The Good Fellow Lodge is undergoing a massive renovation, inside and out, and will be available for use when that restoration is complete. Except for one thing: There’s no furniture.
Indiana Dunes National Park Superintendent Jason Taylor and his staff met on Dec. 16 with the public at the first of his Superintendent’s Spotlight series to engage with the public on issues involving the park. While his presentation was focused on Mount Baldy, he touched on other issues at the park, including where Good Fellow Lodge stands – where everyone will stand, unless some chairs and other furniture are obtained.
The restoration is part of a $22 million investment from the Great American Outdoors Act. At Indiana Dunes National Park, it’s being used not only to restore the Good Fellow Lodge but also to shore up the exterior of the House of Tomorrow and Bailly Homestead.
For the latter two structures, the interior work will be done by long-term tenants once the exterior work is done and the National Park Service decides who will lease the buildings and for what purpose, Taylor said.
Pictures are displayed above the fireplace of the Good Fellow Club Lodge on Indiana Dunes National Park land on April 2, 2019. Plans are underway to restore the lodge but they don’t include funding for furniture. (Kyle Telechan/for Post-Tribune)
The Good Fellow Lodge will be used for meetings of park staff as well as others interested in using the venue.
Taylor’s remark about the lack of funding for furniture there prompted an audience member to suggest starting a GoFundMe account to raise money for furniture. Taylor and Outdoor Recreation Planner Rafe Wilkinson liked the idea.
“We do have a person who wanted to donate some historical furniture, a very small collection of furniture, and so there was a conversation in the park about could we pay to have that restored,” Taylor said.
“That launched an entire internal conversation about maybe we could put a call out there to say if you have furniture from this time period, that is of this particular type, if you don’t need it anymore, and so on,” he said. “There will be conversations with our friends group about how they might be able to help us with a small capital campaign or something to that extent to raise money for furnishing the facilities, to figure out a way to get people to sit in the building.”
Taylor wants the furniture to be not just a series of discards but to be appropriate for the setting. The park is in the business of interpreting the area’s history and culture, after all.
The Good Fellow Lodge was part of a summer camp U.S. Steel operated for employees’ families.
This fall, a time capsule appeared during construction work at the lodge. The battered copper box, encased in concrete, held a variety of documents that tell of the Good Fellow Camp’s origins, along with a 48-star flag. Alaska and Hawaii didn’t achieve statehood until 1959.
Plans for the Good Fellow Camp called for a massive complex that included the pump house, a steel swimming pool, baseball diamond, basketball and tennis courts and more. The Dunes Learning Center operates in a portion of the camp.
The Good Fellow Lodge operated until the mid-1970s, when a massive downturn in the steel industry led to its closure as a cost-cutting move. When the humans moved out, raccoons and other wildlife moved in.
The park staff considered using it long ago for environmental education, but another structure was built instead.
Now it’s being restored and, with the public’s help, refurnished.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
