National Park After Dark - Diana of the Dunes: Indiana Dunes National Park

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Alice Mabel Gray was nicknamed Diana of the Dunes after she left society to live off the land on the shores of Lake Michigan. We covered her story partially in a prior episode - focusing on the haunted folklore around her story. Today we are revisiting her story to delve deep into her life, including her mysterious partner, a gruesome murder they were accused of committing, and the truth behind Alice's tragic death.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Apostrophe: Use our link and code NPAD to get for first visit for only $5.Microdose: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Cozy Earth: Use our link and code NPAD to get 35% off. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. A few miles east of Chicago lies the sand dunes of Indiana. A wilderness of beauty that has moved lovers of nature to petition the government to set it off as a national park. Glistening torpedo sands, glacier strewn and wind-blown, forms valleys and mountains topped by fir and pines. Orchids grow there in brilliant variety. The beauty of the shore, lake, and sky have charmed artists. The spirit of this domain is a wild girl.

Diana of the dunes, they call her. Fishermen scurry to shore before squalls have been started. startled to see her breasting the waves far out in the lake. Hunters have chased and been chased by her. Reporters have often penetrated to her driftwood hut wilderness, but learned little more than her name is Alice Grace, and she was once one of the most brilliant students turned out by the University of Chicago. These words were written by the Herald Examiner in an article to uncover the mystery of Diana of the Dunes.

But while the Herald and many other newspapers reported, the beauty and wonder of her life. Not everything they reported was true. Not even close. Welcome to National Park After Dark. People are going to love you for this one. We are coming back around. It is kind of funny because we're almost at our one-year anniversary.

It's the 25th. And I'm retelling a story that we covered a while ago in a haunted hikes. It was October 2021. I think that we did a haunted hiking trails episode and Diana the Dunes was featured and she turned into a favorite ghost story of a lot of people. But that episode was mainly focused around the haunting of her and a little bit of her life. But I didn't dive really deep into her life. So we're revisiting the Indiana Dunes National Park and we're revisiting Diana the Dunes and her real life story. I'm stoked because I I remember bits and pieces of her story?

Because again, you just did a really surface level, just like a couple facts about her. Because it was melded into a couple other stories during that episode, right? Yeah, the whole episode wasn't even about her. It was about just haunted trails because there's all this folklore around her life and hauntings and a hiking trail surrounding her story after. But I never really dived that much into her real life. Well, I'm excited to hear more. And I know a lot of people are because we get messages all the time about her.

So I know a few people are very excited right now. But I guess before you get started, you said our anniversary is in a couple days. And we do have an anniversary event type of thing going on. We are doing a Spotify live. It's not going to be on the 25th on our actual two-year anniversary. It's a day later. It's on the 26th. So if you'd like to join that, you can listen on the Spotify platform as normal.

But if you want a chance to interact, talk with us, chat with other people, you have to download the Spotify live. at. And it's the 26 at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Yes, thank you. And just 5 p.m. Mountain Time and 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Thank you. Thank you. The last one we did was very fun. We wanted to do it again. And we just felt that the anniversary was a great time to do so. It's right before we leave for our very first trip of the year, which is going to be to Egypt. It'll be a nice time to kind of get together before we head off for a little while and reflect back on everything that. the podcast is done over the last two years. So we hope to see you there. Yeah, very, very exciting. It'll be fun. Come ask any questions you want. Come chat with us. It'll be cool. Probably go on for like maybe an hour or so. Yeah, something like that. All right. Well, let's go to Indiana of the, where are we? Indiana of the Dunes. Indiana. We are going to Indiana Sand Dunes National Park,

which is located in Indiana. It is in northwestern Indiana, and it's actually near the border of Illinois. and it's 32 miles outside of Chicago, which is kind of fun because you think of national parks are very remote usually, but you can see the skyline of Chicago from this national park. It was originally designated as a national lakeshore in 1966, but on February 15, 2019, it became the 61st U.S. National Park. So very, very recent. And it now has over 2 million visitors every single year. Well, being so close to the city.

I would imagine there's a lot of people who want to pop over there for a day trip. Yeah. Yeah, you can just jump over there. If you fly in, hop off a plane, it's less than an hour drive to get there. It's really easy to visit. And I've been planning our trip to visit as well. The park sits along the southern shore of Lake Michigan for about 20 miles, which is 32 kilometers, and it encompasses over 15,000 acres, which is 6,212 hectares.

It protects sand dunes that were the result of four major glacial lake periods. Some of these dunes are over 40,000 years old. The park is also noted for something that I thought was really cool, which I don't remember researching, so I don't think I mentioned this before, but maybe I did it, I'm wrong. But the park is noted for their singing sands. I don't remember this. Yeah, I'm like, I don't remember this. I feel like I would have. But it is because they're known as singing sands because their sand dunes actually produce sound.

Because of the composition of the sand and the wind passing over the dunes or even just walking on the sand, it triggers a sound that is described as a loud, low-pitch rumble or even like a barking sound and it can last several minutes. Barking sound. Barking. I don't know what it sounds like, but I need to know now. I was going to say, did you YouTube this or anything? Because I cannot imagine it at all. I didn't, but I'm going to right now. Girl, winter is so last season.

