Indiana Dunes A Signature of Time and Eternity: The Administrative History of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana

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If they don't let us have the park I will fight them to the death on the harbor appropriation.

Senator Paul H. Douglas, quoted by the New York Times, March 11, 1962. [1]

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Three Years of Struggle, 1960-1962

A key element in the port versus park battle involved a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report commissioned in 1960 to study Indiana's proposed deep-water port at Burns Ditch. The artificial channel, built by a contractor named Burns who was commissioned in 1926, drained the marshlands of the upper valley of the Little Calumet River for development as well as reduced the threat of flooding. For three decades, although not supporting the appropriation of public funds, a series of Corps studies evaluated the Burns Ditch site.

Realizing what the outcome of the 1960 report would likely be, the National Park Service presented its position on the proposed harbor to the Corps in January 1960. The proposed park included the few remnants of untouched beaches, dunes, and marshes in the region with exceptional natural scenic values with great accessibility to a metropolitan population in excess of six million people. Therefore, by leveling a mile of tree-covered dunes and "the finest sand beach on the Great Lakes," only four miles of lakeshore would remain. After the port was built, further industrial development and its resulting pollutants would ensue to make beach activities unsafe along the entire lakeshore, including the popular Dunes State Park. [2]

To no one's surprise, the October 1960 Corps report concluded that the mouth of Burns Ditch was the ideal location for the Indiana port and recommended that Congress appropriate the funds. The report called for dredging the lake approach channel to a depth of thirty feet and the outer harbor to twenty-seven feet. With breakwaters and shoreline facilities, the total cost came to $34,500,000. [3] The Corps set the benefit-cost ratio at 5.66 to 1.

When the report arrived for approval at the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors in Washington, D.C., Senator Douglas was ready. He asked why no other alternate sites were evaluated and why the public interest in parkland was not addressed. Until these questions were addressed, Douglas successfully urged the Board to return the report to the Chicago office.

Douglas' move deeply angered Indiana politicians who had boasted that the report's approval would be routine. An aide to Governor-Elect Matthew E. Welsh urged Welsh to "get to the bottom of it." He warned:

It appears to me that the entire project is in jeopardy and the situation is serious. Normally, the Corps of Engineers is considered immune to political pressures but in this instance it would appear from the known facts that Senator Douglas was able to exert considerable influence in securing this latest action by the Corps. [4]

An important ally of Douglas was Save the Dunes Council member Herbert Read, son of artist and Council publicity director Philo B. Read. Read, a dunes advocate who worked for a Chicago architectural firm, became chairman of the Council's Engineering Committee after educating himself on harbors through reading a borrowed technical manual. The self-taught "harbor expert" was able to decipher the Corps of Engineers' formula for calculating benefit-cost ratios. The Engineering Committee demonstrated the Council's resolve to take the offensive. Ogden Dunes resident George Anderson, a railroad research engineer, assisted Read in identifying various harbor alternatives and technical report errors. Chaneling the information to Senator Paul Douglas, the result saw the Corps agree to a series of restudies. [5]

Interestingly enough, pre-1949 Corps of Engineers' evaluations recommended against a Federally-funded Indiana harbor. As early as 1930, the Corps reported:

The harbor, if constructed, will be entirely surrounded by the plant of the Midwest Steel Corporation, which would make its use by the general public impracticable. The District Engineer recommends that no work be done by the United States at that harbor until it can be shown conclusively that it is of direct benefit to the general public. [6]

Political agitation from Indiana forced another report in 1935 which garnered the same result. The district engineer found the commerce projections "highly speculative" and that the "existing facilities are adequate to supply demand for some years to come." [7] Yet another restudy in 1937 resulted in a report issued in 1943 with an identical conclusion. The Corps recommended that "selection of the site for such an improvement should be based on a comprehensive review of the whole available frontage rather than the consideration of the site of Burns Ditch alone." The report concluded, however, that an evaluation of Indiana's shoreline was unmerited because there was no proof that a deepwater port was needed. [8]

