Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Wake Robin Fields Chesterton, IN

Chesterton is a town in Porter County that began in 1833 as a settlement called Coffee Creek, where a post office was established in 1835.

The community was renamed Calumet in 1850 and was platted in 1852 when the railroad was extended to the area, before taking the name Chesterton in 1870, derived from its location in Westchester Township.

Chesterton was incorporated as a town on May 4, 1899, after an earlier incorporation attempt in 1869 had failed.

The 2020 Census counted 14,241 people and 5,671 households in Chesterton, spread across about 9.49 square miles.

Together with the neighboring towns of Burns Harbor and Porter, Chesterton forms the 'Duneland' area, with Indiana Dunes State Park and Indiana Dunes National Park lying just to its north on Lake Michigan.

Chesterton High School serves students from all three Duneland towns and operates its own radio station, WDSO at 88.3 FM, while the town's five public elementary schools are Liberty, Bailly, Yost, Jackson, and Brummitt.

The South Shore Line commuter railroad is headquartered in Chesterton, and its Dune Park station sits just north of town, linking the Duneland to Chicago and South Bend.

The Chesterton Tribune, first established in 1882 and published as a daily from 1961, ceased publication on December 30, 2020, but was bought and revived as a twice-weekly newspaper in March 2021.

On October 10, 1933, a United Airlines flight was blown up over Chesterton by a nitroglycerine bomb, killing all seven people aboard in the first known proven case of sabotage against a commercial airliner.

Chesterton was long home to the annual Wizard of Oz Festival, established in 1982 and described as the largest and most famous festival of its kind.