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Do you hear that? I don't hear anything. It's like a hmm. So maybe everyone should just look at it themselves. Well, it's how that video kind of just said it's a phenomenon. They don't totally know exactly why, I guess. It's something to do with the composition of the sounds. But there also has to be the exact right.

conditions to make this happen. So if you go to the sand dunes, you're not necessarily going to hear it, but they say that the sound occurs when dry sand grains of a certain size and shape and at a certain humidity are rubbed against each other is what creates the sound. And it's only known to occur in 35 other locations around the world. Oh, okay, that was my next question. Is it just special to these particular dunes? But interesting. Yeah, it also happens in great sand dunes, National Park in Colorado. Cool. Yeah. Well, I have a lot. I've not experienced that, but I'll be on the lookout next time I'm there. Yeah, keep your ears open.

I also read kind of off topic, but in Antarctica. I saw a video of it, and the glaciers make a singing sound too. Oh, interesting. It's funny that you're like, yeah, I just happened to stumble upon this thing in Antarctica. Cassie, just so everyone knows, is on an Antarctica kick. So, like, to go there physically. Yes. So I'm ready to launch a trip and invite everyone to park.

I'm not saying that's happening, but I'm going to really, really try. Yeah, she's. I'm really, I'm really pushing for it. She's manifesting it. Like, that's her thing. Yeah. Where was I? The singing dunes.

Okay, so it happens 35 other locations around the world. So it's a really cool park. There's a lot of stuff going on there. But interest in preserving the area started as early as 1899, but a major event that took place to spark the conservation movement was the Hoosier slide disappearance in 1920. So this slide was a 200-foot or 61-meter sand dune that was a popular tourist destination in the 19th century. But just as it became this tourist destination, it was also found to be a good source of iron-rich sand that was able to be used to make light blue tinted glass. So this led to extreme industry sand mining to make this special glass

for certain things. And it led to its complete disappearance of the sand dune after only 30 years. Oh, because it was just totally exploited. It totally exploited. Um, they had steel mines coming in. They had sand mining coming in. And specifically this dune was used for the blue glass. And people were outraged because so many people loved this specific area. And it disappeared so fast that there was never like generations of like, oh, I used to see this when I was a kid or something. It was like, you used it and then it was gone. Right. Yeah, within a couple decades.

Yeah. Yeah. So this led to a public outcry and many activists started stepping forward to save the dunes. Part of their argument to save the dunes was because within them, there is both flora and fauna that are considered rare or endangered species. They have over 369 species of flowering plants. Two plants that thrive here are on the federal list of threatened and endangered species. And they are Meads Milkweed, which is really.

important for monarch butterflies, which are also on the endangered list. And the species itself, the milkweed itself, is a rare species of milkweed that once thrived in the Midwest before it was taken over by agriculture. So now it's very few and far between. The second plant is Pitcher's Thistle, which is also known as Dune Thistle that grows along the shores of the Great Lakes. Some of the federally threatened and endangered animals that reside here are the Indian bat, an eastern rattlesnake, a medium-sized shorebird called the Red Knot and a small and really cute. I looked at it's pictures. It's really cute. Shorebird, it's called the Piping Clover. I and they're really love piping blovers. They're all over Cape Cod. They're all over Cape Cod, too. Are they? Yeah. Have you ever

seen the little signs that say like, do not disturb piping clover nesting site, like all over the dunes by the shore of the Cape? Probably. But I don't remember it. And I wasn't super aware of this bird and then I saw a picture of it and I was like look at this little fat yeah they're so it doesn't even have a neck it's so cute I think I know them so like well or at least they come up in my memory so well because my stepdad's parents lived on the cape for many years and anytime they had like a house really we always used to go to the ocean and I just always remember like associating piping plovers with visits there I don't know it's just like and I'm pretty sure they had like, maybe I'm making this up, but I'm pretty sure they had like little

statues of piping plovers or maybe that was my other set of grandparents. I don't know, whatever. They're like, either way, they're significant in your life. I guess so and I didn't think they were until right now. My mom will be listening to this and she'll, I know as soon as she listens, she'll text me about it. She'll know what you're talking about and like tell you what it's about. Yeah. Yeah. In addition to these really cute birds, it's also known for bald eagles. to occasionally make their homes here. The park has other animals. They have white-tailed deer, red fox, raccoons, apossums,

great blue heron, songbirds, and a lot more. It's a home to a lot of different species of animals. And it's also a big recreation area. People visit the park to camp, swim, hike, bird watch. And in the winter, it's a big cross-country skiing area. One of the popular hiking destinations here is the Dune Succession Trail that covers a total of 3.6 miles. And this is the trail,

where the Diana, the Dunes Dare is located that I kind of mentioned at the beginning. This is a hiking trail that eventually leads you to Diana's Dune, which is named after her in her life, which will get super into, and it has a view of Lake Michigan and Chicago. Diana's Dair is a trail that is basically walking how she walked through the Dunes, and the trail tells the story of Alice Mabel Gray, which is the name of Diana of the Dunes, her real name, and she was a free spirit and local activists for the preservation of the area. She is also said to still haunt the dunes and her ghost is often seen as a woman in a long, flowing white gown and is frequently seen within the park at night floating above the surface

of Lake Michigan. She's been seen dancing in the sand and sometimes drifting through the pine trees at the top of the sand ridges. Spooky, but something's coming back to me right now. So she's in a gown, a white gown. She's in a white gown. Didn't she used to skinny dip a lot? Or am I making that up? Yeah. No, you're not. You're remembering that right. Part of why she becomes famous and we'll talk more into it. And if people remember it or hear this story is because she was around in the early 1900s. And she was seen skinny dipping and running around the beach naked, which was not heard of for women in that time period. So before when I talked about this, I covered her story partially. I mainly focused on the folklore around her afterlife.