In 1960, for the third consecutive year, the Secretary's Advisory Board recommended Indiana Dunes as a new unit of the National Park System. Life magazine sympathetically displayed a photographic essay in the context of nature against industry. Revealing the destruction of Midwest Steel and NIPSCO bulldozers, one caption warned, "Over the dunes hangs the smoky specter of steel." [9]

Nineteen sixty-one, the first year of President John F. Kennedy's administration and the Eighty-seventh Congress, was the first year in which more than one Indiana Dunes bill was introduced. In the first sign of compromise, Indiana Senator Vance Hartke introduced S. 2317 which provided for both port and park. Paul Douglas submitted S. 1797 which provided for an "Indiana Dunes National Scientific Landmark" of 5,000 acres which he subsequently amended to 9,000 acres. In the House, H.R. 6544 provided for an Indiana Dunes National Monument. Park Service comments, however, favored adopting the language of S. 1797 because the Secretary could lease the lands to the State of Indiana to preserve and manage. The National Scientific Landmark could be administered in conjunction with the Dunes State Park. The bill was designed to allay Indiana's concerns about Federal appropriation of the land. Protection of the leased land could be assured by careful monitoring of State management and protection. [10]

Douglas coaxed Alan Bible, Chairman of the Parks Subcommittee of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, to accompany him and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall to the dunes to see the proposed park firsthand. On July 23, 1961, Douglas, Bible, and Udall arrived before the Bethlehem Steel property accompanied by an impressive entourage: Director Conrad Wirth; Chicago Mayor Richard Daley; the mayors of Gary, East Chicago, Hammond, and Whiting; and Dorothy Buell. After enjoying a day of hiking and interpretive talks sponsored by the Save the Dunes Council, the participants were converted to the park cause. [11]

In a widely publicized interview, Secretary Udall affirmed his desire to preserve the dunes as a national park and urged prompt Congressional action: "It is my hope that we might preserve as large an area of national significance, not only to serve Chicago or Indiana, but to serve the whole country and future generations as well." To Paul Douglas, Udall asserted, "We ought to make a last ditch fight to save the dunes as a national park. Our great National Park System has no major unit in the midwestern heartland; your people need something above all. I hope that we can take a walk through the dunes again soon, and that it then will be a great national park." [12]

A Congressional authorization in the summer of 1961 for Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts (44,600 acres with forty miles of seashore), provided added support to the dunes park fight. Not since Cape Hatteras in 1937 had a seashore entered the National Park System. More importantly, Cape Cod represented a radical change in the Federal Government's land acquisition policy. For the first time Congress approved significant park enabling legislation which included the right to use Federal money to purchase natural park land. The old "beg, borrow, or steal system"—where new park land had to be either already Federally-owned or donated to the government—was gone forever. [13]

Before the Senate hearings on S. 1797 began in February 1962, the newly-established Indiana Port Commission (IPC) issued a critical statement on the bill charging Douglas with trying to kill all port planning and sabotage Indiana's economic development. In effect, the IPC declared, the Federal park would encompass and strangle the state's own popular park. The IPC further accused Douglas and his park proponents of spreading malicious propaganda, a "vicious campaign" of heralding a "tourist mecca" to prevent the public port under the "guise of conservation." Down-playing the tourist potential of the Federal park, IPC cited Secretary Udall's own words: "There will be very little public recreational development. It will, rather, be a preservation of the natural state of the dunes land area. The National Park System is not in the bathing beach business." [14]

The IPC as well as other park opponents painted a sinister picture of the dune savers' coalition and refused to recognize it for what it was. Rather, they saw the national park movement as a smoke screen; the real objective of Douglas and his cohorts in opposing Porter County's harbor could only be to protect Chicago's port traffic. When IPC met with the Chicago port authorities and discovered no insurmountable problems, it naively believed the save the dunes movement would dissolve. When it did not, IPC and other port proponents believed the Lake County steel companies were the real powers behind the conservation effort. To confirm this position, they pointed at Herbert Read's active promotion of the "Tri-City Harbor" proposal in Lake County which had the support of the mayors of Hammond, Whiting, and East Chicago. It promised to become the "Quad-City Harbor" with the endorsement of Gary's mayor who advocated the extension of the breakwater to serve his city. When Lake County state legislators succeeded in Indianapolis in defeating an appropriation for the Porter County harbor, park opponents were doubly convinced Herbert Read was on U.S. Steel's payroll.

