The Indiana Landmarks, a private statewide historic preservation organization, is providing a $5,000 grant to the Calumet Heritage Partnership (CHP) to help fund CHP and the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project’s joint venture in identifying and documenting the Underground Railroad trail through Gary and Northwest Indiana.

Indiana Landmarks is funding the project through their Black Heritage Preservation Project. The newly funded project is part of a larger effort to document the Chicago to Detroit Freedom Trail. The Trail became the Detroit to Chicago Road and built in 1824 after the U.S. government negotiated a right of way with the Native communities. When building the road, the Americans generally followed trails Native Americans had used for centuries. Present-day Interstate 94 generally parallels the Detroit-Chicago Road and the ancient trails.

Through research and community engagement, the Underground Railroad Project hopes to describe two major streams of movement by freedom seekers through Northwest Indiana and to identify significant sites along those streams and listing them on the National Parks Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.  Additionally, the project will recommend sites for historic markers, interpretive materials, and exhibits.

The effort is a continuation of the Underground Railroad Project’s work in Illinois, where they identified the Jan and Aagje Ton Farm site as a stop along the Underground Railroad’s trail in what is now a part of Chicago’s far south side. With National Park Service funding, the Ton Farm now has a marker noting its significance and is on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.