Volunteers ready for Collier dig
By Amy Lavalley Post-Tribune correspondent June 18, 2011 2:52PM
Sarah Miller of Kouts, left, and Lee Shaw of Crown Point, clean windows as Kankakee Valley Historical Society members and volunteers clean up the Collier Lodge site Saturday, June 18, 2011, in Kouts, Ind. | Scott M. Bort~Sun-Times Media
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For more on the Kankakee Valley Historical Society’s archaeological dig, from July 5-22 on the grounds of Collier Lodge, go to www.kankakee
valleyhistoricalsociety.org.
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Updated: October 26, 2011 12:54AM
KOUTS — Janet Landato retired from teaching at a college in the Chicago suburbs five years ago and moved to North Judson to be closer to her family.
Ever since, she’s wanted to spend part of each summer helping with the archaeological dig at Collier Lodge, along the Kankakee River. This, she decided, would be the year she did it.
“I’ve always wanted to do something like this, so this is my ‘summer vacation’ from housekeeping responsibilities,” said Landato, who taught astronomy, physics and earth sciences, adding she doesn’t have to travel across the globe to take part in the dig.
Saturday, Landato and other volunteers helped clean up a trailer at the Collier Lodge site in preparation for this year’s dig, which will be held Tuesdays through Fridays, July 5 to 22.
The digs started in 2003, not long after John Hodson purchased the land and started doing research into the lodge, on the site of a ferry crossing during the 1830s. He and his wife, Mary, who live in Kouts, founded the Kankakee Valley Historical Society, and he serves as the society’s president.
Budding and experienced archaeologists have found artifacts dating back 10,000 years, and are bound to find something during the three weeks volunteers are at the site each summer.
“We come up with roughly 10,000 artifacts each year,” he said. About 57,000 artifacts have been found over the years.
Mark Schurr, associate professor and chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Notre Dame, oversees the work, and graduate and undergraduate students can obtain credit for the dig through a Notre Dame summer session program.
Indiana University-South Bend students also are helping out this year, Hodson said, as the school develops its archaeology department.
With the exception of a septic tank on the site, which has since been removed, Hodson said much of the site by the lodge has been left alone over time.
“It was never plowed. It was never a farm, so it was undisturbed,” he said.
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