Good Fellow Lodge at Dunes Learning Center

Good Fellow Lodge is part of a 63-acre wooded campus beside the Little Calumet River, now home to Dunes Learning Center, the park's outdoor school. It's usually closed to walk-in visitors; come only for a program or community event you've registered for. The address is 700 Howe Road. Event guests are directed to park on campus, but this isn't a regular visitor-center stop.

Gary Works' Good Fellow Club opened the camp for employees' children in 1941. U.S. Steel ran it until 1976, when the park acquired the grounds. It was the company's only summer camp built for workers' children. The lodge's dining hall measured 59 by 30 feet and had a massive stone fireplace; camp life also included boating on the Little Calumet River.

A 1946 expansion added an all-steel swimming pool, tennis and shuffleboard courts, and a playground. If your registered visit includes the main lodge, look for its cedar interior and fireplace. Outside, the red timber building under the pines makes a more telling photo than the entrance sign.

The camp taught nature and local history through the era's “Indian Appreciation Program” and used Native American references in its cabin names. Its eight-week summer program was also segregated in the 1940s: six weeks were reserved for white children and two for Black children.