Gradually, port proponents used incentives to "neutralize" the Quad-City Harbor boosters. Establishment of a Lake County crime commission purged others, including the mayor of Gary. With the Lake County alternative fading, Herbert Read and George Anderson focused on a proposal to limit facilities to the east arm of Burns Ditch, thereby preserving the dunes along the lakeshore. [15]

The February 1962 hearings evolved into a heated debate on the proposed Burns Ditch port. Proponents cited the revised January 1962 Corps of Engineers report which recommended Burns Harbor. Opponents featured a recommendation of President Kennedy's Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission calling for the preservation of shoreline areas near urban centers. The Department and Service's report was again pro-park, calling for the maximum acreage possible and asking for a National Lakeshore or National Seashore designation. The cost estimate for the roughly 9,000 acres was $8 million. [16]

In early March, President John F. Kennedy took a stand on Indiana Dunes in an important New Frontier speech on conservation. Kennedy outlined a program to link the nation's economic vitality to a movement for conservation of the natural environment. He recommended the establishment of additional national parks, monuments, and seashores and called for the authorization of park units at "Point Reyes (California), Great Basin (Nevada), Sleeping Bear Dunes (Michigan), Ozark Rivers (Missouri), Prairie Lands (Kansas), Lakeshore Dunes (Indiana), and Sagamore Hill (New York)." In a speech before the National Wildlife Federation, Secretary Udall hailed the president's message as "but one highlight of the greatest decades in the conservation history of the United States." [17]

On March 23, 1962, the Corps of Engineers approved the report endorsing Burns Ditch Harbor. The State of Indiana immediately concurred and anxiously awaited the expected approval from the Bureau of the Budget.

On the heels of President Kennedy's speech, however, Senator Douglas did not believe Kennedy's subordinates would approve the harbor before Congress decided on the park. While Douglas openly criticized the flaws in the Corps' report, Governor Matthew Welsh's administrative aide, Clinton Green, who was also the Secretary-Treasurer of the Indiana Port Commission, went to Washington, D.C., for one week to lobby for the harbor. In a discussion Green arranged between his boss and Secretary of the Interior Udall, Udall accepted the idea of a harbor in the proposed park area. [18]

While the park appeared for the first time on the administration's priority list, the port also enjoyed White House support. Indiana had a Democrat in the governor's mansion pledged to securing a public port, and the minority leader in the House of Representatives, Charles A. Halleck (Republican-Indiana), had most of the lakeshore area in his district and had launched his political career decades previously based on securing a public harbor for Indiana. Like most Hoosier politicians, Halleck was a self-declared enemy of the proposed park. On March 30, the Indiana Port Commission gleefully declared that Bethlehem Steel contracted for the removal of more than two million cubic yards of sand for use in a landfill at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The activity marked the first step in Bethlehem Steel's plans to break into the Chicago steel market by building a new $250 million facility, a move officially unveiled on December 2, 1962. [19]

Fearing that the industrial-political coalition might succeed in decimating the Central Dunes, Senator Douglas vowed to oppose appropriations for Burns Harbor until the park became a reality. [20] At this point, Douglas knew the Kennedy White House wanted the port more than the park. He observed that the President's advisors exhibited typical Eastern arrogance in that they considered nothing in the Midwest worthy of preservation.

