Chesterton, Indiana

The town now called Chesterton began as Coffee Creek in eighteen thirty-three, then was renamed Calumet around eighteen fifty. When the Lake Shore and Michigan Railroad came through in eighteen fifty-two, the commercial district migrated north to the tracks and the town's fortunes shifted. After the Civil War the name changed again, this time to Chesterton.

The downtown that visitors see today was mostly built after a fire swept through in nineteen oh two, destroying the wooden storefronts. Brick buildings went up quickly in Italianate and Romanesque styles, and many of those buildings survive in the Commercial Historic District, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen ninety-nine. Chesterton sits at the edge of the Indiana Dunes, and for generations it served as the last stop before the lake for Chicago day-trippers arriving by rail.