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| The historic Bailly Homestead on the Bailly Chellberg Trail. NPS photo. |
Humans have lived in the Indiana Dunes area since about 13,000 B.C. when the last ice age’s glaciers retreated from the area. Scattered artifacts have been found on the higher and older dune ridges. More recently, Native American villages existed in the area, but most signs of them disappeared as Euro-American settlers arrived in the area during the 1800s. Because of that, the park’s historic sites focus on sites from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Among the historic sites that can be hiked in the park are:
• Bailly Cemetery – Hikers can visit a family and community cemetery dating to 1827 on this 1.9-mile round trip trail. The cemetery sits about a mile north of the Bailly Homestead on the edge of a sand ridge. Pioneer fur trader Joseph Bailly selected the sand hill to bury his son and erected a thirty-foot wooden cross near the grave. Soon, other members of the Swedish community buried their deceased there. Park at the Chellberg Farm off of Mineral Springs Road south of U.S. Hwy. 12 and head north on the trail for a 1-mile round trip.
• Bailly Homestead – After running his fur-trading post on the Little Calumet River, Joseph Bailly established this farm in the early 1830s when the U.S. government opened northern Indiana to settlement. Among the buildings remaining on the homestead is the Bailly House (construction began in 1834), the chapel that was the summer kitchen, a log house that was the Bailly's dairy house and tool shed built in the mid-1870s, and a brick house from 1874. Park in the lot off of Howe Road south of Oak Hill Road and head south on the trail for a 0.7-mile round trip.
• Chellberg Farms – Day hikers can visit a historic Midwest homestead from the 1800s here. During the mid-1800s until the Great Depression, this area of Indiana – known as Baillytown –attracted a number of Swedish immigrants, who formed a close-knit community. Among them was the Kjellberg family, who emigrated to the United States in 1863. Several historic buildings can be explored on the homestead, including a farmhouse, barn and granary. Park in the Chellberg Farms lot off of North Mineral Springs Road south of U.S. Hwy. 12.
• 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair homes of the future – You can hike back to the future in a ranger-led tour of five historic homes erected during the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair to show what homes of the future would look like. Throughout a single day each October, two-hour walking tours are given of the Cypress Log Cabin, the House of Tomorrow, Florida Tropical, Armco Ferro, and the Wieboldt-Rostone houses. While some of the predictions, such as central air conditioning and dishwashers, came true, others – like the house with an airplane hangar on the first floor (after all, everyone in the future would have an airplane) – proved less than prophetic. In 1935, a developer brought the houses to the dunes hoping to attract home buyers to his resort community of Beverly Shores. Each of the homes are on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Good Fellow Youth Camp – U.S. Steel operated a summer camp for its employees’ children for more than three decades in the mid-20th century. Every week for two months, between 60-100 kids aged 8-15 enjoyed outdoors activities at the camp in a forest near Lake Michigan. No formal trail runs through the grounds, but you still can follow road sides and walk around the camp’s nine buildings and a swimming pool that remain for a 0.5-mile trek. Park at the Dunes Learning Center off of County Road 150 West/Howe Road south of County Road 1350 North/West Oak Hill road.