Douglas' suspicions proved correct when he learned in early October 1962 that President John F. Kennedy had approved the Bureau of the Budget's inclusion of Burns Harbor in the 1962 Public Works Bill. Paul Douglas immediately went to the White House to speak to President Kennedy. He shared with the President his well-worn photographs of the dunes, comparing the area's beauty and uniqueness to that of Kennedy's own beloved Cape Cod National Seashore. Douglas seized the opportunity to raise doubts about the validity of the fluctuating cost-benefit projections contained in the Corps of Engineers report, which had been revised from 5.66 to 1 in 1960 to 1.47 to 1 in 1962.* He argued that the issue transcended politics. The dunes had to be preserved at all costs.

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*The errors were uncovered by Herbert Read and George Anderson of the Save the Dunes Council's Engineering Committee. When first informed of the Corps report which initially caused President Kennedy to sanction the Burns Ditch Harbor project, Read knew the report contained errors without even having read it. This perception was based on prior experience with Corps reports. When called to the capital the following day, Read and Anderson took the evening train and dissected the report, making copious notes. Before a meeting in Douglas' office where White House and Bureau of the Budget representatives, Corps of Engineers generals, the Secretary of the Army, and members of the Indiana Congressional Delegation were present, the two private citizens recounted a list of errors, including double-counting benefits. See Herbert Read, Engineering Chairman, Save the Dunes Council, Inc., interview transcript, 22 September 1987, Bailly Ranger Station, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Porter, Indiana.

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The meeting with Kennedy resulted in the President rescinding his approval of the port project. Additionally, he instructed the Bureau of the Budget to re-evaluate the economic potential of the harbor as well as to seek an avenue of compromise to establish both a port and a park. [21] On October 3, 1962, an emergency meeting took place in Senator Douglas' office with Bureau of the Budget (BOB) and Corps of Engineers officials listening to a recitation of errors contained in the Corps' Burns Harbor report. Such in-depth analysis to dispute the Corps' findings was a shockingly unprecedented act. The result saw BOB reject the port proposal. [22] The elimination of the port from the administration's agenda outraged port proponents who universally denounced Douglas' interference. New battle lines were drawn in early 1963 as the highly charged port versus park struggle entered a new stage.

The Kennedy Compromise, 1963-1964

While bulldozers were leveling the middle of the Central Dunes in order to build the new Bethlehem Steel plant, Senator Douglas introduced yet another park bill—S. 650—to save the remainder of the dunes. Boundaries were adjusted to include unsold tracts in Dune Acres as well as land west of Ogden Dunes owned by Inland Steel. For the fourth time the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments recommended that the area be preserved through the establishment of a national park. [23]

The Park Service's and Department's position on the Douglas bill remained the same, but Acting Director Hillory A. Tollson interjected a warning:

We feel that, unless action is taken soon to protect and preserve this nationally significant resource for the enjoyment of future generations, it will be gradually, but surely, denuded and destroyed. Pressures to devote this area to development or uses that are inconsistent with the preservation objectives of S. 650 will continue to increase. [24]

Douglas privately felt the National Park Service was no longer as staunchly committed to the proposed park now that the largest unspoiled area outside the Dunes State Park was gone. While he had the tacit support of the administration, Douglas repeatedly encountered only lukewarm Interior Department approval. He believed this new attitude was dune in large part to tremendous political pressures as well as to the fear of harmful pollutants from the increasing number of area blast furnaces. Douglas later wrote disdainfully of the Service (by referring to it incorrectly) and its Director: "The Eisenhower-appointed head of the Bureau of Parks, Conrad Wirth,* who had endorsed the Dunes proposal, reversed himself in public before the opposition of Capehart and his merry men. He is regarded as a great conservationist." [25]

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*No documentation was found to substantiate Senator Douglas' assertion. A solicitation to former Director Conrad L. Wirth to discover Wirth's position was made via correspondence. No response, however, was received. Also, Wirth was appointed during the Administration of President Harry S Truman.

