Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of the Tremont area: Lake Michigan and the beach at upper left, US 12 and the South Shore Line crossing woods diagonally, and farm fields at lower right

Railroad and road town · Mill, lumber and company town

Tremont

A sawmill hamlet of the 1830s that became a resort stop on the South Shore Line, named for three dunes. The national lakeshore bought out what was left in the 1960s, and the townsite is now park woodland.

41°38′55″N 87°02′37″W · ≈630 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). See the photographs in the gallery below.

National park land

The federal protected-areas database maps the townsite as Indiana Dunes National Park land with open access. The park's nearby Glenwood Dunes trails are open daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and need a park pass, and in July 2026 the park listed temporary partial closures on them. We found no report of any village building left at the mapped point.

Overview

Three dunes and a railroad stop

Looking south on County Road 100 East across today's US 12, 1920s, with the Tremont Hotel at left
Looking south on County Road 100 East across today's US 12, 1920s, with the Tremont Hotel at left · Photo: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Tremont began as New City West, a hamlet just inland from Lake Michigan in northern Porter County. Its namesake, City West, sat on the shore and hoped to become a harbor city to rival Chicago. When the Panic of 1837 ended that dream, City West was abandoned, and New City West kept its post office and school. It grew to 20 or more houses around a sawmill, a cooper shop and a brickyard, and in the 1850s and 1860s stage passengers stopped to eat at Alanson Green's tavern.

A boiler explosion wrecked the sawmill in 1875, and the hamlet was soon nearly empty. It came back as a resort. The National Park Service lists Tremont among the dunes resorts operating before 1900, and Wikipedia dates the name to about 1908, when an electric interurban station called Tremont opened on what became the South Shore Line. The 1939 WPA guide says the name comes from three big dunes to the north, Mount Tom, Mount Holden and Mount Green. The 1934 USGS sheet calls the third one Mount Jackson. Chicago hikers of the Prairie Club came out by train, built a beach house in 1913 and helped lead the campaign to protect the dunes that ended with Indiana Dunes State Park.

Tremont was never incorporated. When the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was created in the 1960s and the government condemned land for it, the remaining residents moved away. Today the townsite is in Indiana Dunes National Park, and the three dunes are inside Indiana Dunes State Park. Wikipedia says part of the old village area is built over: the South Shore's Dune Park station and the railroad's headquarters, at the SR 49 junction just under a mile west of the mapped point, stand next to the old village center.

Timeline

From New City West to the national lakeshore

The 1953 USGS Dune Acres sheet: Tremont south of the South Shore line and US 12, with houses along both
The 1953 USGS Dune Acres sheet: Tremont south of the South Shore line and US 12, with houses along both · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
  1. New City West grows up a short way inland from City West, a lakefront town that hoped to become a harbor to rival Chicago. Wikipedia gives 1833 as the founding year; the 1939 WPA guide says the houses went up after City West collapsed.
  2. City West is abandoned after the Panic of 1837 and later burns. New City West keeps its post office and school and grows to 20 or more houses around a sawmill, a cooper shop and a brickyard.
  3. Stagecoach passengers eat at Alanson Green's tavern while the drivers change horses. The WPA guide also calls New City West a leading station of the Underground Railroad.
  4. The City West post office is merged with the Calumet post office, with D. H. Hopkins as postmaster.
  5. A boiler explosion destroys the sawmill. After 1876 the settlement is largely deserted.
  6. An interurban station called Tremont opens on what becomes the South Shore Line, and Wikipedia says the place is commonly called Tremont from then on. The WPA guide says the name comes from three dunes to the north, Mount Tom, Mount Holden and Mount Green.
  7. The Chicago-based Prairie Club builds a beach house for its members on a 50-foot dune it leases. Members camp in tents around it.
  8. The Prairie Club buys the 16 acres under its beach house.
  9. Indiana Dunes State Park is established on the dunes north of Tremont, the date the state park gives. The 1939 WPA guide dates the state law to buy the land to 1923.
  10. Historian John O. Bowers writes that "scarcely a building of New City West survived." Tremont lives on as a summer resort.
  11. The WPA guide describes Tremont as "a summer resort on the site of New City West, a deserted city," with the Duneside Inn at the Tremont entrance to the state park.
  12. The new Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore condemns land, and the remaining community disperses.

The resort years

A stop for the dunes

A postcard labeled "Beach House, Tremont," mailed in October 1913, taken from the beach below the building. The Prairie Club built its beach house that year on a dune by the lake, about where the state park water tower stands, less than two miles north of the Tremont station by the club's route
A postcard labeled "Beach House, Tremont," mailed in October 1913, taken from the beach below the building. The Prairie Club built its beach house that year on a dune by the lake, about where the state park water tower stands, less than two miles north of the Tremont station by the club's route · Photo: Steve Shook (scan of a 1913 postcard), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Once the interurban stopped at Tremont, Chicagoans could reach the dunes by train. The National Park Service lists Tremont among the dunes resorts operating before 1900, and says the Prairie Club sparked some of the building there, especially around Tremont and Waverly Beach. The club's bulletin sent members north from the Tremont station less than a mile on a country road, then three-quarters of a mile on a marked trail through the woods to its camp. The beach house stood on a 50-foot dune by the lake, about where the state park's water tower is now. Members pitched tents and threw up rough cottages around it, and tobogganed down Mount Tom.

