The Marquette Trail from the Paul H. Douglas Center to West Beach is closed March 19 through the year's end. There will be no public access through this stretch during this time. The closure is needed to modernize the trail by raising it and paving it. More
The following stories represent and celebrate the women of Duneland who exhibited extraordinary resilience through times of change. (Tap on names or photos below to read full biographies)
In 1915, Alice Gray’s extraordinary life took a twist when she shunned the conventional world to live along Indiana’s wild shore. As Diana of the Dunes, she spent nearly a decade among the sands in makeshift lakeshore shacks before her untimely death near today’s West Beach; she seeked solitude, advocated for dunes conservation and left an eternal imprint in the sands.
A persistent advocate for natural land preservation and an expert botanist in her own right. Known as the preeminent “Plant Detective” in the region, for over three decades this field biologist has lent her prowess in plant identification, giving engaging nature walks and workshops, and an invaluable helping hand to Indiana Dunes' park staff.
An early staunch advocate of the first “Save the Dunes” movement of the 1910s, was a prominent, proactive clubwoman who felt a moral duty and responsibility to transform society. She pivoted conservation pressure to the state, rallied women’s clubs, and led the critically urgent campaign to the successful protection of Indiana’s duneland as a state park; decades later she helped established Indiana Dunes National (Lakeshore) Park.
A reverent guardian of public trust, who wholeheartedly committed herself to saving the Indiana Dunes from trickling to cascading threats. Always equipped with the facts and intensely credible, helped establish a national park in the Dunes in 1966.
Inspired by women’s success to conserve a state park and motivated by looming industrialization, the dignified Dorothy Buell rallied public support and was instrumental in the battle to establish a national park in the Indiana Dunes. With her enthusiasm, wit, and tireless energy, she established and directed the Save the Dunes Council where she courageously led citizens insistent on stopping the despoiling of remaining unprotected habitat in Duneland.
Drusilla Carr was an unwavering early woman of Miller’s lakeshore who settled in 1872 and through squatter’s rights owned today’s Marquette Park and part of Miller Woods when it was regarded as unfarmable waste sands. In 1908, shortly after Gary’s construction, she began her over two-decade battle against descendants of old claims and a steel giant’s desire for expansion to defend the scenes of her youth and her legal claim to what became invaluable beachfront property.
Emma Bickham Pitcher was a skilled educator who excelled at bridging the information gap between the national park’s science division and an eager public. She was a highly respected amateur naturalist who carefully studied the subtle intricacies of local habitats and enthusiastically relayed them through informative lectures, guided walks, and wonderfully engaging nature-writing.
A liberated woman and early dunes preservationist, Flora Richardson settled in the rich coastal hills north of Cowles Bog with her husband William in 1910. For 50 years she cultivated her passion for natural history which she passed on through her last will which created the Flora Richardson Foundation, saving her and her husband’s Duneland treasure trove of books and photographs and protecting over 100 acres of flatwoods in LaPorte County.
Born along the St. Lawrence River, determined Harriet Colfax found herself far upstream along the treacherous coast of Southern Lake Michigan after moving to a young Michigan City in 1853. For 43 careful years she watched the rough frontier city blossom to a Duneland metropolis; she fearlessly maintained the harbor beacon as lighthouse keeper while enduring the ensuing hardships with her lifelong companion Ann Hartwell.
From 1967-1976, Irene Herlocker-Meyer personally led one of the state’s most politically difficult preservation battles and saved what many consider Indiana’s highest quality prairie remnant, today’s Hoosier Prairie Nature Preserve.
People have lived around the south shores of Lake Michigan for over ten thousand years. While this landscape hosts millennia of stories and experiences, traditional recordings of history have minimized the impact and contributions women have had on Indiana Dunes National Park and the region.
Emily Taft Douglas wrote:
In the vast span of human development it has been only a moment since women emerged from social, economic, and political dependence, and yet some trends are clear. Even before they gained suffrage, they made unique contributions by using their new opportunities to further their old concerns. They showed genius in humanizing brutal institutions and in helping the weak.”
The stories highlighted here begin at the cusp of a changing world. European influences and American interests in Indigenous lands led to forced removal of Native peoples and an upending of traditional ways of life. Marie Bailly and her family navigated this shifting world at the Homestead on the Little Calumet River.
As the decades passed, women gradually gained educational, economic, legal, and political rights that they had not known before. Throughout the 20th century, women fought for the protection of Indiana’s natural coastline. Women’s efforts were critical in establishing Indiana Dunes State and National Parks.
While many of these women’s stories break the mold, similarities and patterns exist amongst them. Many of these women could have been considered radical in their days, pushing social boundaries of what was considered acceptable to do. Determination, resilience, and deep ties to the Indiana Dunes echo in each. Each woman poured unwavering devotion through adversity towards a remarkable cause. Many simultaneously supported families. All are incredible.
The “Badass Women of the Dunes” idea began with the national park’s former Chief of Education, Kimberly Swift. Her Women’s History Month-inspired webinar’s success led to a number of popular bus tours and programs celebrating women of the region. The purpose of Wonder Women of the Dunes is to increase the visibility of women’s stories and their indivisible connection and contribution to this landscape as well as to serve as inspiration for the next generation of empowered women. This project was researched and written by Joseph Gruzalski and was funded by the National Park Foundation. It is dedicated to women everywhere.
