Area residents get the chance Wednesday to learn more about and have input on the proposed Calumet National Heritage Area, which would stretch from Chicago’s Southeast Side to around Indiana’s border with Michigan.
The goal of the heritage area would be to unite a region that crosses state lines, said Mark Bouman, president of the Calumet Heritage Partnership.
“It’s how do we make the most of the fact that there’s a national park in Indiana and a new one in Chicago,” he said, referring to the Pullman National Monument in Chicago.
Throughout the area, said Bouman and Sherry Meyer, one of the partnership’s vice presidents, are industrial areas and natural and cultural resources worth highlighting, as well as bike and water trails that, with signage and other highlights, would drive tourism.
“How do we pull that all together?” Bouman said.
The partnership and the Field Museum are hosting a meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Porter County Museum, 153 Franklin St., Valparaiso, about the proposed heritage area.
The museum is a natural choice for the meeting location, given the resources it has to offer on the region’s history and culture, officials said.
“The Calumet National Heritage Area Initiative has been a wonderful way to connect Calumet area residents with each other and with their shared and diverse cultural, historical and environmental resources,” said Megan Telligman, coordinator at the Porter County Museum.
The meeting, Meyer said, is part of the feasibility study process for the heritage area. The effort for the heritage area started in 1999 and was predated by an attempt in the 1980s to make the area an ecological park.
The National Park Service, which designates heritage areas, said it didn’t have a category for ecological parks and suggested going for a heritage area, Meyer said.
The feasibility study, once complete, will be sent to the National Park Service.
“The idea (of the meeting) is to have a conversation with and amid regional leaders and planners for those communities, and also to include people who manage cultural institutions, and members of the general public,” Meyer said.
The meeting will offer information on what a heritage area is and is not.
“It’s an idea that we would weave the Calumet together, shine a light on the area and back outward to the world,” she said. “It’s an American story that’s unique.”
The first round of public meetings for the feasibility study started a year ago, she said, adding that the findings of the feasibility study will be presented at the partnership’s annual conference. That takes place starting at 9 a.m. Oct. 29 at Lake Etta County Park, 4801 W. 29th Ave., Gary.
More information is at www.calumetheritage.org.
Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
