50 free Indiana Dunes National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Indiana Dunes National Park trivia quiz covers the 15 miles of Lake Michigan shore where sand dunes, bogs, prairies and steel mills sit side by side an hour from Chicago. Questions cover the geology of the dunes and the glacial lakes that built them, Mount Baldy the living dune, the singing sands, the bogs and prairies scattered across three counties, and a plant list that ranks in the top ten of the whole park system, with arctic bearberry growing beside prickly pear. The history is unusually rich for a young park: Henry Chandler Cowles's 1899 studies that helped found the science of ecology, the Hoosier Slide dune carted off to make Ball jars, Diana of the Dunes, the world's-fair houses barged in from Chicago in 1935, the Bailly and Chellberg homesteads, Dorothy Buell's Save the Dunes Council, the 1966 national lakeshore and the 2019 upgrade to the country's 61st national park. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question, so it works for a beach-day game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our US National Parks quiz next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The park's western section runs along the shore to Broadway in the downtown of which steel city?
Gary
About 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline stretch from Michigan City west, interrupted by steel mills and a port.
Q 02Indiana Dunes became the nation's 61st national park in which year?
2019
It had been the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore since 1966; the change came in an appropriations act signed on February 15.
Q 03Why did the Park Service oppose upgrading Indiana Dunes to a national park?
It fit better with lakeshores and seashores
Deputy Director Paul Daniel Smith testified the change broke naming conventions; Congress did it anyway in a 2019 appropriations act.
Q 04Which Chicago botanist's 1899 dune plant study launched the movement to save the dunes?
Henry Chandler Cowles
His work on plant succession helped found the science of ecology; a bog and a bay in the park bear his name.
Q 05Which Danish botanist's work inspired Cowles to study dune succession?
Eugen Warming
He visited Warming in Copenhagen in 1905, and his translation of the term helped popularise the word ecology in the United States.
Q 06Which first National Park Service director held 1916 hearings on a Sand Dunes National Park?
Stephen Mather
The idea stalled for half a century; the state park opened in 1926 and the national lakeshore only in 1966.
Q 07The Hoosier Slide, a huge dune consumed by 1920, was carted away for what use?
Making glass
Its sand went to Ball Brothers and Hemingray in Muncie to make Ball Blue canning jars and Hemingray Blue insulators; a power plant stands there now.
Q 08Who founded and led the Save the Dunes Council from 1952 to 1968?
Dorothy Buell
A Wisconsin-born educator, she led the grassroots campaign that eventually won the 1966 lakeshore; the park's visitor center is named for her.
Q 09What was the Save the Dunes Council's first land purchase?
Cowles Tamarack Bog
The 56 acres in Porter County were bought with money raised in a nationwide campaign.
Q 10Which Illinois senator led the congressional fight to save the dunes in the 1960s?
Paul Douglas
An economist and University of Chicago professor, he served in the Senate from 1949 to 1967; a park trail and education center carry his name.
Q 11The so-called Kennedy Compromise of the 1960s paired the new park with what?
A deepwater port
Industry wanted a Port of Indiana on the lake; the deal gave Indiana its harbour and conservationists their park.
Q 12What is the name of the wandering dune at the park's east end that moves about four feet a year?
Mount Baldy
Trampling killed the marram grass that held it, so it now creeps south toward its own parking lot; climbing the summit is banned except on ranger tours.
Q 13What did scientists name the hidden shafts in the park's big moving sand hill after a boy was swallowed in 2013?
Decomposition chimney
Q 21How many species of vascular plants does the park have, ranking it eighth in the whole park system?
Over 1,400
Arctic and boreal plants like bearberry grow alongside desert species such as prickly pear cactus.
Q 22Which two federally listed plants grow in the park?
Mead's milkweed and Pitcher's thistle
Populations of each rare plant are estimated at only 100 to 120 individuals.
Q 23Which small shorebird, federally endangered, is among the protected wildlife of the park's beaches?
Piping plover
The Indiana bat, eastern massasauga rattlesnake and rufa red knot are also on the federal list.
Buried black oaks rot away and leave hollow shafts under unsteady sand; the child was dug out alive after three hours in an 11-foot pit.
Q 14The park's beaches are known for what acoustic curiosity?
Singing sands
The park newspaper is even called The Singing Sands; the sound comes from dry quartz grains squeaking underfoot.
Q 15The park's five Century of Progress houses came from which event?
The 1933 Chicago World's Fair
They were part of the Homes of Tomorrow exhibition and now stand in Beverly Shores; four are restored and the House of Tomorrow awaits its turn.
Q 16How were the Century of Progress houses moved from Chicago to the Indiana shore?
By barge across the lake
They were rolled off the barge on telephone poles onto a timber crib built out into the lake.
Q 17Which University of Chicago graduate, living alone in the dunes from 1915, was nicknamed Diana of the Dunes?
Alice Mabel Gray
Trained in maths, astronomy and classics, she lived in a shack she called Driftwood, and the press coverage of her helped rally support for a state park.
Q 18Who was the earliest recorded settler in the dunes, a fur trader who set up a post in 1822?
Joseph Bailly
His homestead is federally landmarked; his family cemetery sits on a sandy bluff half a mile north, its plots later filled with sand by his granddaughter.
Q 19The Chellberg Farm preserved in the park represents settlers from which country?
Sweden
Baillytown drew Swedish immigrants from the 1840s to the 1920s; the Burstrom Chapel and cemetery nearby are also preserved.
Q 20City West, a ghost town in the dunes planned as a rival to Chicago, failed in which year?
1837
A national financial panic killed it the summer it was half built; a forest fire in the 1850s finished off what the lumber scavengers left.
Q 24Which two predators were documented returning to the dunes in 2011 and 2018 respectively?
River otter and bobcat
Nearly 370 bird species have also been logged in or passing through the dunes by Indiana Audubon.
Q 25Pinhook Bog, an outlying unit of the park, is what type of feature?
A quaking peat bog in a glacial kettle
It formed about 14,000 years ago as the ice melted, is famous for pitcher plants and can be visited only on ranger-led tours.
Q 26The bog named for the botanist who studied succession there is the last remnant of what?
The Central Dunes of his field studies
It is a complex of bog, fen, marsh, swamp, wet meadow and pond drained by Dunes Creek to the state park beach.
Q 27Which 40,000-year-old glacial ridge is the dominant landform behind the Indiana Dunes?
Valparaiso Moraine
Two younger moraines nest inside its arc; each dammed meltwater and left a shoreline and dune ridge as it breached.
Q 28Which is the oldest visible ancient shore of the lake, a sand ridge followed by Ridge Road?
Calumet
The Tolleston and Glenwood shorelines lie further south and are much harder to spot on the ground.
Q 29What winter hazard forms when winds push lake ice onto the beaches into ridges that may hide air pockets?
Shelf ice
Much of it floats, and rescue from a fall through is extremely difficult; in summer the danger switches to rip currents on north-wind days.
Q 30When are rip currents most likely along the park's beaches?
In a strong north wind
Water piles up behind the first sandbar until it breaks through in a narrow channel that sweeps swimmers out.