Way back when I got paid to type things on a PC, I used to visit Trout Park,
in Elgin, Illinois on my lunch hour. I haven't been there in about 10 years, so on Saturday, my very indulgent husband (VIS) and I decided to see it again.
Trout Park is a jewel among city parks in Illinois. Because of the steep terrain, this land was never farmed. The bluffs and the springs and seeps provide a unique habitat in Illinois. I don't know who the stewards of this park are, but whoever they are, they have done a fantastic job. Regular burning has kept out invasive exotic weeds (I didn't see a single Garlic Mustard plant), and fallen trees have helped to keep out dirt bikes and ATVs,
which have devastated other hilly areas such as Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine, Illinois. ("Flatlanders" - hah!) Trout Park is for the agile and sure of foot only; there are no bike paths or paved paths in the main, eastern section of the park.
At one point, VIS and I had to do a sort of limbo to get under a tree fallen across the path. At the risk of sounding elitist, this limited access is a good thing, as it helps preserve the fragile flora of the area.
(On left, the buds of a Thalictrum/ on right, Trillium sessile in bud.) Improvements (funded by casino money) have been made to Trout Park recently.
On the bluffs grow savanna wildflowers, such as those above, as well as Sanguinaria canadensis
Mertensia virginica
Toothwort (Cardamine/Dentaria laciniata)
and something I don't recognize.
There is also my favorite wildflower, the Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides), seen growing here with the foliage of the eponymous Trout Lily (Eythronium albidum).
The only Trillium in Trout Park is T. sessile, as T. grandiflorum is deer candy, and deer frequent the park.Down in the ravine, the dominant plant is the Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus).
There are also Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris)
growing in and around the streams. Arbor vitae (Thuja occidentalis) also grow wild here.
In Trout Park, the water seeps out of the ground, runs downhill into streams,
which then empty into the Fox River, joining it on its journey to the Mississippi River and then to the ocean.
This connection to the rest of the planet emphasizes the importance of preserving and caring for these little pristine islands of wildness in our midst.
(edited 4/23/08)
46 comments:
MMD - thanks for the tour. I never go to places like this because im afraid of snakes and monsters. Did you see any of those?
What a good day for a walk! Thank goodness for indulgent husbands.
Robin at Bumblebee
MMD, what a lovely place! How wonderful to be able to take a break from work and visit a pristine natural preserve!
I haven't been there, but it looks like a spot I'd enjoy visiting.
So lovely! What a jewel of a park.
I'm getting more and more fed up with dirt bikes and mountain bikers destroying habitat. It's become a real issue here as slopes are eroded and rare grassland habitats are destroyed but people who just don't realise the damage they're doing.
My husband took the children on a nature trail and they had to step aside several times for motor bikes. I don't think they should be allowed in a conservation area known for 225 species of birds, bears, beavers, etc. Anyway, sorry about the rant :)
Wonderful tour. You reminded me to visit a local nature preserve a few miles from here. have not been in a couple of years, but will return soon.
Deb.
What a lovely park. It looks like it has many lovely features that I enjoy.
You just reminded me of some of my gardening ideas I had last summer and never got around to doing. Maybe I'll try to tackle some of those tasks this year.
Thanks for the tour of Trout Park. I felt like I was right there with you. I like those marigolds.~~Dee
We are fortunate to have these natural areas; it's always fascinating to me that folks believe it is a right to mountain bike on a hiking trail. The wildflowers are beautiful! Some of my favorites. Has toothwort changed to a new genus...I liked calling it dentaria.
Gail
Great post for Earth Day, we need more places like that all over the country
Loved the walk. I'm in complete awe that you knew what everything was! I'm not too good at forest vegetation, I guess.
What great pictures and a great ramble. But why is it called Trout Park? There aren't any actual trout this far inland, are there? (Says the girl who knows little about fish save that she likes sushi and used to catch bluegill in farm ponds.) :)
What a fun walk through the park. We all need places like this to visit. It helps rejuvenate the soul going where no machines tresspass.
