Wolf Lake is an

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

that straddles the

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

and

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

state line near

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

.New Vision for Wolf Lake – News of the Wild – Summer 2001
/ref> It is smaller than it was prior to settlement by European colonizers because of infilling for development around the edges. Despite years of environmental damage caused by

heavy industries Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); or ...

transportation infrastructure Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and ...

urban runoff Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater, landscape irrigation, and car washing created by urbanization. Impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots and sidewalks) are constructed during land development. During rain , storms and other precipit ...

and filling of wetlands, it is one of the most important biological sites in the Chicago region. Wolf Lake is located between

Hammond, Indiana Hammond ( ) is a city in Lake County, Indiana. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area, and the only city in Indiana to border Chicago. First settled in the mid-19th century, it is one of the oldest cities of northern Lake County. As of the ...

and the

Hegewisch Hegewisch (pronounced "heg-wish" by the locals) is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's far south side. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Riverdale and South Deering to the west, the East Side to the ...

community area of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Illinois. It was once connected by an open channel to Lake Michigan on the Indiana side of the lake, but this channel was cut off for

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped *Photographi ...

on its northern side. Indianapolis Boulevard ( U.S. 41) and various railroad and industrial facilities are located in former wetlands on the northeastern side of the lake where it once connected to Lake Michigan. There are currently proposals to reopen a channel between Wolf Lake and Lake Michigan. The Illinois portion of the lake consists of five, interconnected impoundments separated by dikes. The dikes were constructed in the late 1950s so that separate portions of the lake could be drained for the purpose of dredging for fill to use in the construction of the Chicago Skyway. The western impoundments are now part of the William W. Powers State Recreation Area and are drained by Indian Creek to the

Calumet River The Calumet River is a system of heavily industrialized rivers and canals in the region between the south side of Chicago, Illinois, and the city of Gary, Indiana. Historically, the Little Calumet River and the Grand Calumet River were one, the ...

. The Wolf Lake water level determines the drainage to Lake Michigan because the connecting Calumet River flows southward during elevated levels and northward during lowered levels. The Indiana portion of the lake consists of three, interconnected impoundments that are also separated by dikes. The longest dike, running roughly parallel to State Line Road and traversing the entire length of the lake, contains railroad tracks belonging to the Indiana Harbor Belt. The

Indiana Toll Road The Indiana Toll Road, officially the Indiana East–West Toll Road, is a tolled freeway that runs for east–west across northern Indiana from the Illinois state line to the Ohio state line. It has been advertised as the "Main Street of the ...

(

Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...

) runs through the middle of the lake just inside the

state line. The lake is also transected by a number of railroad causeways, some of them no longer in use.

Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad is a Class III railroadSurface Transportation BoardThe Belt Railway Company of Chicago -- Trackage Rights Exemption -- Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company January 9, 2002 in the United States. Ownership The IHB ...

has an active

spur line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industri ...

that runs through the

side of the lake in the Hegewisch community area. Calumet Avenue (U.S. 41) is on its eastern side, with a strip of parkland in between. There are currently several large industrial properties adjacent to the lake and on filled wetlands adjoining the lake, including

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in ter ...

and

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...

on the north side. Other property near the edge of the lake is being used for housing. A significant portion of the property around the lake is now parkland or nature preserve, including the Eggers Woods parcel of the

Forest Preserve District of Cook County The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is a governmental commission in Cook County, Illinois, that owns and manages a network of open spaces, containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes, that are mostly set aside as natural areas ...

. Other neighboring lakes include Lake George,

Lake Calumet Lake Calumet is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it has been changed beyond recognition by industrial redevelopment and decay. Parts of the lake have been dr ...

, Powderhorn Lake and

. There was also another lake that lay to the west between Wolf Lake and the river. It was called Hyde Lake and was filled in by Republic Steel. A swampy area near 130th Street and the railroad tracks is the only remnant of that lake.

History

Wolf Lake in Illinois has a storied history that somehow has lost track of the origins of the name that goes back over 150 years. Part of this history includes visits by

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

in which

Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) served as First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Lincoln was a member of a large and wealthy, slave-owning ...

nearly drowned. In 1924, the body of

Bobby Franks Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (; June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago ...

was found in a

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...

just northwest of the lake. Franks was the victim of the so-called "thrill killers,"

Leopold and Loeb Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (; June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago ...

– the subjects of what was termed the "Trial of the Century." It's well known that Chicagoland gangsters used to dispose of bodies in this lake system as well. From 1933 to 1936, Wolf Lake Speedway was located within the lake, in

. The track was completely surrounded by the water of Wolf Lake, and a portion of the lake was drained to allow for its construction.

Nike Missile Site (C-44)

During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, two areas around the lake were used to create

Nike missile The United States Army's Nike Ajax was the world's first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), entering service in 1954. Nike Ajax was designed to attack conventional bomber aircraft flying at high subsonic speeds and altitudes above ...

site C-44, part of an air defense system for Chicago and its heavy industries. It was one of many such sites that formed a ring of defense running from Indiana to Wisconsin. Both areas were decommissioned in the 1970s and have since been converted into preservation and recreation areas. On the northwest side of the lake, several hundred acres of

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

were filled with ferrous

slag Slag is a by-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-prod ...

in order to create the actual site for the missiles. This is currently Eggers Woods, part of the Cook County Forest Preserve system. The southwest side of the lake housed the site's radar station and has been converted into the William W. Powers State Recreation Area in Illinois.