But today we're going to revisit her story to hear her full life story, including her mysterious partner that I didn't really mention before, a gruesome murder that they were accused of committing, and the truth behind Alice's tragic death. It's a lot to unload, but I'm ready. It is. Diana, the dunes was first discovered during the summer of 1916 when a fisherman spotted a young beautiful woman naked and swimming on the Indiana shore. When she jumped out of the water instead of using a towel, she danced around in the sun to dry off.

The fisherman went home that day and told his wife that there was a mythical nymph dancing on the shores living in an abandoned shack. It was how this rumor first started. And his wife then spread the news to friends. And soon she was referred to as a mythical mermaid and fishermen from all over were traveling to see her. Soon newspaper reporters flocked to the area to get a glimpse of her. and they named her Diana of the Dunes. So in all reality, this wasn't a mythical creature. She wasn't a mermaid.

It was just very abnormal for a woman in the early 1900s to be behaving this way. And they were actually seeing a real woman named Alice Mabel Grace. And she was the daughter of a laborer who lived in Chicago. And she had been born and raised in Chicago her whole life. Alice's story was she was not born into a wealthy family. She was one of six children. They were originally, so I guess she wasn't born. She was originally from Connecticut, but when she, at a very young age, they moved to Chicago

in 1873 because her father had found a job as a city lamp lighter there, which kind of is. He went around lighting lamps. Yeah. Yeah. The streets. Interesting. By 1895, Alice was the oldest sibling that was still living at home when her father had a terrible accident at work.

He suffered incapacitating burns on most of his body. an accident with leaking gasoline that caught his clothing and himself on fire while he was working. After this, her father was bedridden for the rest of his life, and Alice, along with her mother, took on major roles taking care of the family. Alice herself was extremely smart, and she graduated high school at a very young age, at the age of 16. She was the youngest in her class, and after that, she enrolled in the University of Chicago in the fall of 1897. She studied French and German during her time there and she excelled in mathematics while also studying astronomy and theology. She moved to Washington, D.C. after college, to work at the U.S. Naval Observatory, performing

difficult mathematic calculations for them. And this was a time where women were just recently allowed to work in roles like this. So she was not recognized for her work in any historical documents for jobs like that and the place she worked. There's photos of their employees and documentation of them, there's no photos of her working or doing anything because she wasn't recognized for it. Yeah. She worked here for three years before she moved to Germany to study higher mathematics and afterwards she came back to the University of Chicago for graduate studies and theoretical mathematics courses. So she continued her education very far on. She got a job in Chicago. But her time jumping from city to city was starting to weigh on her because she realized,

that she was craving a different lifestyle. She did all this schooling. She got all this education. She was extremely smart, but she hated the nine to five schedule that she was working in. And she felt like she was just working to survive, which I think is something that we can all kind of relate to. Like she was underpaid, overworked. She found that the quality of life she was living was not up to her own standards. And she valued her time over the little money that she was earning. She was struggling to survive even with her education and she yearned for a better life. She was quoted saying, I want to live on my own, a free life. The life of a salary earner in the cities is slavery, a constant fight for the means of living. Not only did she resent how little she was being paid, especially

for her education and lack of anyone recognizing her achievements or what she was doing. She also deeply resented this period of time. She didn't agree that women should be treated as second-class citizens as they were being. And she had spent so much time in her life proving her intelligence and working in positions to prove her value. But that didn't matter. It wasn't changing how people thought of her. It wasn't adding to her life at all.

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Tumultuous. Tumultuous. Tumultuous. Tumultuous. She had a toxic relationship with a man in Chicago. And in her diary, she only referred. to him as L. She never recognized exactly who he was in this,

but she was talking about her struggles and her need to get away. And a lot of it had to do with her job, but part of it was also like, I'm in the toxic relationship with this man and I want to get out. And she decided she was going to. She told her friends that she had a dream to live off the land. And she had been visiting the Indiana Dunes her whole life. She had loved them.

She wanted to be there. and she told them that she wanted to go live there and just live off the land and live a simple life. Her ideas were obviously for the time met with a lot of skepticism, and people told her that she wouldn't last more than two weeks out in the dunes. This was a challenge to her. She was fed up with her life. She wanted something more meaningful and fulfilling. And she also wanted to prove that everyone was wrong.

She could do this. And she wanted to do this. And she could create a better life. So on October 31st, 1915, Halloween, at the age of 34, she left Chicago with a plan to live in Indiana Dunes for one whole year. It said two weeks, I'll give you one year. I'll one up you. I'll one up you. I'll stay out there for a long time.