By 1939 the WPA's regional guide called Tremont a summer resort on the site of a deserted city. The Duneside Inn stood at the end of the Tremont entrance road into the state park, and a meat packer's picnic camp and a Boy Scout camp were nearby.

Site map

Where the village stood

Today's USGS map still prints the name Tremont on the wooded ground just south of US 12, by Miami Trail. The 1934 Porter sheet puts it at the crossing of the South Shore line and the highway, with Mount Tom, Mount Holden and Mount Jackson to the north and Port Chester to the west. The 1953 and 1968 Dune Acres sheets show a cluster of houses and short streets south of the tracks. By 1991 the same blocks carry the words "Dunes National" across them, though the sheet still draws house symbols there. We don't know whether any house from Tremont survives.

  • Village site in park woodland, south of US 12
  • South Shore Line, still running
  • Mount Tom, Mount Holden and Mount Green (Mount Jackson on the 1934 sheet), in the state park
USGS topographic map of the Tremont area: US 12 and the Calumet Trail running diagonally, the Tremont label by Miami Trail, and Glenwood Dunes trails to the south
USGS The National Map, topo. The Tremont label sits by Miami Trail just south of US 12. Tremont Road crosses the highway to the west, and a Glenwood Dunes trail runs below.
Aerial view of the Tremont area: dense woods cut diagonally by US 12 and the railroad, with a few small clearings south of the highway
Aerial imagery, same area. Woods cover the village area. The highway and railroad cross the top, and a few small clearings sit south of them.

Historic maps

Tremont on USGS maps, 1934–1991

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Tremont, 1934
Porter sheet, 1934, 1:48,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Chesterton is about nine minutes away by Waverly Road and US 12. From Chicago the drive goes out the Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road to I-94 and US 20. Both routes end on Pottawattomie Road at Miami Trail, just south of US 12.

USGS topographic map between Chesterton and Tremont with the routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Chesterton3.7 miabout 9 min
  1. From downtown Chesterton, take 9th Street, Broadway and 8th Street to Wabash Avenue.0.5 mi
  2. Wabash Avenue becomes Waverly Road. Follow it.1.9 mi
  3. Bear right onto US 12 (Dunes Highway).1.2 mi
  4. Turn right on Pottawattomie Road to Miami Trail.0.1 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The routes are computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us.
  • The routes end on Pottawattomie Road, an unsigned lane in the park woods. We don't know whether it is open to cars or has anywhere to park. The Park Service names the Glenwood Dunes lot, at US 20 and Brummitt Road, as the nearest parking for the Glenwood Dunes Extension trail, which runs just south of the townsite.
  • The park requires a pass on its trails. See the National Park Service's fees page before you go.
  • In July 2026 the park listed temporary partial closures on the Glenwood Dunes trails. Check its closure maps.
  • Trail 8 in Indiana Dunes State Park, rated rugged at 1.5 miles, goes over the tops of the park's three highest dunes. The state park has its own entrance.

Photos

Tremont in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Tremont?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Tremont

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Indiana index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Tremont, Indiana", retrieved October 2026: coordinates, Westchester Township, the 1833 founding date, the 1853 post office merger, the 1908 station and name, the Prairie Club beach house, the 1929 Bowers quote, the 1960s dispersal and the railroad headquarters beside the old village center.
  2. Writers' Program of the WPA, The Calumet Region Historical Guide (1939), pp. 135–136, via the Internet Archive: New City West's houses, sawmill, cooper shop and brickyard, the 1875 explosion, the Green tavern, the Underground Railroad claim, the three dunes, the Duneside Inn and the camps, and the 1923 state park law.
  3. National Park Service, "Early Development of the Indiana Dunes: 1870s–1910s", updated October 2023: Tremont among the resorts operating before 1900, the part the Prairie Club played in building near Tremont and Waverly Beach, the beach house of 1913 on a leased 50-foot dune where the state park water tower now stands, the 1922 land purchase, the bulletin's directions from Tremont station, tobogganing on Mount Tom and the club's national park campaign.
  4. National Park Service, "Glenwood Dunes Trails" and "Partial Closures to Marquette Greenway Trail and Glenwood Dunes Trail", both updated July 21, 2026: trail hours, pass requirement, temporary partial closures, the Glenwood Dunes Extension trail and its nearest parking. "Fees & Passes", updated February 23, 2026: a fee is due to walk a trail or use park facilities.
  5. South Shore Line (NICTD), stations and contact pages, read October 2026: Dune Park station at the junction of SR 49 and US 12, 33 East US 12, the same address as the district's offices.
  6. Indiana DNR, Indiana Dunes State Park, read October 2026: established 1925, Trail 8 over the three highest dunes.
  7. USGS Protected Areas Database (PAD-US), queried October 2026: the mapped point lies on National Park Service land with open access. BLM National PLSS: section 19, T37N R5W.
  8. Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, Porter 1934 and 1940 and Dune Acres 1953, 1968 and 1991 sheets. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits