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The Life and Times of the Calumet Region: A 14,000 Year Odyssey
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Ice, Water, Climate, and Fire: How the Landscape was Formed Something New Upon the Land: The First Europeans A Great Diversity of Life: Animals and Plants Development Comes to the Calumet Region The Marsh Refuses to Die Ice, Water, Climate, and Fire: How the Landscape was Formed Imagine beginning a balloon trip 14,000 years ago. Imagine further that you have had the longevity and provisions to hover over the southern tip of Lake Michigan from that time until now, observing the many changes that have occurred on the earth below. At the start of your adventure, the air would have been cold and the ground covered with a thick layer of ice. This is what would be called the Wisconsin glacier, the most recent of four glacial periods that have impacted this region. Its advance gouged out the trough that would hold Lake Michigan, and its retreat provided much of the water that would become the lake. During this period of glacial melting, the pre-cursor of Lake Michigan would bulge to the south and drain into the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, instead of the St Lawrence River, as the Great Lakes do today. These changes in lake level were created by four principal factors: ebb and flow of glacial ice in the Great Lakes basin, rises of the land when relieved of glacial ice, quantity of water leaving the lake thorough the erosion of outlets, and quantities of water entering the lake.  In another 2,000 years the ice would have disappeared, and the waters of the lake would have receded. This contraction left in its wake a vast plain, adorned by five lakes. From west to east they were Lake Calumet, Hyde Lake, Wolf Lake (which straddles the Illinois Indiana border), Lake George, and Bear Lake (also known as Berry Lake). Draining the region was a river described by one early geographer as a "curious and interesting stream" and called by various names. Born in the morainal uplands of LaPorte County Indiana, the river flowed east as far as Riverdale, where it doubled back on itself to head east, where it eventually entered Lake Michigan at various points that changed over time.Many thousands of years later, the one river would be divided into three and its drainage pattern altered profoundly: the stretch flowing west is now the Little Calumet River, that which used to flow east is the Grand Calumet, and where they converge at Riverdale to flow north into the lake is the Calumet River. And later still, in 1922 to be precise, a canal was built through a natural low area that shunts the polluted branches away from Lake Michigan and into the Illinois River. This is known as the Cal-Sag Channel.When the ice finally left, the still cold and moist climate supported, in general, forests comprised of various coniferous trees. The climate continued getting warmer and drier and these forests gave way to those of deciduous trees, which in turn were replaced by the grasslands the early French visitors were to call "prairie." Nature is never static, however, and the climate shifted yet again to favor deciduous trees. But once established, the prairie didn’t readily depart, for it had an ally. That ally was fire, some of it ignited by lightening, and some of it by the hands of Native Americans, believed to have arrived here at least 12,000 years ago. Frequent fires tend to promote prairie over woods, in part, because most of a tree is above the soil surface and thus vulnerable to burning, while most prairie plants have extensive root systems that are protected from fire. Fire also benefits prairie vegetation by helping to enrich the soil and facilitating germination of seeds.  Something New Upon the Land: The First Europeans Our knowledge of these early years tends to be of a general nature, for the human inhabitants did not keep written records. That changed in 1673. If you looked carefully to the southwest of your lofty perch, you might have noticed a small band of men making their way up the Des Plaines River and then the Chicago River to Lake Michigan. The men traveled under the flag of France, and were led by the adventurer Joliet and the priest Marquette. Their descriptions of the region were the earliest that historians have. Joliet said of the Illinois country that it "seemed to me the most beautiful, and most suitable for settlement. Game is abundant there . . ." More of their countrymen were to follow in the ensuing years, but for much of the 1700s few Europeans ventured into the region because native people closed the portages that linked the rivers. Travel by Europeans remained hazardous until the 1830s when the tribes relinquished their claims on the area through a series of treaties. With the removal of these people, European settlers poured in from the south and east. Chicago was founded in 1837, the Illinois and Michigan Canal (connecting the Mississippi river with the Great Lakes), was opened in 1848, and the region's first rail service also commenced in 1848. By then, the great wilderness that greeted Joliet and Marquette was waning, although it survived in the Calumet region longer than in most other places. After thousands of years of gradual changes, suddenly the population of Euro-Americans exploded and in the blink of an eye the panorama that you had so long enjoyed was altered forever. A Great Diversity of Life: Animals and Plants For the Calumet area, that panorama was a diverse mosaic of landscapes. This diversity was a product of several factors. The general climate allowed both prairies and woods to grow. Variations in fire frequency, soil, and moisture, along with the moderating effects of Lake Michigan (warmer winters and cooler summers) created a wide variety of niches that enabled many plants and animals to thrive. Extensive prairies bordered lowlands of perpetually wet marsh. The shallow lakes identified earlier were themselves combinations of marsh (vegetation emerging from standing water) and open water. Such conditions provided excellent habitat for huge numbers of birds. From the balloon, you would have seen during the 1820s parties of American soldiers, housed at Fort Dearborn on the Chicago lakefront, stalking these marshes in search of game. They would arrive on the shores of Lake Calumet on fall mornings and find the lake covered with water birds "of every kind that breed upon this continent." With the first gun shots, the birds arose in such abundance that they blotted out the sun as they circled in the air. A variety of mammals would have also have caught your attention. You would have undoubtedly seen bison and elk, but both were probably gone from the Calumet by the mid to late 1700s. Proving somewhat more resilient, black bears lingered until the early 1840s and the last recorded mountain lion was shot in 1844 in the Blue Island area. Trappers sought muskrats, which were common. If they were lucky, they caught an occasional otter, whose gorgeous pelts brought the highest prices of any local species. Relicts of a receding Lake Michigan, sand ridges supported oaks and other trees that required drier