Dorothy Richardson Buell (1886–1976) was an American educator and nature preservationist who became the founder and first president of the Save the Dunes Council, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the Indiana dunelands along Lake Michigan.
Buell led a grassroots effort to save the remaining unspoiled dunes in northwestern Indiana from industrial development.
[2] Buell's interest in preserving the Indiana Dunes stems from a 1949 trip with her husband to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.
After stopping for dinner at the Gary Hotel on the way home from the trip, the Buells saw a poster in the lobby that promoted a meeting that evening of the Indiana Dunes Preservation Council.
[6][7] Buell, who served as the first president of the Council, succeeded Bess Sheehan as the leader of a revived dunes preservation movement.
[5][8] An early victory for Buell and the Council in its first year was the purchase of Cowles Tamarack Bog, a 56-acre (23-hectare) wetlands in Porter County, Indiana, that was sold due to delinquent taxes.
[5] In Buell's view, the Council's primary goal was to preserve five miles of remaining unspoiled lakeshore by adding it to the Indiana Dunes State Park to protect it from development.
[5][11] By 1954 Buell was persuaded that the Council needed to broaden its base of support and become more politically active in order to achieve its goals.
Buell and Douglas worked together to establish grassroots and political support for the Indiana Dunes National Park, an effort that took nearly a decade amid numerous and significant obstacles.
[5][12] Buell, a skilled orator due to her academic training and involvement in community theater, also testified before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on May 13, 1959.
Industrial development and construction of the Burns Waterway Harbor continued while Congress considered the bill and subsequent legislation to establish the national lakeshore.
[7] She is remembered as a tenacious, dignified, and reserved activist whose tireless efforts overcame significant challenges in achieving the goal of preserving the Indiana Dunes.
Buell's and the Council's efforts helped to preserve thousands of acres of northern Indiana dunelands as part of the National Park Service.