Ecology

Wolf Lake, along with the other neighboring lakes, was once among the most biologically diverse places in the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

. Eighty years ago, the renowned naturalist Donald Culross Peattie described Wolf Lake as one of North America's preeminent natural areas, "…a famous hunting ground for aquatic wildlife...where the plants form one of the most remarkable assemblages of aquatics in the country...no body of water of equal size can boast such a list."Rarities in the Rough
from Chicago Wilderness Magazine It is still an extremely unusual and diverse area. On August 23, 2002, more than 150 experts in botany, zoology and related ecological fields assembled at Wolf Lake and in the surrounding forest, prairie and marshland to identify and record as many living organisms as possible within a single 24-hour period. The purpose of this undertaking, known as the Calumet Bioblitz, was to document the extraordinary biodiversity of green pockets that have survived within the urban and industrial landscape south of Chicago. The water in Wolf Lake was about 18 inches higher until 1998 when the

Illinois Department of Natural Resources The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is the code department of the Illinois state government that operates the state parks and state recreation areas, enforces the fishing and game laws of Illinois, regulates Illinois coal mines, ...

removed several

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

s and their dams that had been built across Indian Creek. The subsequent drop in water depth encouraged weed growth and changed fishing conditions. Beaver signs indicate that there are beavers on the lake currently.

Fish

Wolf Lake is home to the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

Lake sturgeon The lake sturgeon (''Acipenser fulvescens''), also known as the rock sturgeon, is a North American temperate freshwater fish, one of about 25 species of sturgeon. Like other sturgeons, this species is a bottom feeder with evolutionarily basal t ...

(''Acipenser fulvescens'') and the threatened

Banded killifish The banded killifish (''Fundulus diaphanus'') is a North American species of temperate freshwater killifish belonging to the genus ''Fundulus'' of the family Fundulidae. Its natural geographic range extends from Newfoundland to South Carolina, ...

(''Fundulus diaphanus'').

Birds

The lake and neighboring wetlands provide nesting sites for the endangered

black-crowned night heron The black-crowned night heron (''Nycticorax nycticorax''), or black-capped night heron, commonly shortened to just night heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and N ...

little blue heron The little blue heron (''Egretta caerulea'') is a small heron of the genus ''Egretta''. It is a small, darkly colored heron with a two-toned bill. Juveniles are entirely white, bearing resemblance to the snowy egret. During the breeding season ...

yellow-crowned night heron The yellow-crowned night heron (''Nyctanassa violacea''), is one of two species of night herons found in the Americas, the other one being the black-crowned night heron. It is known as the ''bihoreau violacé'' in French and the ''pedrete corona ...

and

yellow-headed blackbird The yellow-headed blackbird (''Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus'') is a medium-sized blackbird with a yellow head. It is the only member of the genus ''Xanthocephalus''. Description Measurements: * Length: 8.3-10.2 in (21-26 cm) * Weight: ...

. Native

Trumpeter The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...

(''Cygnus buccinator'') and

Tundra swan The tundra swan (''Cygnus columbianus'') is a small swan of the Holarctic. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan (''Cygnus bewickii'') of the Palaearctic and the w ...

s (''Cygnus columbianus'') and non-native

Mute swan The mute swan (''Cygnus olor'') is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurosiberia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is an introduced species in North America, home ...

s (''Cygnus olor'') may all be found on the lake in winter. Tundra swans are absent in summer as they migrate to the arctic and subarctic to nest, however, the non-native, Eurasian Mute swans, which stay in the area year round, compete for habitat with the non-migrating Trumpeter swan population and is an impediment to restoration of the native trumpeters around the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

Flora

The endangered false golden sedge (''

Carex garberi ''Carex garberi'' is a species of sedge known by the common names elk sedge and Garber's sedge native to North America. Distribution It is native to northern North America, where it occurs throughout Canada and Alaska and at higher elevations as ...

''), little green sedge (''

Carex viridula ''Carex viridula'', known as little green sedge, green sedge, or greenish sedge, is a small flowering plant native to North America, Europe, Asia, and Morocco. Taxonomy ''Carex viridula'' is in the section ''Carex'' sect. ''Ceratocystis'', a ...

'') and the threatened marsh speedwell ('' Veronica scutellata'') are plants that grow in the neighboring wetlands. Perhaps the most amazing biological aspect of the lake is its array of rare aquatic plants.

Ecosystem restoration

A $7.25 million ecosystem restoration project for Wolf Lake was carried out by the Chicago District of the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

, with the support of the

and the City of Hammond. Completed in September 2007, the project sought to improve the overall quality of the lake ecosystem for native species. Natural water levels in the lake were restored by clearing channels and creating openings in dikes and causeways. Additional habitat was created by constructing approximately of new aquatic and wetland habitat plantings. Also, approximately of shoreline was restored, deep holes were created to locally diversify the lake bottom, and herbicidal and biological controls were implemented to control aquatic and shoreline exotic and undesirable plant species.USACE Chicago District
/ref> While for many years it was commonplace for park visitors to feed the ducks and other birds that lived at the lake, this produced an unnaturally and unsustainably large population, as well as many non-native birds such as domesticated breeds of ducks and geese. It is no longer permitted that visitors feed wildlife and as a result the populations have dropped to a sustainable and natural population.

References

External links

Calumet BioBlitz
from the Field Museum of Chicago.

from Chicago Wilderness Magazine.

from Indiana Audubon Society's ''Online Birding Guide''.
Wetlands of the Calumet Region
from Illinois Chapter of the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

.
Rarities in the Rough
from Chicago Wilderness Magazine.
Flickr.com images of the Park
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf Lake (Indiana Illinois) Shrunken lakes Chicago metropolitan area Geography of Chicago Hammond, Indiana Lakes of Indiana Lakes of Illinois Bodies of water of Lake County, Indiana