Trail Creek (Lake Michigan)
| Trail Creek (Myewes-zibiwe) | |
| La Rivière du Chemin (River of the Trail) | |
| stream | |
 Bird's Eye View of Michigan City, 1869, by A. Ruger (partial sketch).
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|
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | Indiana |
| Region | LaPorte County |
| Tributaries | |
| - left | West Fork Trail Creek |
| - right | East Fork Trail Creek, Otter Creek |
| City | Michigan City, Indiana |
| Source confluence | Confluence of West Branch Trail Creek and East Branch Trail Creek |
| - elevation | 610 ft (186 m) |
| - coordinates | 41°41′12″N 086°50′38″W / 41.68667°N 86.84389°W |
| Mouth | Lake Michigan |
| - location | Michigan City, Indiana |
| - elevation | 581 ft (177 m) |
| - coordinates | 41°43′27″N 086°54′32″W / 41.72417°N 86.90889°WCoordinates: 41°43′27″N 086°54′32″W / 41.72417°N 86.90889°W |
Trail Creek is a 7.3-mile-long (11.7 km) north- by northwest-flowing stream whose main stem begins at the confluence of the West Branch Trail Creek and the East Branch Trail Creek in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States. Its mouth is a Lake Michigan harbor and marina adjacent to Michigan City, Indiana's lakefront Washington Park.
Trail Creek was called Myewes-zibiwe in Potawatomi, meaning "trail-creek", which referred to the "Potawotami Trail" that ran from Chicago along the south shore of Lake Michigan, along Trail Creek, then to Hudson Lake and finally to the French Fort St. Joseph and the nearby Jesuit mission (now Niles, Michigan) on the St. Joseph River. The French named it La Rivière du Chemin (River of the Trail), and in 1815 and 1818 it was referred to as the Road River and Chemin River.
In 1816 a shoreline survey indicated that Trail Creek was 30 feet (9 m) wide. At its mouth and on the harbor's western bank stood "Hoosier Slide", a 200-foot-tall (60 m) sand dune (today's Mount Baldy in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is only 120 feet (37 m) tall). The summit of the majestic dune was mantled with trees, and picnics and weddings were held there where Chicago tourists enjoyed a beautiful view of the lake and the vast lumberyards of Washington Park. Hoosier Slide was removed by sand mining from 1890 to 1920, the sand being used for glassmaking and also for landfill in Chicago's Jackson Park and for the Illinois Central Railroad right-of-way. The former site of Hoosier Slide was acquired by Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) to construct a coal-generating power plant in the late 1920s.
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Wikipedia