Getting Lost and Found at Indiana Dunes

In 1910, Chicago was the center of early motion picture industry. Studios realized that they could give the impression of distant desert places by using the sand dune country along Indiana's coast. That summer, "Lost in the Soudan" became the first of a handful of films that used Indiana Dunes as a backdrop.

Movie poster for "Lost in the Soudan," 1910. Steve Spicer

William “Bill” Mong was an early American actor cast in the role of a British officer who escapes his captives and becomes a "wild man" lost in the Sahara Desert. "Harrowing realism" was added to his filming experience when he was accidentally left behind by the filming party and became truly lost in the Indiana Dunes.

After filming a scene, Bill had run out of water and decided to rest beneath a “scrub” oak tree. He fell asleep and to his surprise, he awoke completely alone in the sand hills. Still donning his costume of tattered clothes, a leopard skin shall and a heavy club, Bill called out only to hear the echo of his own voice. He wandered the dunes for a few hours before inadvertently arriving back to his napping spot. Utterly warn out, he wrapped himself in an old blanket and lied down to sleep. “But his slumbers were frequently interrupted by swarms of mosquitoes and other insects, that stung him unmercifully.”

The next morning, a local trapper stumbled across the lost actor while roaming the sand hills. In preparation of his role, Bill had long, ragged hair and an untrimmed beard. The trapper was startled to see the “unkempt, half-naked, wild-eyed man” who was stumbling in the sand, carrying a club and “moaning inarticulately.”

Actor Bill Mong in his role of a British-officer-turned-wild-man. Joseph Gruzalski

Thoroughly startled, the trapper turned and made his way to Crisman, an early community a few miles away. Out of breath, he reported that a wild man was “prowling about the dunes,” and returned hours later with law enforcement and “countrymen” to capture the “strange being.” They came upon Bill at sunset, rifles raised and ready.

“’Water! Water!’ moaned Bill in a pitiful voice. ‘For Heaven’s sake, man, give me a drink!’ This was said in such a sepulchral tone that the posse then and there concluded that Mong, if he was not wild, was certainly insane. As it happened, they had no water with them.” An improvised stretcher was rigged up and four of the men started to carry Bill Mong to a well, three miles distant.

"His cries along the route were heartrending, for he was suffering not only from thirst, but from the poison of insect-stings.” After about a mile, they came across the motion picture crew looking for the lost actor. Within a few minutes, they convinced the "astonished countrymen" that Bill was no "wild man," but had just been lost.

As Bill rested on the train back to Chicago, he said:

“No more ‘wild man’ roles in the desert for me! Now I know what it is really like to be lost in the desert! I smiled when I went through all the mimic scenes, but I never thought I should taste the real thing. The horror of it all is indescribable. The trappers treated me well, but I’m afraid I scared them pretty badly. You see, I still had my make-up on, and they can’t be blamed for believing me to be a wild man. Only the local hunters and fishermen ever stray into that horrible desert alone, and to see a stranger garbed like me was enough to frighten them. That little experience of mine from sunset to sunset will last me a lifetime.”

The content for this article was gathered and written by Joseph Gruzalski, a researcher with Indiana Dunes National Park.

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