebe and his supporters had never reconciled themselves to the lakeshore, neither had the Council reconciled itself to the compromises which omitted key areas from the lakeshore. Following four months of careful study of ecological, geological, and natural features, the Council stood ready on the park's fifth anniversary to ask Congress to include specific open lands and buffers. These additions included dune ridges, interdunal ponds, meadows, and bogs, most of which were covered under the original 1963 compromise bill. Also recommended by the Council were semi—developed lands, including the remainder of Beverly Shores, and scenic river valleys and wetlands. [57]

The Save the Dunes Council devoted intense scrutiny to the three populated "islands" within the national lakeshore's boundaries: Dune Acres/Porter Beach, Ogden Dunes, and Beverly Shores. It decided to endorse inclusion of the "Beverly Shores Island" over the other two for a number of reasons. Primarily because Beverly Shores had a lower population density per acre and had clearly outstanding natural values, the Council believed its inclusion could be justified before Congress more easily. Population density differed from town to town. Because three-quarters of the developed portion of Dune Acres was in its northeast quadrant, the "empty" three segments were targeted for inclusion. On the other hand, Beverly Shores' population was scattered throughout its limits and no significant area could be acquired without claiming private homes. The boundaries of the Island were drawn in 1963 by a member of the House Interior Committee concerned with cost—cutting. With its relatively small impacted areas, structures could be removed in order to restore the landscape. Strategically placed in the East Unit, the Beverly Shores Island was larger than the nearby Indiana Dunes State Park. [58]

The resumption of the port versus park controversy came on July 29, 1971, when Congressman J. Edward Roush (Democrat—Indiana) introduced H.R. 10209 with thirteen cosponsors. The bill provided for an additional 7,023 acres which effectively doubled the size of the 1966 park. Emulating Paul Douglas, Roush led a walk through the dunes to publicize his bill. Securing a special use permit from J. R. Whitehouse, the Roush party, which included other congressmen, hiked through the proposed additions on August 28 and camped in the dunes overnight. Shortly afterwards, in the Senate, Vance Hartke and Birch Bayh introduced S. 2380, a companion to Roush's bill. [59]

Principal opponents of the expansion plans were Landgrebe, Indiana Republican Governor Edgar Whitcomb, the Indiana Great Lakes Commission, and Bethlehem Steel. They vigorously denounced the proposed additions which encompassed the Port of Indiana, Bethlehem and National Steel plants, and the NIPSCO power plant thereby negating any future expansion. [60] Locally, a "National Park Limits Committee" formed to fight lakeshore expansion.

The highly—charged atmosphere was potentially explosive for Superintendent Whitehouse and his staff. Roush invited Whitehouse to attend an October 25, 1971, public meeting at the Red Lantern Inn to discuss inclusion of the Beverly Shores "Island" in the expansion bill. Adopting the same strategy of Northeast Regional Director Chester Brooks during a meeting with the National Park Limits Committee, Whitehouse expressed no position on the bill. He explained that until Congress requested the National Park Service's position through Secretary Morton, he could offer no opinion on the matter. [61]