Hi MMD, that was a great choice for Earth Day. It kind of sums up why we need to save places like this. Thank goodness for the fallen branches, no paths, etc. to keep the motorized vehicles out. And I especially liked seeing the state flower by the water, skunk cabbage! ;-> That was bait, wasn't it? I bit.
MMD,
This is a lovely park! Definitely one to be proud of. ;-)
I'm impressed that there's no garlic mustard. I'm afraid the forests in which I walk are being infested with it, as well as dog-strangling vine.
Gina - I didn't see any snakes there. Where I do see snakes is on the gravel paths through the prairie at the forest preserve. (No monsters either.)
Robin - DH loves nature as much as I do & loves hiking. What he doesn't like is me stopping every 10 feet to snap a photo. I so agree, thank goodness for indulgent husbands!
Garden Girl - it would be rather a trek for you to get all the way to Elgin, but at least there are things to do there now. Have you been to Waterfall Glen? It's closer to you. I haven't been there, but I've read good things about it.
Hi, Amy - rant away! Habitat destruction for the sake of pleasure gets me so mad. Don't even get me started on snowmowbilers.
Deb - spring is a great time to get out to the nature areas. No sweltering heat, few (if any) mosquitos yet - get out there!
Cinj - I can't imagine what gardening chores this reminded you of (water feature? knocking down dead trees?). I bet you can't wait to get started. I hope your snow is all gone now.
Dee - glad you liked it. A long time ago, I planted Marsh Marigolds in my garden. What was I thinking? They grow in water, not incredibly well-drained soil. As you may have guessed, I no longer have any Marsh Marigolds.
Gail - you're right, I was using the old name. It's Cardamine concatenata or Dentaria laciniata (I think).
Thanks Rusty!
Christine - I still don't know what one of the plants is. I have a couple of books on native plants, but I think I need Allen Armitages new book.
Blackswamp Girl - Trout Park is not named for the Trout Lily, but was named because it was used as a fish hatchery back in the 19th century.
Lisa - I so agree!
Frances - I got the idea for the April Fool's Day prank from Trout Park, which is the first place I'd ever seen a Skunk Cabbage.
Dirty Knees - Garlic Mustard abounds in shaded areas around here, even seeded into my garden. So that makes that achievement even better.
Awww, the marsh marigolds are so cute as are the skunk cabbage (ours here in SE Michigan tend to have some purple in the foliage). The first photo of the arching tree is awesome, too. Back in 6th grade, my best friend moved to Elgin, Illinois, and we went to visit her there, but we never went to that park. :(
~ Monica
Wow...lovely park. Love that wooden walkway. Thanks for the tour.
Oh Mr. McGregor's Daughter, I am jealous! In your land you have Thalictrum thalictroides wild and savage!!! Here in Italy a poor gardener (here I am) spend euro and euro for tiny invisible plants in tiny invisible pots.
No more comments, please!
Nice to have such country close by. Remote looking and wild. What is better than that. I hope to see it again in a month or two.
You have me itching to put on my hiking boots and go walk the Walt Whitman trails in my town here. I just love all your photos, they really captured the beauty of this place.
A great tour! I need to create a new post on "Making Memories," as my friend Susie and I again walked over her farm on Monday. New photos, similar plants... but we Don't get the Skunk Cabbage! (That's something we want to find, Somewhere, sometime, though!) ;-) Thanks!
By the way, how are you doing with your House Mustache? And your backyard fence project??
Thanks I enjoyed this walk in Trout park very much. It's nice to see a bit of your neck of the woods, a kinda wild bit. BTW your nickname for your hubby cracked me up, in Dutch VIS means fish and as we were going to Trout Park, how very appropriate. :-)
Thanks to you and the Indulgent Spouse for the Earth Day tour, MMD - Trout Park is not a place we ever visited when we lived in IL. It's a shame that a park has to be an ankle-breaker to protect the plants from the wheeled vandals. Maybe the crosshatched branches slow down the deer, too - they devastate any land they can access here.
