Trolley tour of Native American landmarks

The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston will host a three-hour guided trolley tour of Native American landmarks along the lakefront on Chicago’s North and Near South Sides on Sunday, August, 4, 2013.

The excursion will depart from the Mitchell Museum, 3001 Central St., Evanston, at 1:30 p.m. and will return at approximately 4:30 p.m. Guests will ride in an air-conditioned, 35-passenger trolley with public address system.

Melissa Halverson, curator of exhibits and collections at the independent nonprofit museum, will guide the tour.

Tour stops will include

•The site of the 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn, 18th Street and Prairie Avenue

•“The Bowman and the Spearman,” bronze statues by sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, installed in 1928 at South Michigan Avenue and East Congress Parkway

• “Defense, Regeneration, The Pioneers, and The Discoverers,” four bas-relief limestone sculptures from 1928 by James Earle Fraser and Henry Hering, located on the Michigan Avenue bridge towers at Wacker Drive, site of historic Fort Dearborn

•“The Alarm,” a tribute in bronze to the Ottawa Indians, sculpted in 1884 by John J. Boyle and located in Lincoln Park east of Lake Shore Drive and north of Diversey Parkway

•“A Signal of Peace,” an 1890 statue by Cyrus E. Dallin depicting a Native American chief riding a horse and holding aloft a spear, located in Lincoln Park  north of the entrance to Diversey Harbor

•The Northwest Coast totem pole in Lincoln Park at Addison Street, carved from red cedar by Kwakuit’l artist Tony Hunt and erected in 1986

•The 2009 bricolage mural of ceramic and mirror tiles on the sides of the Foster Avenue underpass at Lake Shore Drive, a public art project celebrating the Native American community in Chicago

Tour tickets cost $45 for the general public, $40 for Mitchell Museum members. For information, phone (847) 475-1030 or email visitor.services@mitchellmuseum.org. Website: http://www.mitchellmuseum.org.