We looked west and saw a series of industrial buildings and piers from Gary, Indiana, and the Port of Indiana. In the distance, about 30 miles northwest, we could see Chicago’s skyline, a floating silhouette on the lake’s horizon. To the east, an excavator worked along the beach near a handful of sunbathers. We had heard its mechanical churning while we hiked, along with the hum of trains and traffic in the distance.
But directly in front of us, the yellow sand beach stretched untouched, a sliver of wild backed by marram grass and spindly oaks on steep dunes. Water from Lake Michigan lapped lazily against the sandy shore, and a refreshing breeze cooled my face.
“Here we are, this ecologically diverse place, where you can literally see Chicago from the beach, this juxtaposition of this great natural place in the midst of this giant city infrastructure is mind-boggling,” Paul Labovitz, the park’s superintendent, said over the phone later as he surveyed the same scene.
Here is a video on the history to make this a National Park
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