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45 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 45 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
Indiana Dunes became a national park in 2019, when a spending bill signed that February renamed the national lakeshore that Congress had created in 1966.
Q 03Why did the Park Service oppose upgrading Indiana Dunes to a national park?
It fit better with lakeshores and seashores
The Park Service said the site's features fit better with lakeshores and seashores; Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith testified the renaming broke naming conventions, but Congress passed it anyway.
Q 04Which steel company built its Burns Harbor mill on leveled dunes in the 1960s?
Bethlehem Steel
Bethlehem Steel flattened dunes to build its Burns Harbor Works, which began finishing steel in 1964; the mill and its industrial neighbors separate the park's West Beach area from Dune Acres.
Q 05Which Danish botanist's work inspired Cowles to study dune succession?
Eugen Warming
Eugen Warming's 1895 book Plantesamfund described plant communities and how they change; the American botanist built his Indiana dune succession studies on Warming's ideas.
Q 06Which first National Park Service director held 1916 hearings on a Sand Dunes National Park?
Stephen Mather
Stephen Mather, the first National Park Service director, held public hearings in October 1916 on a Sand Dunes National Park; the idea stalled for half a century until the 1966 lakeshore.
Q 07The Hoosier Slide, a huge dune consumed by 1920, was carted away for what use?
Making glass
The Hoosier Slide's sand went to Muncie for making glass: Ball Brothers used it in their blue-tinted canning jars and Hemingray in insulators. A NIPSCO generating station was later built on the site.
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
Cowles Tamarack Bog, 56 acres in Porter County, was bought in 1953 with money raised in a nationwide appeal, giving the council its first protected land.
Q 10Which Illinois senator led the congressional fight to save the dunes in the 1960s?
Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas, an economist and university professor, was Illinois senator from 1949 to 1967; the park's Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education honors him.
Q 11The so-called Kennedy Compromise of the 1960s paired the new park with what?
A deepwater port
The Kennedy Compromise paired the national lakeshore with a deepwater port, the Port of Indiana at Burns Harbor: industry got its harbor and conservationists got 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
Mount Baldy migrates because trampling killed the marram grass that anchored it; the dune has crept south toward its own parking lot, and free climbing of the summit ended after a 2013 collapse.
Q 13What did scientists name the hidden shafts in the park's big moving sand hill after a boy was swallowed in 2013?
Q 21Which two federally listed plants grow in the park?
Mead's milkweed and Pitcher's thistle
Pitcher's thistle, a Great Lakes dune native, and Mead's milkweed, a tallgrass prairie species, are both federally listed as threatened and survive inside the park.
Q 22Which small shorebird, federally endangered, is among the protected wildlife of the park's beaches?
Piping plover
The piping plover's Great Lakes population, listed as endangered in 1985, is a small pale shorebird that nests on open sand beaches; the Indiana bat, eastern massasauga and rufa red knot are also federally listed species in the park.
Q 23Pinhook Bog, an outlying unit of the park, is what type of feature?
Decomposition chimney
Decomposition chimneys form where buried black oaks rot away and leave hollow shafts under loose sand; in 2013 six-year-old Nathan Woessner was dug out alive after more than three hours about 11 feet down.
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
The five houses were built for the Homes of Tomorrow exhibit at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, A Century of Progress, and developer Robert Bartlett moved them to Beverly Shores in 1935.
Q 16Which University of Chicago graduate, living alone in the dunes from 1915, was nicknamed Diana of the Dunes?
Alice Mabel Gray
Alice Mabel Gray, a university graduate who had studied mathematics and astronomy, lived from 1915 in a shack she called Driftwood; newspaper coverage of 'Diana of the Dunes' helped rally support for a state park.
Q 17Who was the earliest recorded settler in the dunes, a fur trader who set up a post in 1822?
Joseph Bailly
Joseph Bailly, a French-Canadian fur trader born in Quebec, built his trading post beside the river south of the dunes in 1822; the Bailly Homestead in the park preserves his family's home.
Q 18The 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 19City West, a ghost town in the dunes planned as a rival to Chicago, failed in which year?
1837
City West's backers hoped to outgrow the young city across the state line, but the Panic of 1837 struck the summer the town was half built and the settlement was abandoned.
Q 20Roughly how many vascular plant species have been recorded in the park?
Over 1,400
Over 1,400 vascular plant species have been recorded in the park, where arctic relics such as bearberry grow near desert natives such as prickly pear cactus.
A quaking peat bog in a glacial kettle
Pinhook Bog is a quaking peat bog filling a glacial kettle, a hollow left by a buried block of ice that melted about 14,000 years ago; its floating sphagnum mat supports pitcher plants and sundews.
Q 24The bog named for the botanist who studied succession there is the last remnant of what?
The Central Dunes of his field studies
The bog is the last remnant of the Central Dunes, the stretch where its namesake botanist did his succession field studies; the rest was leveled for industry in the 1960s, leaving this complex of bog, fen, marsh and pond.
Q 25Which glacial ridge is the dominant landform behind the Indiana Dunes?
Valparaiso Moraine
The Valparaiso Moraine, left by the Lake Michigan lobe of the last ice sheet, forms the high ground south of the dunes; the younger Tinley and Lake Border moraines nest inside its arc.
Q 26Which ancient Lake Michigan shoreline forms the sand ridge followed by Ridge Road in Lake County?
Calumet
The Calumet shoreline, a beach ridge left by the glacial lake that preceded Lake Michigan, carries Ridge Road across Lake County; the older Glenwood ridge lies farther south and the younger Tolleston nearer the lake.
Q 27What winter hazard forms when winds push lake ice onto the beaches into ridges that may hide air pockets?
Shelf ice
Shelf ice builds when wind and waves pile floating ice against the shore into ridges and mounds; much of it is hollow or afloat, so a fall through can be fatal and rescue is extremely difficult.
Q 28When are rip currents most likely along the park's beaches?
In a strong north wind
A strong north wind drives waves onto the south-facing shore; water piles up behind the sandbar until it breaks back out through a narrow channel that sweeps swimmers away from the beach.
Q 29What is the name of the park's 430-acre tallgrass unit near Griffith, a National Natural Landmark?
Hoosier Prairie
Hoosier Prairie, a 430-acre remnant of tallgrass prairie in Griffith, is a National Natural Landmark and state nature preserve that the Indiana DNR manages under an agreement with the park.
Q 30The name of the park's Mnoké Prairie restoration, suggested by Potawatomi elders, means what?
Good earth
Mnoké is a Potawatomi word meaning 'good earth', with 'mno' meaning good; Potawatomi elders suggested the name for the restored prairie in the central part of the park.