About
During the Calumet Quarter at The University of Chicago, students simultaneously enroll in three courses focused on the history, culture, geography, and ecology of the Calumet Region. Designed as a “study abroad at home” sequence focused on experiential learning, students participate in weekly field trips to the Calumet and complete practical, hands on research as part of their coursework.
In one of the courses, CEGU 26367: Objects, Place, and Power: Collecting and Display in the Calumet, students studied the ways in which material culture is both created by a specific sense of place and shapes identity in the region. Through a partnership with local historical societies and museums, students in the course studied individual objects to learn how their histories are connected to broader ones of the region and nation. Please browse their reports here, including some podcasts discussing a behind-the-scenes look at their research processes, as students learned about the power and politics of visual representation in placemaking.
Object Histories of the Calumet
About
During the Calumet Quarter at The University of Chicago, students simultaneously enroll in three courses focused on the history, culture, geography, and ecology of the Calumet Region. Designed as a “study abroad at home” sequence focused on experiential learning, students participate in weekly field trips to the Calumet and complete practical, hands on research as part of their coursework.
In one of the courses, CEGU 26367: Objects, Place, and Power: Collecting and Display in the Calumet, students studied the ways in which material culture is both created by a specific sense of place and shapes identity in the region. Through a partnership with local historical societies and museums, students in the course studied individual objects to learn how their histories are connected to broader ones of the region and nation. Please browse their reports here, including some podcasts discussing a behind-the-scenes look at their research processes, as students learned about the power and politics of visual representation in placemaking.
Painting of Cedar Point Park Subdivision of Cedar Lake, IN
Hubert A. Bade, Midway Studios
c. 1921
Museum at Lassen’s Resort, Cedar Lake Historical Association
This painting depicts the Cedar Point Park subdivision in Cedar Lake, Indiana. The first residential developments were built in Cedar Point Park in the 1920s and consisted of small, cottage- or ranch-style wood-frame homes often featuring no more than two bedrooms and a single bathroom on small lots.i The 1920s were a boom in residential development for Cedar Point Park that would be quickly curtailed by the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.ii Today, many of these original homes remain in the neighborhood.
The humble nature of the original homes contrasts with the almost-palatial cottages featured in the painting. The painting’s visual emphasis on the beauty of country-style living demonstrates its intended use as a tool of advertisement to attract residential development. This aim represented quite a change for the Cedar Point area, which until the 1920s hosted a major resort known as the Cedar Point Hotel. Built in 1895 by Charles Sigler, the Cedar Point Hotel was one of over two dozen resorts operating in Cedar Lake in the early twentieth century.iii These resorts catered to Chicagoans that flocked to the area in the summer to enjoy both natural beauty and the lavish accommodations offered at the resorts.iv After the hotel burned down in 1914, developers shifted their attention away from building another resort, and the Cedar Point Park subdivision was born.v
By the end of the 1940s, many of the former summer homes in Cedar Point Park were owned by workers at U.S. Steel’s Gary Works plant.vi As the fortunes of those who worked at the steel mill fell sharply in subsequent decades, the area entered an era of economic decline that earned it the nickname “Cedartucky.”vii Since the turn of the 21st century, however, new investment and migration from Chicago has breathed new life into the area in part by transforming it back into a resort-like destination.viii This has created a town that is increasingly wealthy and populous: between 2000 and 2022, Cedar Lake’s annual median household income almost doubled from $43,987 to $84,444, and its population increased by almost sixty percent from 9,279 to 15,592 people.ix When one drives around Cedar Point Park today, one increasingly finds the kinds of palatial homes originally advertised by the painting.
Notes
i. Zillow, “Cedar Point Park Homes for Sale, Cedar Lake, IN,” accessed May 14, 2024.
ii. Cedar Lake Chamber of Commerce, “Cedar Lake History,” accessed May 14, 2024.
iii. Cedar Lake Historical Association, “Cedar Point Hotel,” accessed May 14, 2024.
iv. Cedar Lake Chamber of Commerce, “Cedar Lake History,” accessed May 14, 2024.
v. Cedar Lake Historical Association, “Cedar Point Hotel,” accessed May 14, 2024.
vi. Cedar Lake Chamber of Commerce, “Cedar Lake History,” accessed May 14, 2024.
vii. William Nangle, “Cedar Lake evolves from Cedartucky to lakeside resort,” Northwest Indiana Times, Feb. 19, 2020.
viii. South Shore CVA, “South Shore Legends: Dean White,” accessed May 14, 2024.
ix. U.S. Census, “Quickfacts: Cedar Lake town, IN.” accessed May 14, 2024.
Audio Transcript
The following is an auditory experience of the Cedar Point Park Subdivision in Cedar Lake, Indiana. The audio is taken from a visit to the subdivision on May 11, 2024.
Cedar Lake’s population has almost doubled since 2000. In 2000, 9,279 people lived inside its municipal boundaries. In 2022, 15,592 people do. The newer inhabitants are wealthier than those who were here before. The median household income has almost doubled during that time, too to $84,000 a year and the mean household income now tops over $100,000, indicating that there are some in the community who are much more wealthy than others.
Cedar Point Park bears evidence of this inequality. Simple 1920s cottages sit next to hulking McMansions. Yachts are docked next to two-seater fishing boats. At issue here is a transformation of identity that some embrace, and others resist. After decades as a resort town, Cedar Lake had seemingly left that identity far in the past, as it transitioned towards housing steel workers at the nearby Gary Works plant. But with new investment from Chicago, Cedar Lake seems poised to once again serve as a playground for the wealthy.
One thing that has not changed about Cedar Lake: its demographics. In 2000, Cedar Lake was around 95% white. In 2010, 91%; in 2020, 96%, and in 2022, 94%. According to Tougaloo University’s sundown town registry, Cedar Lake was a sundown town until the late 1980s, and little has appeared to change since. Even as the town undergoes changes in class status, one thing that unites residents old and new is their shared whiteness.
It is striking that as the whole Calumet region declines in population, and as more “urban” places like Gary or South Chicago decline rapidly, Cedar Lake is growing. It exemplifies the unending legacy of suburbanization not only in the Calumet, but in the nation as a whole. Stoked by racialized fears and anti-social individualism, suburban Americans have hunkered down in lily-white developments like Cedar Point Park since the 1940s. The renewed investment in Cedar Lake in recent decades only demonstrates the enduring power of the ideal of the suburb. As income inequality and racial disparities continue to grow, those who seek refuge in Cedar Lake prefer to segregate themselves from the realities of modern life in the urban Calumet.