And she didn't bring much. She brought a blanket to help her sleep. She brought money that she had saved. She brought some foods, the clothes on her back. And she took a train and she arrived in the dunes. For the first four nights, Alice just marveled at her. new life. She slept underneath the stars, explored the dunes and it's flora and fauna. She wrote in her diary and she enjoyed this new silence that she had found. She had begun a routine where she would walk a few

miles into town to pick up food and things that she needed. And often she would knock on the doors of local people's home and would ask to buy food from them and supplies from them as well. Okay. But it became clear after four days that she couldn't just sleep in the sand with her blanket. She needed actual shelter, especially because it was early November now. She got there on Halloween, and the weather was a lot colder, especially at night. So while she was exploring, she found an old abandoned fisherman shack in the dunes. It was made of driftwood with sand floors and a single wooden chair inside, and it carried a bit of a draft, but it protected her from the weather. This shack had previously belonged to a civil war veteran who had made a little home in the dunes prior, but the previous winter

had died and no one had claimed it since. Alice took the shack over giving its own name. She called it Driftwood and she wrote in her diary, everything I have here, this chair, this cap I wear, these tins are Driftwood. Drifted in from the lake. I too am Driftwood. That's a little deep. She's a deep girl. Like she has a, I got this book so I will say after I researched from the hiking episode for her, I found a book, of course. Everything has a book. called Diana the Dunes, the True Story of Alice Gray. And it's this person wrote this book who went and did a deep dive research on her life. And part of it was her diary excerpts. And the whole back of the book, like the way it's formatted is the front is like all the research they found. And then

you get to the back of it. And it's part of it's an appendix where they just have a ton of journal entries that she wrote in her diary. And it just gives you a timeline of how she was feeling and what she was doing and she was very spiritual and always looking for a way to connect with nature and part of it was things like that. I too am Driftwood. She just found a way to relate to everything. Do you know at this point how old she is? She's 34. Okay. Yeah. It's like, oh, let's, I got three more years and I will also be living in the living off the land. Yeah, you got time to reinvent yourself if you want. There's always Yeah. Yeah, it's never too late, right? Yeah, there's always time. Well, she adapted to her life there. She taught herself to fish and she learned about the flora in the area that was edible. She taught herself how to make a durable fire to stay warm. She would often walk to a nearby library and read about the area. She did deep research on what was in the dunes. She walked the dunes daily. She studied and observed all the wildlife around and she noted it in her journal. So she almost started like her own research. study there. Like these are what's found here. This is what's going on. These are patterns of behavior I'm

observing. These are patterns of plant life I'm observing. She really just got there and started studying her environment. When she got there, she cut her hair short into a bob. And for the winter weather, she wore heavy Mackinac socks, a man's hat, a long gray wool skirt, and a knee-length coat. Sometimes she would wear heavy men's pants as well, which also came off. as very weird for her time because in the 1920s era era, it was dresses and tight clothing and long hair that you put up. So the fact that she had a bob and was wearing men's clothes, people were like, who is this lady? Yeah, what is the term? How dare you? People are clutching their pearls. Yeah. Like, oh my God. God, I would just like not do well in that time. Like, who knows,

you know, but I just... Be a wild woman. I would be a problem. Yeah. As winter approached and got colder and darker, she did discover an unused teepee that was in the woods off of the shore. And this provided a warmer shelter because there was no drafts and she would often stay in it.

But unbeknownst to her, it was actually owned by two naturalists, Flora and William Richardson, who had been studying the dunes and the tepee had a name. it was referred to as the Sassafras Lodge. One day they came back and found that Alice had taken up a home in their place and they were pretty surprised to find her. But after having a conversation with her, they said that she could use the teepee as long as they were not there staying. This lasted an entire winter,

but the following spring they told Alice that she wasn't allowed to stay there anymore because they found her to be very dirty and unkempt and that they kept their camp in disarray. and they didn't appreciate it. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. They're like, you're nasty.

Like, you can't. But there's also other people who have witnessed her and said the shack that she stayed in was immaculate. Like, she was dirty. She was always immaculate. She had things. So it's, they had one experience, but other people had different views of her. And I just wonder a little bit if, like, to what standard? Because women were held to this, like, different standard back then, I feel like.

That's a good point. So it's like what really is dirty? Like, I really don't think. That's such a good point. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I just can't imagine it being like a hoarder situation or there's just shit all over the place.

Like, I just feel like. She doesn't have much. Right. Like. So I don't know. I just feel like it might be a little bit of that in play as well. That's a good point. By that following spring, Alice had also become very well known in town because they had known

her as the woman who was living in the dunes. She would approach many family members, asked to buy food, would contribute to things. She became friends with a lot of people and she was well known. She was known to be very intelligent because she was checking out so many books at the library and it was clear she was documenting research. And by this time, she had already decided that that one year goal of being in the sand dunes was out the window. She wanted to live in the dunes for the rest of her life. And she wanted to live like this. She's like, I can do this. I spent a whole winter here. Summer's going to be great. Right. Yeah. When the warmer weather came around, she ate berries. She went fishing. She swam in Lake of Michigan. And she often explored the dunes with very little

or no clothing at all. She swam naked and she really enjoyed her solitude here. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. It was the summer of 1916, which was only nine months after she had arrived, that she had first been spotted by fishermen. And those rumors began to fly about her presence there.

Eventually, a news reporter came and interviewed her, and when she stated she was there to live a free life, her story spread like wildfire. Now, this was a time when women were really just starting to fight for their rights. It was a time when women were fighting for their rights to vote, for their right for equal pay, for their right to own property. And for her to want to be a free spirit without a man was like, whoa, who is this woman? And people freaked out. And she's like, I just want to live in solitude. and hang out out here and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, who do you think you are?

Yeah. Who do you think you are? That is crazy. You want to just live on the beach and eat berries? That's insane. Without a man? Without a man to guide you? My pearls.

