Before there was a Chesterton, there was Coffee Creek.  Named after the stream that runs near it, the tiny township was originally settled in 1834 by the Thomas family and in the 1850’s was renamed Calumet, changed again twenty years later, in 1870, to its present name Chesterton, because of the confusion caused by another town named Calumet on the same railroad line.

Today, ten square miles of land, of which 0.11 square miles are technically water, boast a population of roughly 13,000 and form modern day Chesterton.  Part of Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana, the town sits only 50 miles southeast of Chicago, close to the southern shore of Lake Michigan and the sand hills known as the Indiana Dunes.  It is part of an area known as the tri-towns or the Duneland area made up of Chesterton, Burns Harbor and Porter.

Although most don’t know it, Chesterton actually has a colorful history.  Part of a great continental crossroads, this corner of Indiana was for thousands of years home to a succession of early native dwellers attracted to its rich flora and fauna. The Potawatomi and Miami tribes of the Great Lakes Woodland Culture were the last of the Native Americans to hunt and farm the area’s densely forested land.

Early contact with the “white man” began with French fur traders known as voyageurs in 1650. The resulting fur trade was at first quite advantageous to both cultures, but ultimately catastrophic for the Potawatomi who, after selling their land to the U.S. government, were forcibly pushed out of their own native Indiana to the Kansas Territory in 1838.

The building of the Lakeshore and Michigan Southern rail lines through Chesterton in 1852 transformed a sleepy little agricultural community village into a thriving rail hub for much more than agricultural products. Immigrants from Sweden, Ireland and Germany (among many other countries) came in droves to the area to help build and maintain the railroads and later work in the brick, glass and china factories that mushroomed in the region.

Miracle | EcoWater also has deep roots in the region not only as a water filtration and water treatment specialist for over a half a century, but as the unsurpassed problem water expert in local HARD WATER treatment in Chesterton specifically as the only authorized dealer for best-of-breed EcoWater Systems REFINERS, WELL WATER SOFTENERS/CONDITIONERS and a broad spectrum of IRON WATER, SULPHUR and NITRATE, de-chlorination and Reverse Osmosis water treatment solutions.

With a history of serving Chesterton since the 1960’s, Miracle | EcoWater has been installing only the best-in-class water filtration systems to deal with the challenging water issues unique to Porter County and in particular Chesterton, Portage, Valparaiso as well as the entire Duneland area. 

Miracle | EcoWater, factory authorized service and repair team is considered among the best in Chesterton, offering emergency repair on a wide variety of water filtration systems for hard water, iron water, sulfur and nitrate issues as well as a wide range of water softeners beyond EcoWater Systems, including, Kinetico, Rainsoft, Sears,  3M, GE, Waterrite, Culligan, Hellenbrand, Whirlpool.

Photo credit: Westchester Township History Museum