Indiana Landmarks is offering two opportunities for people to learn more about different architectural styles and the people who used them at Indiana Dunes National Park.
The National Park Service is co-sponsoring the tours. Tickets are still available.
“A lot of visitors are surprised” to see what looks from the outside to be a typical farmhouse has the core of a log cabin inside, Indiana Landmarks Northwest Field Director Blake Swihart said.
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The Logs to Lustron tour covers a mix of housing styles in the park, ranging from log cabins built in the late 1800s to a 1950s Lustron house, a metal freestyle house. Visitors get a sense of Northwest Indiana’s architectural history through the tour, Swihart said.
The May 2 tour, featuring 11 sites, leaves every 30 minutes from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. from the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center. Participants will travel by shuttle while park rangers discuss the historic sites, including four landmarks that visitors can go inside. Riding a shuttle is required; there’s no parking at the sites being visited.
Attendees can view a brickmaking demonstration and compete in a Lincoln Log contest at the Beverly Shores Depot Museum, itself an architectural novelty as one of the original South Shore Line stations.
Participants will be able to enter the early 20th-century Oscar and Irene Nelson House, the 1880 Burstrom Chapel, the 19th-century Gust Lindstrom House and the 1950 Jacob Lustron house. The nearby Chellberg Farm will also be open for self-guided exploration from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Children on the 3.5-hour tour (accompanied by an adult) can earn a Junior Ranger badge by picking up a workbook, program and a bag with sketchbook and pencil when they check in. At the end of the tour, they show the completed workbook to a park ranger at the check-in site to earn the badge.
The tour tells the history of immigration in the area from Joseph Bailly to Swedish settlers to the post-war era, Swihart said.
Tickets are required. Cost is $40 per person or $35 for Indiana Landmarks members. Children under 16 are free but must have a ticket. Tickets are available at indianalandmarks.org/logs-to-lustrons-tour-2026.
After the Logs to Lustron tour, a two-mile guided hike with retired national park ranger Cliff Goins is offered for an additional $20. The hike features Bailly Homestead, where fur trapper Joseph Bailly first established his trading post along the Little Calumet River in 1822. Today, the site’s rare collection of 19th-century structures, built by Bailly and his descendants, is a National Historic Landmark.
The hikes are from 12:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Bailly Homestead is still being worked on as crews stabilize the building, so visitors can’t go inside. However, tour participants will be able to hear the story of the settlement and visit the cemetery during their walk through the woods.
“It’s a nice opportunity to see the properties from a different perspective,” Swihart said.
The Porter County Museum in downtown Valparaiso is currently featuring an exhibit on the Bailly family for further exploration.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.