I'm clutching them. When people did learn of Alice, they ended up calling her Diana of the Dunes. Even though her name is Alice, they didn't know her identity at first because rumors were just flying who this mythical creature mermaid. She was referred to in the newspapers as a nymph. She was like this sex symbol. And they called her Diana of the Dunes after a Roman goddess of hunting, who was also associated with wild animals and woodland landscapes. They're like, she's this sex symbol, woodland huntress living off the land. She was written to be a free spirit, but she was also written that she was a streaker who bathed twice a day in Lake Michigan naked and ran around the dunes naked. She was painted as like,

could just go there and she'll be wild running around with her breasts out, swimming twice a day. She's just crazy like that. And she was listed to be teasing local fishermen. Like it was the show that she was putting on. Oh, God. That makes me. Meanwhile, she's studying plants. She's like, actually, I'm a botanist. Not really, but you know what I mean? Well, I mean, her own way, kind of. She's like, I'm just studying plant life and animals. and taking a bath. I'm just going swimming. I don't have a bathing suit.

There's no one here. Yeah, she's not putting on a show. Fishermen are coming out intentionally. Right. To her. Yeah, okay. So overnight, she becomes this huge sensation. And people didn't know who she was at first.

Some newspapers were speculating at one point that she was this wealthy heiress who had disappeared two years before. Like, we found her. This heiress escaped to this new life in Indiana Dunes. It was just so much mystery and rumors were flying around her. And they did eventually discover that she was from Chicago. And when they discovered that she was a very highly educated woman from Chicago, it only created so much more interest in her story.

I just picture my favorite meme is like that little girl. I think her name's Chloe. And it's like she's in a car seat and she's just like, like, you know what I'm saying? She's looking at you like confused with what? She's like, what are you saying? It's just like, I know exactly the little blonde girl. I know exactly what you're talking about. That's my favorite comeback to anything.

Like, excuse me. Or just like confused, like what? I just imagine her as all of this is unfolding. She's just like, what is happening? What is wrong with you guys? Is she aware of this? Oh, yeah. Because she goes into town.

She sees the newspapers. She's not like out in the middle of nowhere all the time. She does walk a few miles into town and she has. And she sees the fishermen and reporters are coming to talk to her. Right. I knew that she had been in communication with a reporter or two, but I just didn't know if she knew the extent of it's kind of like, you know, this heiress thing. She's like, what are you even saying? It's like, I'm not a wealthy heiress. Yeah, like, where do you get this shit from? Kind of like my, like that gif of me with Kikoa that like surfaces every three to five years. And it gets published on all of these websites. And the stories that people make up about that interaction are just wild. at the wolf center. I can remember seeing comments of the video of you at the wolf center that the video goes viral online sometimes.

And it's like, and then she was mauled and killed. Or other ones where it's like she was raised by wolves. Or she found this pack and like raised this one pup into, yeah, the amount of different variations of the story is just insane. And reading the comments of people who think they know what they're talking about is just, we'll never. ever get old. It's like actually, if you guys would research it, it's actually a really sad story because she was killed by this wolf a year later. So like, you don't even know what you're talking about. It's like, sir? It's like, I am actively reading your comment right now. The amount of just like shit that is made up online about everything, obviously, not a hot take.

But it's just weird when it happens to you personally. Yeah. It is, I had, I had kind of not like that. was actually with the news because I had a kidney transplant in 2020. I, the person who donated to me, Ken, an angel, he donated anonymously. I didn't know him. He just heard that I needed a kidney and he came out and he did it. News reporters wanted to hear the story because it's such a wonderful like heartwarming, saved my life. Stranger, now we're, now we're great friends and we keep in contact. But the storyline that they went with was really funny because I'm from New England and from New Hampshire and he's from Buffalo, New York. So their whole headline was a Buffalo fan donates to a Patriots fan despite their rivalry. I remember that. Oh, my God. Not that I'm not a Patriots fan and not that

he's not a Buffalo fan, but sports had no. It was never even a discussion before this report came out. That is just the wildest angle to take, like of all the things, has nothing to do. It's just clickbaity. That's what it is. It is clickbait. It is clickbait. lady. And I will say, I think I wasn't super upset about it because I did love that people were hearing the story. And it was, people were clicking it. And some people were really, like, interested in it because they were football fans. And I'm like, you know, if this is inspiring anyone to donate a kidney or is giving someone hope that needs a kidney and they're reading this, I'm totally cool with it. But the fact that this was the angle of all the angles that could have been

taken, especially because he was anonymous. And I didn't know who he was until after the surgery. It was just like, it was just a wild take in media. And it was all over the place. Like CNN, it was just like nationwide. It was covered. I was seeing it on different things in my face was popping up. And I was like, okay.

It's like, interesting choice. Interesting choice. It's fine. But it's just interesting. Yeah. So circling back to. Circling back to Diana. We're having a very conversation-based episode.

which I love. So they were reporting on her and falsely reporting on her about a lot of things, but she was also being portrayed in different lights. So one article would say that she was this beautiful young woman in her 20s. She had pale, glistening skin, long hair, while others would report that she was 40 years old. She was a brown woman and she was a husky woman and she was like older and just like a hermit living. So there was like this mythical creature. And in reality, she was a 35-year-old woman. She wasn't what I would say, how they were portraying as like conventionally attractive, like skinny long hair, like mermaid, whatever. She was also white.

She was just tan. And people were like, she's a brown woman living in the sand. And it's like she's a white woman who's tan. So there were just like all these confusing details things. And she had really short hair. She had chopped all her hair off. They were like long flowing hair. And it was just, they portrayed her in very different, different lights.

