Calumet Beginnings: Ancient Shorelines and Settlements at the South End of Lake Michigan

The landscape of the Calumet is a direct result of the glaciers that last left the area about 14,500 years ago - toward the end of the last ice age. In the years since, many forces, including wind, running water, and the waves of Lake Michigan, have continued to shape the land. The people who called the Calumet home also changed its landscape. Indians built mounds, farmers scraped sand from the tops of hills and filled in wetlands. Governments commissioned ditches and canals to drain marshes and change the direction of rivers.Sand has been hauled from areas where it was plentiful to areas where it was needed for urban and industrial growth. Because Lake Michigan is a barrier to east-west land transportation, it has for thousands of years forced people to move through the area at its southern tip. When the glaciers left, Lake Michigan was higher than it is now. As that Lake dropped in elevation, it left behind shoreline features that in turn have served as Indian trails, stagecoach routes, highways, and sites that have evolved into many of the cities, towns, and villages of the Calumet Area.