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Shoreline Property Advisors
Evanston: 847-425-3844
New Buffalo: 269-612-4104
Fax: 847-572-5795
AskUs@ShorelineAdvice.com
Evanston Office
2929 Central Street
Evanston, IL 60201
New Buffalo Office
10 N. Whittaker Street
New Buffalo, MI, 49117
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The small but charming towns of Beverly Shores and The Pines are nestled in panoramic Pine Township, each one providing an intimate residential atmosphere for less than a thousand residents. The physical features of this area vary from high barren sand-hills at the north to fertile fields at the south. Although this area was heavily timbered at one time in its history, most of the quality timber has been harvested.
Beverly Shores offers the popular attraction of the Depot of Beverly Shores, combining a museum with an art gallery in the quaint, historic South Shore Line Passenger Depot. This area also preserves the legacy of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair Century of Progress Exhibition in a cluster of unique homes. These vintage dwellings represent yesterday's vision of the future, standing proudly along the Lake Michigan dunes as monuments to American ingenuity and modern technology.
Beverly Shores is a town in Pine Township, Porter County, Indiana, United States, about 36 miles (58 km) east of downtown Chicago. The population was 708 at the 2000 census.
History
Beverly Shores began life as a planned resort community. The Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend railroad began to provide service from South Bend to Chicago shortly after 1900. The Chicago businessman Samuel Insull reorganized the line as the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend (today's South Shore Line) in 1925, upgrading the stations and encouraging tourism. A number of promotional posters were issued, many of which remain in print.
The Frederick H. Bartlett Company, at that time one of Chicago's largest real-estate developers, bought 3,600 acres (15 km2) in the area in 1927, and plotted thousands of homesites. He named the prospective development Lake Shore, North Shore Beach and South Shore Acres. The Great Depression dampened its prospects, and many of the plots were never built on.
Robert Bartlett, Frederick Bartlett's brother, purchased the properties in 1933, He named the entire development after his daughter Beverly,and continued to develop its infrastructure with roads, a school, a golf course, and a hotel. He purchased and relocated sixteen structures from Chicago's 1933-34 Century of Progress World's Fair, four of which were transported by barges on Lake Michigan.
The community was incorporated in 1947. After World War II, a number of industrial developments, including Burns Harbor, were built to the east, and by the 1950s environmental organizations had begun to push for preservation of the area. The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was established in 1966. During the 1970s, there was a movement to purchase all the homes in Beverly Shores and incorporate the entire town into the National Lakeshore. This initiative did not succeed, but many local properties were acquired, especially those in the wetlands that constitute the southern portion. The acquisition process is ongoing. The owners of lots fronting on the beach were granted lifetime leasebacks with the proviso that the property would revert to the National Lakeshore; many of these houses have since been demolished.
The 1970s saw a period of record high lake levels and beach erosion; the owners of lakefront properties often responded by dumping large quantities of concrete blocks (riprap) onto the sand in front of their houses, which continue to mar the beach. The beach is now conspicuously public, although nearby parking is limited.
A resurgence of development took place during the 1990s and 2000s, when many million-dollar-plus houses were built on the dunes near the lakefront. In the early 2000s, excessive levels of arsenic, boron, lead, and manganese were found in wells in the nearby town of Pines, and pipelines delivering Lake Michigan water treated by Michigan City were extended into Beverly Shores. This time period also saw an explosion of the local white-tailed deer population, a problem that has polarized its residents. In 1998, the Spanish Colonial Revival train depot, originally built in 1929, was renovated.
Beverly Shores has always enjoyed the reputation of being a "gay-friendly" community. For example, the "Last Outpost" and "Los Compadres" restaurants were, in their heyday, major points of interest in northwest Indiana for the alternative lifestyle of the homosexual community.
Geography
Beverly Shores is located along the Lake Michigan shoreline. It is bordered by Indiana Dunes State Park on the west, Lake Michigan on the north, the village of Pines on the south, and Michigan City on the east. Much of the immediate area is part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 5.8 square miles (15.2 kmē), of which, 3.6 square miles (9.3 kmē) of it is land and 2.3 square miles (5.9 kmē) of it (38.80%) is water.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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