At the same time that this was all going on, there was a public outcry to make Indiana Dunes in National Park. There were houses being built in the area. There were big corporations that were coming in to take the resources from the Dunes. And some people speculated that Alice's presence there was actually a publicity stunt to attract more people to the Dunes. And Alice was doing this for that reason. which was true. I mean, many people were flocking to catch a glimpse of Diana, the Dunes, and they were coming. But that wasn't her intention when she got there. But she had become this local celebrity. And with this, she actually had been advocating on her own outside of this for the Dunes and for protections and things. So when she became a celebrity and she got this newfound voice, she decided she was going to use it to advocate for a national park. She's like, I'm already well known. So it's like, you're all listening to me. You're all looking. at me. Hello. I'd well use it for good. Yeah. Yeah. She would head into Chicago, often walking to to Chicago, like 30 miles. She'd just walk there barefoot sometimes, would walk to Chicago. And she would

give these speeches on the importance of preservation of the dunes. And she would be at really big venues to do it. And she'd share what she learned during her time there. She would speak of the rich flora and fauna that resided there. She would talk about the opportunities for tourism and safe recreation. And she would tell everyone why she loved the Dunes so much. And because she was the celebrity, people were really listening to her. And it created this huge pressure for it to become a National Park. She would spend the next several years of her life dedicating her time to fighting for its preservation, which is why she is such a name in the park today.

Around 1918, Alice met a man by the name of Paul Wilson in the Dunes. And they began a romantic relationship immediately. He was similar to Alice in that he should. on societal constraints and rules, and he wanted to live a different type of life. Is this different than L in her journal? This guy? Yeah, this is a different guy. And this guy was also very different from Alice because the dunes attracted him not for

their beauty, but kind of the lawlessness that seemed to be there. Paul Wilson had an unsavory reputation. He had been thought to have been a criminal in the past, and he was a big guy. He was standing over six feet two inches. He was 225 pounds. And he was known to be a drifter with a shady past. And no one knew exactly who he was. People were like, where are you from?

What are you doing? And there were theories that he was a rancher from Texas, but no one could really confirm that. Oh, so she likes the bad boys. I see. She likes the bad boys. I mean, I get it. I get it. Same.

Ian wasn't no 6-2-225-pound guy, but he had a little edge to him. Got a little edge. It made him a little interesting. When he moved into the fisherman shack Driftwood that she had named, locals around the area did start experiencing missing belongings and house robberies. Oh, no. Only a few months after they met, Paul was sentenced to six months in prison for robbing nearby cottages. He stole food, blankets, women's clothing, and a winter coat. Alice claimed that she did not know of the, that he was robbing people, that she had

become dear friends with some of these people. And she also said that she wasn't totally sure that it was him. Okay. And she stood by him a bit. Yeah, people were like, okay, but that's not true. And after his release, they traveled to Tennessee and they got married. Oh, okay. Which is kind of maybe rumor, but she did refer to him as the husband.

No one could ever find it. In the book, it said that they couldn't find the actual marriage certificate, but it is believed that it did actually happen. Do you know why they went to Texas or just, I mean, they went to Tennessee? No, I don't. Maybe just vacation. I'm not sure. Yeah, let's go to Tennessee. Get Married. Yeah. Shortly after that, they came back to the Dunes, but they moved locations and they moved into a cabin, which they called Wren's Nest. Here, Diana taught him all about the Dunes and he learned every into them. He loved the dunes just as much as she did and they took up their own duties. So Alice made visits into town for food and supplies and Paul rarely left the dunes. Mostly he was kind of shunned and he was quiet and he was known to not really get along with people that well. He kind of stuck to himself.

He didn't meet eye to eye with a lot of people. He was trouble. He was trouble. And he would occasionally, he would go into town and he would work construction jobs for money. But other than that, he would hang out in the dunes. He helped her catch fish, gather wood, repair anything broken that was around the cabin, and he would forage daily for berries and plants that they could eat. And he was really emerged himself into this life that Alice had built. Newspapers found out about their love affair, and they started reporting on it. They called Paul a caveman and reported that he had violent outbursts in angry ways. Local police disliked Paul and were known to get into verbal altercations with him.

and they were keeping an eye on him because he was a known criminal. He had been in prison for six months. While Alice was still mysterious and receiving a lot of attention for her conservation advocacy and her life in the dunes, the public outwardly disliked Paul and newspapers were contributing to that immensely. They were reporting things that they couldn't really verify about him and creating this view of him that may or may not have been necessarily true. But it was making the public. hate him. By 1920, Alice and Paul quietly disappeared from the public eye and they were not seen

by anyone in town for two years. Oh. Yeah, they were like, okay, everyone is reporting. Everyone hates us. We're getting out of here. Some rumors said that they went to Texas where Paul was originally from for two years, but there became a manhunt to find them when someone was found murdered in the dunes. On Thursday, June 8th, 1922, a Chicago student was walking along the sandy beaches when he stumbled across a horrific scene. He found the body of a man completely charred, still hot and smoldering. His arms were sticking straight above his head. His clothing was completely burned off, along with most of his skin. There were maggots and worms feeding on his remains, and he was completely unidentifiable. How was he still hot and smoldering, and there's already insect activity on his

corpse. That's weird. I don't know. That's how they described it. That's fishy to me. That's fishy. That's what it said in the book. Oh, really? Yeah, that's what it said in the book. When investigators came in, they found an empty can that was once filled with gasoline near his head and a rifle. They found what they assumed to be his belongings, a suitcase, food, new clothing with receipts and some cash, but they found very little evidence on who committed this crime. The coroner reached the conclusion that the man had died 10 days prior to being found. Oh, okay. Well, there we go.