You are impressively good at identifying the wild plants!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Hi, Garden Faerie - Elgin has changed so much in the last 5 years alone, I don't think you'd recognize it. The casino money has meant major downtown revitalization and a new, gorgeous library. "Elgin, the city to Watch." (I laughed when they adopted that motto.)
Connie - glad you liked the tour. Those new wooded walkways are nice because of the raised wood on them, which keeps one's feet from sliding off slippery wood.
Attroversogiardini - well, you've finally given me one bad thing about living in Italy. Thanks! It makes not being able to live there a little bit more bearable.
Layanee - there are lots of other wild places near me, so much so that there is a quarterly magazine entitled "Chicago Wilderness." I don't think I'll be able to get back to Trout Park anytime in the near future, as we had to have someone watch the kids for that. (They're such wimps, they would have hated it.)
Thanks, Melanie! Go pull out those boots.
Shady - I still have to get my design ideas for the steel down on paper & then email them to my uncle. No progress has yet been made on shaving the Mustache. I gave DH a pair of safety sunglasses; maybe he'll try them out this weekend with the chainsaw.
Yolanda Elizabet - "fish" is even more funny if you know VIS - whenever we eat at a restaurant, he always orders the fish (usually Salmon).
The plant you were unsure of looks to me like twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla).
Matthew - thanks so much for the ID!
Such wonderful wildflowers at that park. I wish we had something like that close to where we are. The toothwort is something I've never seen before and it is lovely. Thanks for sharing the photos.
Ki - I guess I'm spoiled with all the wonderful nature preserves around here. I'm glad you enjoyed the wildflowers.
Yes we do seem spoiled in the Chicago region. So many nature preserves that it is hard to visit them all. I have been thinking of trying to get to as many as possible this year and see how each differs. But I may have to set a boundry line for it to even be feasible. Cook county has many but Indiana has a few interesting ones near the border and several of the prairie types are out a way from the city.
Other local bloggers like yourself and Chicago nature Lady are doing some interesting day hikes giving me great ideas for new spots to check out.
Nice pictures of Trout Park.
Gloria - thanks for visiting! I know what you mean about not be able to visit all the great wild places. On our Saturday jaunt, DH & I made it only to the east side of Elgin. We didn't have time to visit the park on Route 31 or the fen on the south side. Every year I promise myself I'll make to Illinois State Beach Park in Zion, but I never seem to get there. Maybe this year...
I see we are a reflection of each other. I just took some time and found some of the same wildflowers. I even took a pic of the State Forest sign where I stopped.
I just love seeing seeps like that too. There's something about seeing the spring runodd bubble out of the ground and flow downhill. I have a couple spots on the hill that do the same but nowhere near that volume.
Wiseacre - strange minds think alike. Have you ever wanted to look at the source of a major river to see where it all started, or am I the only one?
Trout Park actually isn't Trout Park, persay, it's the Elgin Botanical Gardens. Trout Park originally was the section of land between the bike path and the Fox River where the amusement park sat from 1909 to 1934. Everything east of there was monikered Trout Park after the city of Elgin acquired it.
It was never a fish hatcherie but was named so because of the trout that inhabited the creeks and ponds. In the early 50's there were still some trout in those creeks but they were few and far between. I doubt any of them are there anymore due to the tollway and city storm sewer projects that diverted/blocked the aquifer and now the creeks are no longer near the number, size and volume that they used to be. Even the swampy areas are all but dried up from what they were.
In the northeast corner of the park there's an excavated area that was a WPA project back during the depression. It was an outdoor ampitheater whose seating consisted of earthen "steps" cut into the side of the southern hill. The storm sewer project ran through there and intially emptied directly into that theater section which caused massive erosion to it and the rest of the park. Later they ducted the flow underground to the river but in doing so further diverted the aquifer. The tollway (I-90) now occupies about 1/3 of the original park area which was, in my opinion, the best section of the park. When you travel down I-90 and view the park you'll see three distinct hills the tollway cut into. They were known as The Three Sisters back before their demise.
Don't get me wrong...the park is still a gem but really deserves to be brought back to what it once was. The split rail fencing, the dam and resultant waterfall that once existed in the southwest corner of the park by the entrance off Duncan Avenue....
