Image: Peter Grube and Jeff McCoy birding at Michigan City Harbor along Lake Michigan in the 1990s. Photo by Kenneth Brock, courtesy of Brad Bumgardner.
BY TERRI GORNEY LEHMAN
Indiana Audubon (IAS) founded the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival in 2017, but the association of the state society with the sand dunes of Indiana goes back over one hundred years. IAS was one of the early organizations vocal about “Saving the Dunes” and creating a park to preserve habitat for the birds, especially for nesting and as a needed stopover during migration.
In 1899, the movement to save the dunes was begun by botanist Henry Cowles, for whom Cowles Bog is named. Jens Jenson, the noted landscape architect from Chicago, called the Indiana Dunes superior to those of the west coast of France and Denmark.
In 1917, the IAS’s annual meeting was held in Michigan City to allow members to study the lake birds and the sand dunes. It was a two-day event held in May at the Vreeland Hotel. The speakers were Dr. Stanley Coulter, president of IAS and professor at Purdue University; W. S. Blatchley; Amos W. Butler, vice president of IAS; and Mrs. Rosseau McClellan, vice president of IAS, all of Indianapolis; and Alden H. Hadley, a farmer from of Monrovia. An afternoon field trip was spent at the Dunes. It was a tradition at the annual conference for members to give bird talks in the public schools.
Professor Orpheus Moyer Schantz wrote an article, “Indiana’s Unrivaled Sand-Dunes: A National Park Opportunity,” for National Geographic magazine (May 1919). He also gave lectures about the value of saving the Dunes and preserving the birds. One such talk took place in March 1922 in Kendallville for the recently formed Audubon chapter (now defunct) in that city.
In the early 1920s, a Dunes Summer Camp was established by the Indiana Federation of Clubs. An article in the Connersville Examiner dated April 11, 1922, stated that the executive committee for the camp included “men and women prominent in political, industrial, educational and professional life of Indiana, together with well-known artists and historians.” Invitations to attend the camp were extended to members of the Indiana Federation of Clubs, Indiana Academy of Science, Indiana Nature Study Club, Indiana Audubon Society, Indiana Fish, Game and Forest League, state officials and school instructors.
The Indiana Dunes State Park became a reality in 1926. It took forty more years for the national portion of the Dunes to be protected. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore; in 2019, the designation was changed to the Indiana Dunes National Park.
Cheers to Indiana Audubon and its efforts in helping save the Indiana Dunes and creating the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. The festival is now in its 12th year and takes place May 14-17, 2026.
This blog post was written by Hoosier historian and naturalist Terri Gorney Lehman as part of her Flight Paths Through History series, exploring the people, places, and moments that have shaped Indiana birding.
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