Petition Ase EU 3 OoNe Seu flicly bed iN 13 
One Man's Viewpoint: 
DINNER WITH THE DUNES COUNCIL 
by RAYMOND MOSTEK 
(Past President, Illinois Audubon Society) 
Last fall a huge crowd attended the annual dinner of the Save the Dunes 
Council at Beverly Shores, Ind., to help celebrate the earlier formal dedica- 
tion of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The area was dedicated on 
September 8, 1972, by Secretary of the Interior Rogers B. Morton. As I 
consumed my food and conversed with our dinner guests, my mind went 
back to those early pioneers, Chicagoans and Hoosiers, who knew the 
Dunes before the turn of the century when this great beach area stretched 
for 25 miles from Gary to Michigan City, relatively undamaged by the 
hand of man. 
I thought of Dr. R. M. Strong, former president of the Illinois Audubon 
Society, who reminded us almost monthly of the industrial threats to the 
Dunes, how he inspired the Chicago Conservation Council to take an 
interest in the area, and how Mrs. Dorothy Buell of Ogden Dunes accepted 
the challenge, and organized the Save the Dunes Council back in 1952 
with the aid of 21 women. 
Their devotion never wavered and without their great spirit, what 
remnants we now have of the dunes area would have been lost. 
Mrs. Buell spoke to us at that dinner last fall. Still vigorous, though 
in her eighties, she gave us a glimpse of the determination necessary to 
win the battle: she revealed a “midnight train ride” to California to see 
author Donald Culross Peattie who knew the Dunes well. He suggested, 
that since the Indiana legislators like Senators Homer Capehart and Edward 
Jenner and Congressman Charles Haileck were more interested in indus- 
trialization rather than preservation, she urge Illinois Senator Paul H. 
Douglas to sponsor the legislation. He introduced the bill in 1958, and 
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Act in 1966. 
The years between have not been without their problems. Since 1925, 
Indiana has not added one acre to the state park created at that time. The 
population has quadrupled in those intervening years, creating greater 
pressure on the land. (At one time, within my memory at least, there was 
no limit to the amount of days one could spend camping at the state park. 
Many persons put up shelters which remained all summer long.) Hoosier 
politics caused Indiana to delay passage of the Douglas bill long after the 
nation had created other seashore preserves such as Cape Cod, Assatague 
Island, Point Reyes, Padre Island, and Fire Island in New York. 
The Save the Dunes Council is now advocating support for efforts 
being made by Congressman Edward Roush of Indiana to expand the new 
9,000 national lakeshore to double its present size. Introduced in 1971, 
the bill failed to pass the House Interior Committee. With the November 
defeat of Committee Chairman Wayne Aspinall of Colorado by the League 
of Conservation Voters, who poured more than $16,000 into that congres- 
sional district, the Roush bill may have a better chance this year. 