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In a repeat of the October 3, 1962, emergency meeting in Senator Douglas' Washington office, officials of the Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of the Budget met with Douglas and Save the Dunes Council Members Herbert Read and George Anderson on June 28, 1963. The Council members detailed three alternatives for Burns Ditch Harbor designed to save the shoreline dunes of the Bethlehem Steel tract, also known as "Unit 192." This meeting led to a Save the Dunes Council-led tour of the area for Senator Douglas and George B. Hartzog, Jr., Associate Director of the National Park Service. [26]

In August 1963, a Park Service report identified new areas to replace that lost to the steel mill. The report, compiled by an inter-disciplinary team from the Washington Office and Northeast (formerly called Region V from 1955 to 1962) Regional Office, excluded both the Bethlehem Steel and Burns Ditch Harbor areas from consideration, but did target areas to the immediate south for inclusion in the park. The report identified a national lakeshore composed of four distinct units with a combined shoreline total of eight and three-quarters miles. [27]

In yet another high-level meeting in Senator Douglas' office with the same cast of players on September 5, 1963, the Corps of Engineers responded to the three harbor alternatives proposed by the Save the Dunes Council. Ominously, despite Douglas, Read, and Anderson's best arguments, the Bureau of the Budget (BOB) concurred with the overall Corps position. The proposals were "not acceptable to local interests," i.e., the two steel companies. In a last-ditch effort, the Council appealed to Bethlehem Steel officials themselves. Although the corporation agreed that the alternatives for preserving the lakeshore dunes were feasible, it had already made up its corporate mind. [28]

In September 1963, BOB completed its study as requested by President Kennedy. The so-called "Kennedy Compromise" ensued. BOB recommended the establishment of an 11,700-acre national lakeshore. Under BOB direction, the Corps of Engineers report included alternate port sites, but for the recommended Burns Ditch Harbor site, the Corps listed reservations in accordance with the Save the Dunes Council view. Before Federal money could be expended, environmental and economic considerations had to be satisfied.* The "Kennedy Compromise Bill," drafted by the National Park Service, provided for an Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in accordance with the August 1963, Park Service report. In a conference call to the Save the Dunes Council, Douglas recommended acceptance of the compromise even though the Central Dunes would be lost. To continue the fight, Douglas believed, would extend the deadlock indefinitely and then no duneland would be left to save. After much agonizing, the Council concurred.

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*In retrospect, most of the Save the Dunes Council's projections for the harbor proved to be more accurate than the Corps' position. As for the stipulated BOB conditions that had to be satisfied before Federal appropriations were justified, according to the Council, most of these were never met. See Herbert Read to Ron Cockrell, letter, 26 March 1988, Cultural Resources Management files, Midwest Regional Office.

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On October 21, Senator Henry M. Jackson, Chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, introduced S. 2249 on behalf of Paul H. Douglas, Clinton P. Anderson, Vance Hartke, Birch Bayh, and a score of other cosponsors. The support of both Indiana Senators Bayh and Hartke was a heartening testimonial to the spirit of compromise. In the House, Rep. Morris Udall of Arizona introduced a similar bill, H.R. 8927, which was cosponsored by, among others, Rep. J. Edward Roush of Fort Wayne, Indiana. [29]

Despite the hopeful outlook engendered by the compromise, swift Congressional action was not to be. With the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas the following month, the transition to the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the frenzied enactment of many of the New Frontier programs kept the Congress from considering the dunes park bills. Hearings were held in the Senate Public Lands Subcommittee from March 5 to 7, 1964. Approximately fifty witnesses testified. It became apparent on the first day of hearings that not all of Indiana's Congressional Delegation was willing to ride on the bandwagon of compromise.

The stalwart leader of the opposition was Representative Charles A. Halleck. Halleck recounted the effort since 1935 to secure a public port to "open Indiana as a gateway of the greatest agricultural and industrial area" in the nation. Halleck objected to surrounding the port and steel mills with parkland because it would destroy the area's economic potential, thereby depriving his constituents of thousands of jobs. He cited the overwhelming local opposition to the Federal Government preserving the dunes when the State of Indiana had already incorporated a prime dunes tract into the State Park System—a unit which Halleck affirmed Indiana would never give away. He criticized the National Park Service for advocating the inclusion of land which did not even feature dunes. As for Park Service plans to establish nature trails near the industrial zones, Halleck scoffed, "I can't conceive of anyone even walking across the street to explore some of those parcels." [30]

