Journey Through Calumet

Explore important objects and specimens from the Calumet in the Field Museum's collection

kayakers travelling under bridge

Introduction

You are entering the culmination of a first-of-its-kind traveling exhibition,  co-curated with 15 local institutions . Over the past four years, local museums, galleries, and libraries have showcased their unique Calumet collections. In the final of four Calumet Voices, National Stories exhibits, these stories are brought together. From rare flowers to monumental steel mills, find out what makes the region at the southern tip of Lake Michigan an unexpected national treasure. Scroll down or use the navigation panel above to skip to a specific section.

This exhibition was co-curated with the  Miami Tribe of Oklahoma  and the  Pokagon Band of Potawatomi .


Since its founding 125 years ago, researchers at the Field Museum have studied—and collected from—the Calumet region. Thousands of specimens illustrate how the landscape has been transformed by industry, urbanization, and a changing appreciation for nature. Today, researchers are also working with local people, seeking to understand and support the region’s unique character. The resilience of the people of Calumet is a model for sustainable growth and change nationwide.

black and white photo of area around Field Museum

This 1902 photo was taken from the roof of the Field Museum at its original location in Jackson Park. Distant smokestacks from the South Works steel mill are a sign of surging industrial development.

A Diverse Ecosystem

Ecologically, there is no place on Earth like the Calumet region. Specimens collected over the past century help us understand the striking natural landscape just south of the Field Museum.

Flora of The Indiana Dunes Handbook

Cover of Flora of the Indiana Dunes, a handbook published by the Field Museum in 1930.

Least Bittern

When startled, Least Bitterns (Ixobrychus exilis) freeze with their beaks pointed up, so that they resemble the reeds around them. Once imperiled, Least Bitterns are returning to the region thanks to ecological restoration.

Massasauga Rattlesnake

Once a frequent sight on the Indiana dunes, Massasauga rattlesnakes (Sistrurus catenatus) are now only seen in the Indiana Dunes area once or twice a decade.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

This blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) was collected in 1883, just three years after the town of Pullman was founded. It is the first specimen from the Calumet region in the Field Museum’s collection.

Thismia americana

The tiny plant Thismia americana (shown with a coffee can for scale) was first discovered in South Deering. Only a few examples were ever collected, and it hasn’t been seen since 1916. The Field Museum’s specimens of this ultra-rare plant—two of six in the world—are too delicate to display.

Drawing of Thismia americana

Fulgurite (flash-melted sand)

The Earth beneath us is constantly changing. Change can happen in an instant, like when lightning struck a sand dune and created this fulgurite.

Trilobite

Change can also happen slowly, like the fossilization of this 425 million-year-old trilobite (Gravicalymene celebra).

Thornton Quarry

The trilobite fossil (seen above) was found at Thornton Quarry, a massive excavation that hundreds of thousands of travelers on I-80/I-294 cross every day.


Herbarium Sheets

Prickly pear cactus is often associated with southwestern deserts, while bearberry is found near the Arctic circle. But at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, they grow side-by-side.

Potawatomi ancestors depended on manoomin—the wild rice that grows around the Great Lakes—as a staple food, but it was almost lost when the marshes were dredged for urban expansion. Today, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi are working with the National Park Service to re-cultivate manoomin in the Calumet Region. For many, stewarding manoomin is a way to reconnect with Ancestors.

From left to right: Prickly pear (Opuntia humifusa), Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), and Manoomin/Northern wild rice (Zizania palustris)


Industrial Footprint

Industry transformed the Calumet region, leaving a complicated legacy. It polluted or destroyed irreplaceable plant and animal habitats, but it also drew workers from around the world, created communities, and enabled scientific discovery.

Hoosier Slide

The Hoosier Slide, a 200-foot-tall natural sand dune in northwest Indiana, was a popular attraction in the late 1800s. But the sand was mined by glass companies like the Ball Corporation, which used it to make glass jars. By 1920, the Hoosier Slide had vanished entirely.

Cone-shelled Mollusc

This 430 million-year-old mollusc (Dawsonoceras hyatti) fossil was found during the dredging of the Cal-Sag Channel, between 1911 and 1922. Contractor Shnable & Quinn donated it to the Museum.

Red-headed Woodpeckers

In the early and mid 20th century, the white feathers of Chicago-area woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) became darker and darker, stained by industrial soot (2). In recent years, woodpecker feathers have lightened again, likely due to decreased production (3). Specimens collected by the Field Museum since its founding help us track this change and recovery.

Steel Slag

Huge amounts of this steel industry byproduct were dumped in wetlands across the region. Like the reversal of the Chicago River in 1900, slag is a human alteration to the landscape that could last for thousands of years.