ground. These open woodlands are known as savannas. A rich array of flowers grew throughout the season, from the early sand cress to autumnal fringed gentian, the latter as blue as a sunny sky. These ridges were particularly well developed in the Indiana portion of the Calumet area. Like a washboard, the plain was crisscrossed by 150 of them, each at least slightly different from the other, depending on its location from Lake Michigan and other factors. As one example of its former glory, roughly 30 species of orchids once grew in this unique territory. You obviously could not have discerned the full variety of animals and plants from your elevated position, but beginning in the late 1800s you might have noticed people, either singly or in small groups, walking slowly through the prairies, marshes, or savannas. Sometimes they had binoculars and their gaze would often flick skyward to log the many birds that frequented the Calumet as nesters or migrants. Two such ornithologists working the banks of the Calumet River on June 19, 1875 discovered the first known nest of the black rail, one of the most secretive of all the continent's birds. It is also the only bird whose first known nest was found in Illinois. Few of this species have been found here since, and it is highly unlikely that they still nest. Others with scientific interests sought "fine examples of rare and beautiful plants." They were armed with magnifying glasses and kept their eyes focused on the ground. Although not particularly beautiful, the rarest of all plants known to grow in the Calumet is a species that doesn't even have a common name. It was discovered by a University of Chicago graduate student and christened Thismia americana. She first encountered the plant in 1912, growing in wet prairie off of Torrence Avenue where the Ford factory now stands. The plant was seen at the same site until 1916, after which it disappeared. No one has ever found it again anywhere. Its closest relative inhabits the forests of New Zealand and Tasmania on the other side of the planet. Thismia remains both a mystery that is not easily explained and a testament to the richness of the Calumet. With all the time at your disposal, you surely would have spent countless hours admiring the kaleidoscopic images presented by the waters beneath you as they reflected an ever-changing sky. Even more captivating would have been the myriad of fish and other life that thrived in those same waters. One scientist in the 1870's compiled a list of fish that were commonly taken from Lake Calumet. They included such species as burbot, the only freshwater cod; pickerel; buffalo; bowfin, the only member of an ancient family that is found only in North America; and lake sturgeon, the largest fish in inland North America. Development Comes to the Calumet Region As touched upon earlier, whatever else you saw after the mid-1830s, you would have noticed an ever increasing human population, and the alterations that modern people tend to make upon the land. Impending rail service necessitated the construction of switching facilities and the filling of marshland to augment natural ridges for the laying of track. Upon completion of the preliminaries, the first train lumbered through in 1851. Farmers began draining other marshes in the early 1860s; the newly converted land was said to be particularly fertile. Many looked at the mouth of the Calumet River as an excellent site for a major harbor. The US Army Corps of Engineers began spending thousands of dollars to make the harbor a reality. As part of that project, they needed to ensure that the river could accommodate boat traffic. Both of these exercises proved trying, as they had trouble securing right of way from riparian owners, natural processes clogged the harbor, and early industry dumped their own material into the river. Almost 30 years after they began, the corps finally had the facility it wanted. One of the wealthiest men of his time, George Pullman also saw opportunity in the region. He located his factory and the country's first planned industrial city on the shores of Lake Calumet. Construction of the city began in 1880 and by 1893 housed 12,600 residents. Bricks to build Pullman (like Judge Gary and other members of the aristocracy of the age, he named the city after himself) came from the mud that comprised the lake's bottom. 
The twentieth century would have brought tears to your eyes. Virtually all of the wonderful wetlands, prairies, and savannas of the Calumet were gobbled up or filled in. Bear Lake no longer exists and Hyde Lake is a tiny remnant of its former self, having been filled in by neighboring industry. The other lakes have also been reduced in size. The 150 beach ridges vanished under the streets of Gary and East Chicago. Most of Chicago's landfills were sited here. The decision to do so was not evil, for it is true that a city needs to dispose of it waste, and it was thought that wetlands were better suited for that purpose than the rivers that feed the source of our drinking water. But much was lost none the less, and some of that loss did occur long after people should have known better. It has been estimated that of the 22,000 acres of wetlands once present in the western Calumet, only 500 remain. And most of these are not original wetlands, but those that formed over areas that had long been filled. The Marsh Refuses to Die 
Perhaps it is not surprising that a century that experienced economic growth unprecedented in human history would also have destroyed so much of the Calumet area. What is surprising, though, is how much life still thrives in this unique place. Although most of its remaining wetlands contain few species of plants, the western Calumet hosts an abundance of bird life that is rivaled by few other places in Illinois. The eastern portion still harbors tracts of largely intact beach ridge plant communities that are among the highest quality in the Chicago region and are of global significance. And the lakes still support a diverse fish fauna, including some species that are state threatened. The full extent of the biological importance of the Calumet was demonstrated beyond a doubt when scientists of all flavors, from mycologists and protozoologists to mammalogists gathered in the summer of 2002 to identify all the organisms they could find in one 24-hour period. During the Bioblitz (sponsored by the Field Museum, City of Chicago, Chicago Park District, and Forest Preserve District of Cook County), as this celebration was called, 2,259 species were located at Wolf Lake, Eggers Woods, and Powderhorn Lake. (For more information on the bioblitz, check www.fieldmuseum.org/bioblitz.)Nature is resilient, and given half a chance a large number of organisms can thrive despite human abuse. After many years of neglect, however, there is now a flowering of efforts to protect and enhance the environment of this important territory. With careful planning, functioning ecosystems can thrive indefinitely within the confines of this great urban center. That would benefit not only the affected plants and animals, but also the people who live in their midst. |
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