That answer is. Oh, yeah, that makes more such. When news hit of the murder, newspapers and locals alike pinned Alice and Paul as their prime suspects. But people, when this happened, became more concerned of Alice's disappearance. Like, she's been gone for two years and we've been wondering where she is anyway. She's this local celebrity. And they demanded that they both needed to be found.

Newspaper reported headlines like Diana of the Dunes. being sought in slaying mystery and reported rumors that Paul had been seen in the location not far from the body around the time that he died. It wasn't long after that that Alice and Paul were located and did happen to be living a quiet life not far from the dunes. Alice gave a statement saying that they had nothing to do with the murders and that the papers had been falsely naming her husband as a convict when he was innocent. In addition, she provided journal entries she had written of all the days surrounding the

murder and showed that they were not in the area the days that it happened. So she was known for reporting her daily life and would write her day-to-day activities. And during this time, she was like, here's my journal entries of these days. You're saying that he might have died. We were not in the area. This is what we were doing. Shortly after this, her coming out being like, we weren't in the area. We had nothing to do with it. Please stop writing that in the paper. A local taxi cab driver came forward and said that he had a suspicious experience with a woman that he had picked up. He said that he had driven a woman around that time period who was not Alice to the area that the man was found. He reported that she was very anxious from the start of the trip and asked him to wait while she went into the dunes.

After about 45 minutes, she came back to the cab hysterical. She was so distraught that he had to ask her if she wanted him to bring her to the hospital. Oh, wow. Okay. And she refused. He had no idea who this woman was. and he reported it to investigators, but investigators couldn't figure out who the woman was that he picked up. Do you know who the victim was?

The victim at first, it came out. This guy came forward and said, that's definitely my brother. And then two days later, his brother came out and was like, that's not me. Oh, okay. So, like, who is this person? We have no idea who this guy is. And I think they did eventually figure out he was this 19-year-old kid that they weren't able to figure. The case remains unsolved.

So there wasn't a lot of information on that, but he was this 19-year-old kid that was in the area. Okay. So he was identified, but the case has not been solved. Yes. Okay. And some weird stuff happened around the case because investigators had made the decision to leave the body where they found it. And they actually kept him buried in a wooden box at the site of his death.

And they wanted to do this until they solved the crime. This was their way of like preserving the crime scene. Okay. But it's weird, right? Yeah. It's like, okay, but you're disturbing the crime scene by burying. removing his corpse and burying it somewhere else. Like just because it's in the location doesn't mean it's not disturbed.

Yeah, and they're leaving it out there for the public, which created an issue because Chicago reporters were wilds at this time and they were desperate for answers. So one night they snuck a doctor into the dunes where they exhumed his body. They stole his jawbone and parts of his skull and brought it back to the coroner's office in Chicago. What in the world? So they said at the beginning it's a lawless. The tunes are a lawless place.

I know this is about Diana, but I mean Alice, but I just am very interested in this case now. And who this person was? Yeah. And the whole thing. Like this is very weird. Well, it didn't specify exactly in the book of what they found, what this new coroner found for specific evidence. But from them checking out the scene and them checking out the charred remains and his jaw and his skull and evidence from there, they concluded that they did not think that Alice and Paul were involved at all.

Despite this, newspapers continued to focus on them and dug up Paul's past. They reported on altercations he had had with locals and they continued to report that Paul was a violent and dangerous person. They were fed up with all of the accusations and Alice and Paul confronted a deputy sheriff Eugene Frank who had also been contributing in spreading these rumors of them. Eugene had been spreading rumors that Paul was committing crimes. He would also, he would often tell fishermen that Paul was robbing fishing nets and cottages. And this deputy also led sightseeing tours to visit Alice's old shack and he would make money off of her story. He was telling fishermen that they were stealing from them.

And Alice and Paul were so fed up with it because they were being shunned from the community. There were reports being written about it. And he was contributing to people around the community being really. awful to them. So on June 14th, 1922, they decided to confront him and ask him why he was spreading all these lies. When they arrived to his house, Eugene was visibly drunk and was shouting at them, calling them all sorts of names. Eugene pushed Paul off of his porch, ran inside, grabbed a gun, and shot Paul in the foot. Then he took the butt of his gun and rammed it as hard as he could into Alice's head. Oh. Eugene then gathered his brothers and horses.

and they marched Alice and Paul two miles on foot to the police station. Alice was visibly bleeding and having difficulty staying conscious. But when Paul tried to come to her aid to help his wife, Eugene threatened to shoot Alice. After reaching the police station, they were both brought to the hospital. Alice had a dent in her head the size of Paul's hand. And he was a really big guy. And it turned out that she had a skull fracture. She did have to have emergency surgery.

and for the next five days, it was uncertain if she was going to survive or not. And for the next several weeks, she was bedridden and her head was permanently deformed afterwards. Oof, God. The sheriff in the situation claimed self-defense, but after corroborating stories with Alice and Paul, he was charged with shooting with intent to kill because he shot Paul. But a trial never took place. When they were supposed to have the trial, no one told Alice and Paul that it was happening. and when they didn't show up, they dropped all the charges against him.

The following summer, they stayed again in the cabin in the dunes. And this time, they focused their time on bringing a libel suit against the newspapers for defamation of character, which they believed ultimately led to their attack by the deputy sheriff. They said that all the false information they were spreading about them was dangerous. And because they said that they were involved in the murder unjustly reflected their character and caused the sheriff to attack them. because they were believed to be murderers, robbers, all this stuff because of how the newspaper was portraying them. Right, right.