Lupine - Karner Blue Butterfly

Caterpillars of the Karner blue butterfly (Plebejus melissa samuelis) only eat lupine leaves, but the native habitat for these plants is shrinking. Karner blues may already be locally extinct in the Indiana Dunes.

Karner blue butterflies

Hard Hat

This hard hat belonged to steelworker and environmentalist Mike Olszanski. After learning that toxic waste from the mills’ landfills was affecting nearby water sources, he began promoting environmental causes, even when it wasn’t popular with the company or the union. The stickers on his hard hat show both his identity as a steelworker (below) and his deep concern for the environment, as depicted in an early version of the Earth Day symbol (right).

Sticker for the United Steelworkers of America


Women in Industry

Steel plate with steelworkers’ autographs; Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor Complex; East Chicago, Indiana

Notice the names welded into this plate? Few steel mills employed women before the 1940s, except in office jobs. But once the US entered World War II, many women could be found on the shop floor—providing materials and industrial products for the war effort.

Forgotten for decades, this plate was recently re-discovered in the floor at Cleveland Cliffs (known as Inland Steel until 1998).


Placemaking Today

Although steel production and heavy manufacturing have declined in the Calumet region, the communities and cultures forged by industry remain strong. Today, Calumet residents celebrate their heritage and look toward a greener future.

Calumet Baking Powder Shaker (Front)

“The shaker was the first sound the Creator ever heard…and that’s when he started creating Mother Earth.” – George Martin

Calumet Baking Powder rattle, George Martin.

Calumet Baking Powder Shaker (Back)

Nationally renowned beadworker George Martin (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) made this shaker with a Calumet Baking Powder can. Growing up in the 1930s on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation, Martin recalls his uncles making shakers from Calumet Baking Powder cans for use in ceremonies. Today, Martin uses these antique cans exclusively for his shakers.

George Martin. Photo provided by Martin.

Calumet Baking Powder Company

The Calumet Baking Powder Company is named for Calumet City, Illinois. The federal government distributed the cans, which feature a caricatured portrait of a Native American, as rations for reservations.

Neighborhood Characters

These figures (from left to right: El Chuy, Chato, El Tio Chico, La Nancy, La Loca, Tecato) were inspired by “real characters” from the artist’s South Chicago community. When Roman Villarreal worked at US Steel South Works in the 1960s, he made small head sculptures and hid them around the mill. Years later, he learned that the mysterious sculptures had become legendary.

Roman Villarreal in his studio. Photo by Madeleine Tudor.

Various Beetles

The Field Museum continues to help us understand the Calumet region by monitoring and documenting local plants and animals. These beetles (Coccinella septempunctata, Euspilotus spp., Geomysaprinus spp., Harmonia axyridis, and Onthophagus hecate) were collected during a 24-hour “Bioblitz,” where scientists gathered as many species as they could—including some newly discovered ones—from a small area near Wolf Lake.

Russula flavida

Monitoring the health and abundance of fungi like Russula provides a useful status check for the ecosystem as a whole.

Killdeer Eggs

By comparing recent and historic eggs in the Field Museum collection, bird scientist John Bates discovered that global climate change has caused many local birds to lay eggs earlier in the spring. Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) in the Calumet region are now laying eggs 30 days sooner than they were a century ago.

Killdeer, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain-Prairie, CC BY

“We are a living People with a past.” -- Diane Hunter, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, quoting Daryl Baldwin

Indigenous Cultural Trail. Image courtesy of Abonmarche.

The Indigenous Cultural Trail at Indiana Dunes National Park interprets the natural landscape from a Native American perspective. Representatives of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the Pokagon band of Potawatomi collaborated with park staff to reclaim the story of the land they have resided in for thousands of years. Potawatomi, Miami, Odawa, and Ojibwe communities lived alongside one another historically, and still do today.

Highlights from opening of the Indiana Dunes Indigenous Cultural Trail


Share your Calumet Voice

Do you have a special memory of a particular place in the Calumet region? These stories and memories were shared by visitors at previous Calumet Voices, National Stories exhibitions.  Click here  to share your Calumet memory.

This 1902 photo was taken from the roof of the Field Museum at its original location in Jackson Park. Distant smokestacks from the South Works steel mill are a sign of surging industrial development.

Steel plate with steelworkers’ autographs; Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor Complex; East Chicago, Indiana

Indigenous Cultural Trail. Image courtesy of Abonmarche.

Drawing of Thismia americana

Karner blue butterflies

Sticker for the United Steelworkers of America

Calumet Baking Powder rattle, George Martin.

George Martin. Photo provided by Martin.

Roman Villarreal in his studio. Photo by Madeleine Tudor.

Killdeer, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain-Prairie, CC BY