An Early Trip to the Central Dunes

"...for days we are cheered by visions of yellow and blue as we shake lurking sand grains from our shoes and clothes; clean, clear sand that every human being loves." - Louella Chapin

 

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02249, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

The lakefront at Dune Park, Indiana; taken by Ira Benton Meyers in 1904.

Let Louella Chapin take you on a trip to Dune Park in 1907. This area, also known as the Central Dunes, was regarded as the heart of Indiana's duneland. Today, much of it is occupied by the Port of Indiana.

Little is known about the life of Louella, especially her early years. By 1881, she had graduated West Division High School in Chicago. In 1888, she earned her Bachelors of Philosophy from the University of Michigan. In 1898, she received her Masters of Science from the University of Chicago in geology.

She was likely introduced to the Indiana Dunes from her acquaintances at the University of Chicago. In 1914 she was elected as an officer in Professor Henry Cowles' Geographic Society of Chicago, an early support group of the national park movement with ties to Jens Jensen's Prairie Club of Chicago.


In the 1920s and 1930s, Louella was very active in women's clubs of Chicago, focusing on social reform like access to parks and addressing child hunger.

Enjoy this a passage from her 1907 book entitled Round About Chicago, where she describes a trip from the City of Chicago to Dune Park, Indiana:

 

Round About Chicago

By Louella Chapin, 1907

 

A steam shovel loads rail cars with sand from the Indiana Dunes. George Damon Fuller, 1915.

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02282, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Dune Park

We are hungry for sand and we are watching the weather. When the rain storm has passed and the north winds are blowing at its back, there will come our glorious blue days, and then we are going to Dune Park. We must wear our shortest skirts and our highest boots, and take a traveler's lunch, light, but satisfying and plentiful, for we start at six and return at eight. And we must have the company of good friends, for it is to be a day in a complete wilderness.

At Dune Park the train sets us down among box cars, loaded from the dunes themselves, for even they are marketable. The station keeper's gaze follows us wonderingly as we move off through the woods toward the steep lee slopes of sun-burned sand. Chicago's youthful spirit of hurry is with us yet, and we pant upward.

But on reaching the top all out of breath, we pause to reflect that there is nothing to do and the livelong day to do it in, and so we sit down to rest in the sweep of the wind, while the children, wild with delight, run screaming down with giant strides, and then struggle up the slipping sand again.

 

White pine graveyard at Dune Park, Indiana. Ira Benton Meyers, undated.

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02248, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Over the crest of the dune we are lost in a waste of sunlit yellow billows and shadowy green troughs, sombered here and there by what was once a pine forest, standing stark and bare as it emerges from its long burial in the devouring sand, the polished trunks still erect and unyielding ; ghostly skeletons of proud forest kings.

I push eagerly on, for at the top of an especially high wave I shall find what I came for, the wonderful clear color panorama of the blue water of the lake, the tawny hills of sand, and the blue sky over all. There may be white caps on the lake and white clouds in the sky. Other color there is none. The blue is so intense and vivid by its very purity it grasps you and lifts you up, out of yourself.

I have taken artist friends to see, but in vain. They do not paint it; they do not seem to see it.

They want "atmosphere" where there is nothing but pure clear air, and they give me curious gray-green things when I want tawny yellow and brilliant blue. Vereshchagin has painted such things right. I do not know who else has. My artist friends have not. I am resolved to do it myself some day, though I know not brush or colors. It will be poster style, just blue and yellow splashes, but it will be truer than theirs.

 

Early, undated photograph by Ida Benton Meyers (d. 1915).

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02434, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

I always stop here and let the picture sink through my eyes into my brain. Some tired day next winter when the child-garden seems chiefly weeds and nettles, this pure, cool, lovely landscape will come to me, and the fresh clean wind will blow courage into my soul.

The beach invites our thirsty company. A little well is dug just at the water's edge and each dry throat is satisfied. Then the big boy and his chums suddenly disappear behind a distant dune to do the thing that any proper man would rather do than eat, take a swim. Instantly we are barefooted and running in the other direction along the hard smooth beach just on the wet side of the wave marks. Far we go, scaring a leggy little sandpiper nearly to death, and then we throw ourselves down in the shadow of a hill to burrow in the warm sand and watch the queer little sand-spiders burrowing too. When the boys appear around the curve we decorously return. Quickly the lunch is out and consumed, except what is prudently withheld for supper-time.

In the autumn, the tangles of wild grape-vines among the dunes will be heavy with spicy flavor. You will eat the grapes to your heart's content, and you will carry back your pails and baskets full, for all the aroma of this beautiful day will be in each glass of the jelly that Mother will make.

In the hollow behind the highest dune the bitter-sweet grows. The place is hard to reach, but the big boy and the o. m. can get to it and it is worth the effort, for we could never start in on a winter without bitter-sweet. Its berries will open in the cozy warmth of the autumn fires and disclose the precious coral ball in its golden saucer.

 

A dune advances over a wetland in Dune Park; Edward W. Martyn, 1897.

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02474, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Back where the sand does not obey the wind so well, there are rush-bordered sloughs between the dunes that invite one at any season. In July the water in the middle is starred with pond-lilies, and in grape time you can gather exquisite blue fringed gentians around the edges. I worked very hard in a child-garden in a thickly crowded part of the city one warm summer. Perhaps the only thing I did worth while was to take flowers and give them to the children; pansies and sweet-peas and field lilies and daisies. I shall never forget the look of hushed awe and reverence when I distributed water-lilies and the tenderness with which the children carried them away. Sedor begged for two he told me why. He was never bad after that.

It seemed a garden in the mire. But the lilies gave me hope. ''Beautiful lives have sprung up in the darkest places, as pure white lilies full of fragrance have blossomed on stagnant waters." Ah! I know whereof I speak. Out of what seemed hopelessly dark, noisome pools, have grown some of the whitest, purest lilies of my child-garden.

 

Pink lady slipper orchid in the Indiana Dunes; by George Damon Fuller, 1915.

University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf8-02339, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Still farther back from the lake are undrained swamps on whose edges you may find fairy lady-slippers, and in the clear black water, uncanny sun-dews and fat pitcher-plants digesting their insect dinners.

One spring day when we ranged the dunes with our botanist friend, we found almost under the clumps of blue-berried juniper, the trailing arbutus, and in one little spot he reverently showed us Linnaea, the low fragrant arctic flower which the great Swedish botanist chose to bear his name.

We must turn our faces back toward the railroad early, for once out of sight of the lake it is easy to lose one's way and we may have a long walk to the station. To miss the train would mean to spend the night in Dune Park goodness knows how. We are going to camp for a week in the dunes, but until then we do not wish night to overtake us there.

Laden with whatever harmless booty the season yields, sunburned and weary of foot, we take the train for our long ride home.

As we walk through the streets to our trolley car, we see many a dull eye brighten, and many a hard face soften into a smile at the sight of our load.

We are better in body and in soul, as we come trailing some little clouds of glory back to our home in the breeze-swept city by the lake. We sleep long and well, and for days we are cheered by visions of yellow and blue as we shake lurking sand grains from our shoes and our clothes; clean, clear sand that every human being loves.