I know the park well having lived across the street from it at 615 Trout Park Blvd. What it is is fabulous but what it once was...you'd be stunned.
Bill - I got the fish hatchery info from the Elgin Historical society, but I'll take your word for it. I had no idea there were ever trout in Elgin. I've seen references to the "Elgin Botanical Gardens," but I didn't know the site is/was where the park is. Too many great places have been paved over for expressways. Hopefully, any future expressways will be more environmentally sensitive.
The only fish hatcherie that I know of was/is on McGraws Wildlife Preserve just north of Trout Park on the east side of Duncan Avenue. The lakes on that site drain off via a creek that once was called "Pickerel Creek" and some trout (and other species) do manage to make their way into the Fox even though it's screened off.
The park that once was is now owned by Kane County and is accessible from Duncan Avenue. They have a short history of the amusement park posted there as well. Unless, of course, you are familiar with the intial layout it's so overgrown that it's all pretty much unrecognizable.
As a kid the park was my playground so i got to know just about every inch of it. What you probably missed is the section of park on the south side of Trout Park Blvd. Yes, that's part of the botanical gardens as well but saw very little "traffic" even to this day. There are no beaten paths and it's still pretty much virgin territory.
On the northwest corner of that section is where the caretakers (Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Newman) of the park once lived. The grounds immediately around their house were spectacular to see. There was a large pond surrounded by towering trees and Mrs. Newman had every possible type of bird feeder all over that area. It was like a little piece of heaven to stand there and soak it all in. Remnants of what it once was are still visible but it's all fallen into ruin.
When you walked through the park proper you probably noticed a few of the large trees that were felled during the tornado of 1933 that went through there damaged the amusement park and also damaged the airport along Rte 31. Most are probably rotted awy by now but if you look hard I'm sure a few are still to be seen.
What with the depression followed by the tornado damage the amusement park closed up in 1934 and the property along the river stood idle for a number of years. In the 40's the Brunnemans (sp?) bought or leased the property (not sure which), cleaned it up and ran a boat rental and picnic grounds using the original boathouse from the amusement park. It seems to me the county bought it up in the 90's or, perhaps, it was only a 50 year lease? With that package they also acquired the land where Voyagers Landing sits on the west bank of the river.
Now, another thing you might have missed are the wild orchids that should be growing somewhere in the park. What I know about them is that they orginally grew in the portion of the park where the tollway went through but Mr. Newman dug them up and transplanted them elsewhere in the park to preserve them. He never said where he put them though so if they still do exist it might require some slogging around the marshes to find them again. Just think...a gem within a gem!
If anyone has any questions or comments about Trout Park I'd sure love to hear them. My email is:
blklion@mc.net
--- bill
Wow, Bill, you're a Trout Park expert! I think I'll leave the Orchids to themselves. I'm happy just knowing they exist.
Your fish hatcherie comment really piqued my curiousity so I just finished delving into my history books and notes. Guess what? We're both partially right!
The section along the river (now owned by Kane County) WAS just that for a two year period (1870-72)!
I recall my father "walking" me through the layout shwoing me where the roller coaster, carousel and whatnot once stood and there was still one pond south of the entrance road and a large depression to the north that looked like it was a pond at some time as well. His explanation was that they were the trout ponds but never mentioned the raising of fish there. I always assumed they were natural ponds in which trout were caught by anglers but they were too "perfect" to be natures work.
So the hatcherie was located in the original "Trout Park" but not in the botanical garden/cedar swamp portion.
There was a poet from Elgin that wrote about the cedar swamp and in it he alluded to french explorer Joliet (I believe) writing about it in his journal during his explorations. In that writing (a book of poetry) there was also a sketch of a large cedar tree sitting on a hillock by a stream. In the heart of the park there was a trunk of a large cedar that had fallen (about 4' in diameter) and its length spanned across a creek from atop the limestone hill is sat on. I always liked to believe that it was the very same tree that Joliet sat under when he penned in his journal but that's the type of dreaming kids do, right?
I'll go sit in the corner wearing the dunce cap now....the fish hatcherie did exist.