A spokesman from the Gary Chamber of Commerce expressed his displeasure over the wide expanse of the park. [31] A resolution from the Porter County Board of Commissioners stated unalterable opposition to any Federal park in northern Porter County. [32] Another resolution from the town board of Beverly Shores also expressed opposition as did the Beverly Shores Citizens Commission which questioned the apparent discrimination in excluding "wealthy and powerful" Ogden Dunes and Dune Acres from the park. [33] Other Beverly Shores representatives asked the committee to either include all of the town within the national lakeshore or compensate the town for the loss of sixty percent of its tax base. [34]

Donald E. Foltz, Director of the Indiana Department of Conservation, testified that his organization favored the national lakeshore's authorization. Foltz reported Indiana parks were overused, that no new public lands had been acquired since the Depression, and the state's population had doubled since 1945. While he could not agree to relinquishing all or part of the Indiana Dunes State Park, he could support "a cooperative management arrangement" in the area. [35]

The testimony of Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall was decidedly favorable. Secretary Udall declared that to his knowledge the twenty-six Senators cosponsoring S. 2249 were the largest number of patrons for the establishment of any unit in the history of the National Park System. Udall recognized the national support base for the preservation of the dunes. He expressed disappointment in the preceding negative testimony in light of the best efforts initiated by John F. Kennedy in early 1963 to secure a compromise. Udall praised the committee for approving Point Reyes National Seashore on the Pacific Coast, Cape Cod National Seashore on the Atlantic Coast, and for considering the pending Fire Island National Seashore in New York. The Secretary pointed out that Mid-America was also a prime area for a national park unit in the form of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. [36]

Augmenting Secretary Udall's testimony was Allen T. Edmunds, Assistant to the Regional Director of the Northeast Region and "father" of the Great Lakes Survey. Edmunds outlined for the committee with maps and illustrations the proposed boundaries. When asked about the problems of administering a disjointed park, Edmunds assured the committee that the inherent difficulties would not be insurmountable. [37]

The highlight of the hearings was the well-delivered plea of Senator Paul Douglas. Calling the establishment of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore the "most important conservation issue before the nation," Douglas lauded the efforts of the Save the Dunes Council: "This is undoubtedly one of the most public spirited, courageous, and self-sacrificing volunteer groups in the nation." [38] Among the organized supporters of the national lakeshore, Douglas recognized the Izaak Walton League, Wildlife Management Institute, Sport Fishing Institute, National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, National Council of State Garden Clubs, Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, National Parks and Conservation Association, Citizens Committee for Natural Resources, American Planning and Civic Association, and Garden Clubs of America. Alongside the scientific community stood northern Indiana and Illinois blue collar workers represented by key labor unions: United Steelworkers of America and the United Auto Workers. [39]

Douglas condemned the proposed Federal harbor as infeasible and an unfair subsidy of the steel companies which were conspiring to block the creation of a national park. He outlined the Kennedy Compromise providing for both port and park. He warned the committee, "[Do] not lose sight of the fact that this compromise plan gave up to the bulldozers the most beautiful section of the Indiana Dunes. The loss is tragic. No words and no amount of profit to anyone can possibly justify the inability or failure of our society and Government to preserve the irreplaceable 'Unit 2' section of the park." [40]

Dorothy Buell added her own statement to that of Paul Douglas. Praising Douglas' commitment in contrast to the shunning of the dunes by Indiana politicians, Buell presented stacks of petitions demonstrating the widespread popularity of the proposed national lakeshore. [41]

In August 1964, the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee reported S. 2249 favorably and it passed the Senate on September 29, 1964. With the 88th Congress facing its closing months, the conservationists remained hopeful as Representative J. Edward Roush presented a companion bill, H.R. 12096, in July 1964. They were realistic, however, faced by the powerful coalition of park opponents led by the uncompromising Charles A. Halleck and Inland Steel. [42]