But again, nothing happened with the lawsuit. When Alice fell ill in 1925, she was diagnosed with kidney disease, although she refused treatment and went back to her shack in the dunes with Paul. Paul aided her and took care of her for several weeks. But one night on February 8, 1925, she slipped into a coma. When Paul couldn't wake her up, he ran for help. A doctor diagnosed her with uremic poisoning. And uremia means urine in the blood. And this refers to the effects of waste product accumulating when your kidneys are no longer working and can't filter toxins out of your body through your urine.

And if it's left untreated, it causes death. And at this point, there were no treatments in 1925 because dialysis and kidney transplantation are the only cures. And or I shouldn't say cure because there's no cure for kidney disease. Management. Sometimes with euremic. Yeah, management. I mean, she did have kidney disease. Sometimes you can come back from kidney, like, injury and stuff.

But there were no treatments. So the doctor attempted to wake her up with hot water bags and stimulant drugs, but she never came out of the coma. And after several hours, Alice died on Monday, February 9th, 1925 at 44 years old. When she died, Paul was inconsolable and was devastated. Alice had requested to be cremated and scattered off one of the. the dunes to be blown into the winds of the dunes that she loved, but Paul had no money to make this happen. Her family decided to bury her against her wishes, and when Paul saw her in the casket, he was so

upset and grief-stricken that he took his gun out and started waving it in the air and at her family members. He yelled that anyone who took her body would be sorry, and authorities intervene and held him in jail until after her funeral. News around the country spread of Diana the Dunes' death. Some papers even speculated and wrote that it was Paul Wilson beating her to death from his angry tendency that was the cause of her death and is still reported if you Google it it says that he beat her so hard that she got Uri McPoisening and that's how she died. That is so messed up. Yeah.

Like the, oh my God, I can't, don't even get me started. Don't you get me started. Yeah, so he's obviously, it's super fucked up, especially because he's like heartbroken over this and he was the one caring for her in her first. final weeks of her life. And this, I mean, these stories spread like wildfire. It wasn't, it wasn't just that that was being reported. There were other things. Even the New York Times did a huge story on her life from her education to her jobs to all of her advocacy for the National Park. Paul did eventually go on to remarry with a woman who he had two children with,

but he never escaped the law. He did a two-year stint in prison after being convicted of reckless driving. Eventually, he moved to California, but on October 25th, 1941, only a few years after, Alice had died. He died of a brain aneurysm in Death Valley National Park. Oh, my God. What? Lincoln and another national park to this story. Well, and it's just weird that, like, I mean, this is a stretch, but Diana arrived at the dunes on October 31st, and Death Valley was a park in designated a park on October 31st in the future. Oh, wow. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting, Ty. The story of Diana the Dunes and Alice Mabel Gray is still told today as a historical reminder of an important era in Dunes history, a time where environmental needs clashed with steel mills, mining, and job seekers. It also highlights a time of political activism for women who were at the time considered second-class citizens. Alice was an intelligent woman who broke the social norms and attracted attention. around the world because of it. Her advocacy for the Dunes directly led to it becoming protected land and then eventually becoming a national park. For many years, a Diana of the Dunes Festival

was in place in the Dunes that attracted music vendors, food, music, and education. However, due to declining interest in her story, it was ended in 2014. You can still do Diana's Darehike, where you can walk the same footsteps she did every day to study and marvel over the beauty and importance of the dune. And at the end of the hike, you earn a sticker for completing the dare and seeing the dunes like Diana did. That was super popular after you released that previous episode. We got like a few people who were like sending in pictures of their sticker and stuff. Yeah, we got a lot of people and then people went to do the hike after they heard that as well, which I thought was really exciting. Yeah. I mean, Diana, or I keep saying Diana and I feel bad saying

that because that was not her name. Alice. What a life, you know, what a cool. way she, it feels like she lived a lot of lives in one, if that makes sense. Definitely, because she was like an advocate. She did crazy schooling. She lived a little oppressed in Chicago. She lived off the land. She fell in love. And she lived this crazy celebrity life. She traveled. She spoke multiple languages. She definitely had a full life. Yeah. Wow. That was really, that was awesome. And now I'm like, I literally wrote down when you were talking a reminder to myself to look into. I don't know how much of that case there is, like information on it. But I'm really interested in that.

Yeah. That's so interesting. I'd be interested too because I didn't read that much that said about it or like who did it or anything. Right. And I just have so many questions. Like you said there was a rifle there. Like did the person die of a gunshot wound or was he burned? Like if it's a woman, if it really was that woman who the taxi driver was just

describing like, I can't really imagine her against a young male, like being able to like pour pour gasoline over him and light him on fire if he wasn't already incapacitated in some way. You know what I'm saying? It's just like. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, maybe that woman had something to do with it. Maybe it is the person who did it or maybe it was just some weird coincidence.

Who knows? Yeah. Interesting. Well, thank you so much for sharing it and diving deeper into her story. I know it was on your list for a long time since you first mentioned her. And I'm glad you did it because there was way more to her story than you covered before. So that was awesome. Yeah, I had her book sitting on my desk for the past year.

And I was like, you know, it's our two-year anniversary. Let's dive back into a story that we've kind of done. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for joining. And we hope to see you in a few days for our Spotify Live show episode thing. I'm not really sure how to categorize it event, if you will. Yes.

But other than that, we will. see you next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode,

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