Bill - put away that dunce cap! I didn't know that Joliet had stopped in what is now Elgin. That is too cool.
The dunce cap remains. It was LaSalle and not Joliet. From now on I'll think before I type.
BTW...you can learn a lot more about the Fox River if you search under its original, Algonquin indian name: Pestekouy River (Buffalo River)
Bill - Joliet, LaSalle, some French guy...thanks for the info about the original name of the river. (You really are a fount of information.) Now I have to find out where along its length did the bison hang out. I grew up on the Fox River, our house was just down the street from it.
You may be hard pressed to find very much documentation on exact locations where the buffalo forded the river. I would imagine they would use the same places people found the river easiest to cross most of which are now spanned by bridges.
In the Kane County history books the only location mentioned where buffalo crossed is in Algonquin at what is now known as Buffalo Park. Kendall County history mentions buffalo herds but doesn't specify any crossing points.
In the Elgin area the easiest fording place was where the National Street bridge crosses. That site was used by the stage coach line whose Elgin station was located at the top of the hill where the school house sat at the intersections of National, Villa and Channing streets. Another area of shallows would have been in the Five Islands area where present day Blackhawk State Park sits.
To this day I still wonder about all the Blackhawk namings and references in this area when, in fact, he only came through this area once in his lifetime and that was for a treaty council at Fort Naperville.
Oh yeah...the other name the French tagged onto the Fox River was "Riviere de le Roche" (river of the rock) which is said to be in reference to the proximity of Starve Rock where the river empties into the Illinois.
Bill - thanks for the info! I would love to have been able to see it then.
Just one more comment before I vanish.....
After scanning through your blog here and NOT seeing anything about a very special place I think I should at least mention it.
This place is very special to me for various reasons. My internet ID (blklion) stems from being a member of the 1st Infantry Division, 2 Battalion, 28th Infantry brigade which are known as "The Black Lions of Cantigny". The special place?
Cantigny Park
It's north of Wheaton (actually Winfield) just off Rte. 38 on Winfield Road. Easy to miss and for some odd reason not many know about it. It's Robert McCormicks estate and grounds on which are his mansion, the 1st infantry Div. museuem and the most gorgeous gardens you'll ever see. If you haven't been there it is a must see especially if you're into gardening as you seem to be.
There is an entry fee but it's per vehicle and not per person. I think it's $10 for the day now unless they upped the ante yet again. Even so it's well worth the price. Once inside everything is free except, of course, food and beverage of which you can bring your own since they have picnic grounds there as well. The museum tour is free and it takes you from the revolutionary war through Desert Storm in walk through dioramas. Excellent displays if you're into something like that. The mansion tour is also free and well worth the look. The gardens are excellent and you can roam them at your own pace. It's a knock-yer-socks-off kinda place so bring a camera and prepare to spend several hours there.
As a last note....it's been a pleasure passing messages via this blog and I'm glad I accidentally stumbled onto it via a google search. Maybe one day we'll pass on a trail in Trout Park? You with the ever searching eye for a new flower or plant and me surrounded by a barely perceptible veil of what once was...
Bill - I'm very familiar with Cantigny. I used to go there frequently when I lived in Bartlett, especially when I'd go to The Planter's Palette nursery which is just down the road a bit. Cantigny is a beautiful & educational place. Unfortunately, my time to go wandering not in the immediate vicinity of home has dwindled because of the demands of the kids. They are at an age where looking at gardens or walking in the woods no longer interests them.
I happened to read your Tuesday, April 22, 2008 article, "Where the Wild Things Are: an Earth Day Ramble" about your experience at Trout Park. It's one of my favorite places to visit.
One of your photos, the one below your photo of the Toothwart, you say "and something I don't recognize."
I recognize the plant, which I always look forward to the blooms and the little urn-like seed pod. It's Jeffersonia diphylla, the Twinleaf. When the seedpod matures, its lid pops open to reveal little brown seeds with a protein-rich white tails on the seeds. Ants love the protein, but discard the seed, which then germinates another plant - a mutual symbiotic relationship
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