When we hiked Miller Woods last week, a ranger suggested trying the Cowles Bog trail a bit further east for more fall color. So we returned this week for a hike there before the colors were all on the ground. The nearly five mile trail is a lolly-pop—you hike in on a straight line and then get to a big loop. The trail starts in the oak savannah.
The loop trail goes around the actual fen, and then gets to the final dunes and to Lake Michigan. The incredible diversity of this location, and the early conservation efforts of a few people are why there is a national park here today. Henry Cowles wrote his dissertation about the plant succession in the dunes in 1898 while getting his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago where he would stay as a professor. He became a founder of the ecological studies movement while confirming the ecological importance of the area, leading to preservation of some areas as massive steel mills were being built on the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana and Chicago.
In 1916, Cowles invited Stephen Mather, the first director of the newly formed National Park Service to Chicago and on a tour of the dunes. Hearings were held in Chicago to establish Sand Dunes National Park, but those efforts were derailed by WWI. Soon, the tallest of the dunes was destroyed to make a port and mill, and much of the sand was shipped to Muncie, Indiana to the Ball Glass plant. A local English teacher, Dorothy Buell began leading efforts to preserve the local ecology.
Today, the massive steel mill adjacent to the protected area is constantly present through the roar of the mill and the sounds of train and truck traffic. The Cowles bog area was one of the first to be preserved by being purchased by the Save the Dunes Council in 1953 formed by Buell. In 1965, the National Park Service declared Cowles Bog to be a National Natural Landmark. Meanwhile, Illinois Senator Paul Douglas helped broker a compromise that federal support for the new Port of Indiana would only occur with the creation of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
The National Lakeshore protected about 8,300 acres when it was established in 1966. Subsequent bills expanded the park to over 17,000 acres. In 2019, a century after Stephen Mather’s visit to the Dunes, the area was designated at the 61st national park. It is one of the most ecologically diverse parks in the system with eastern forest, prairie, lakeshore, fens, bogs, and fresh water streams.
The end of the trail climbs over the last of the dunes and spills into a field of marram grass holding on to the sand before getting to the lake.
And behind the final line of grasses peaks Lake Michigan.
