Engaging with the Environment

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.

Visionary Lee Botts grew up in the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma, destined to be a chief defender of clean water and inspiring environmentalist. After moving to Chicago in 1949, she marveled at the region’s freshwater resources and the Indiana Dunes quickly became a favorite family haunt. She joined efforts to save the unprotected dunes in 1959, seeing creation of a park in 1966 and launching her lifelong career into environmental policy and education.

Sylvia Troy was a resounding voice in securing the Indiana Dunes National Park’s first expansion bill, and vehemently protected the Dunes from further development, while leading the Save the Dunes Council at a critical time in the park’s infancy.

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.

Madison Grant was a key figure in the history of the National Park Service. He supported environmental conservation and worked to protect plant and animal species like redwood trees and the American bison. But he is also remembered for his support of eugenics. His 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race spread racist ideas that Grant claimed were scientific. Policymakers used Grant's ideas to restrict immigration and to control people's ability to have children.

MaVynee Oshun Betsch, better known as the “Beach Lady,” was an environmental activist. She worked to preserve and protect a historically African-American beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast.

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.