Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area
Encyclopedia
Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area is a 2537 acres (1,026.7 ha) state park
and listed state nature preserve. More than half of the state park is a tallgrass prairie
maintained as a natural area of Illinois
. It is located in Grundy County near the town of Morris, approximately 50 miles (80.5 km) southwest of Chicago
.
period as a flat, wet area dominated by layers of sand and silt laid down by postglacial outwash. The massive Des Plaines River
and Kankakee River
come together here to form the Illinois River
.
The Illinois River, with its massive valley downstream, began to drain this patch of land, although it remained flat and wet. During the time of the Native Americans, the Goose Lake area was a stable wetland
, with swathes of prairie grass surrounding the shallow Goose Lake.
The region is in the Central forest-grasslands transition
ecoregion
.
The Goose Lake area was a favorite place for Native American hunting, fishing, and gathering, with geese, ducks, and other waterfowl; a wide variety of fish
and shellfish
; and wet-footed game such as beaver
and muskrat
. However, there were also plenty of mosquito
es.
. A different fate awaited much of it.
The poorly-drained sediment under and adjacent to Goose Lake was rich in clay
. Starting as early as the 1820s, the sticky clay was extensively dug by settlers. Some of them were trained potters
; they fired the clay in kilns to create pieces of earthenware
for frontier farm and household needs. The potters' settlement was called Jugtown, and the road to the park's visitor center is called Jugtown Road to this day. A few pieces of Jugtown earthenware have been saved by collectors, and some of the larger claypits can be seen today. Frontiersmen also dug ditches through the clay to partly drain the wet prairie for pasture
land. Soil too damp for crops could be used for cattle
.
Local drainage activity peaked in 1890, when local farmers formed a drainage district and cooperated to drain Goose Lake. The area's defining geographical feature disappeared and was replaced by damp farmland and wet pastureland. The drainage was a partial failure; if it had been a success, the remaining patches of prairie would have disappeared under the plow. Today, the park's Marsh Loop Trail passes over part of the bed of the vanished lake.
Underneath the clay were thin veins of coal
, dug from the beginning by the farmers and potters for local use. In the second half of the 1800s, regional coal mining increased to supply fuel to the growing city of Chicago. The main line of the Santa Fe Railroad was built adjacent to the prairie land, and the mines built spur tracks into the coal field to haul the coal to customers. Industrial strip mining, with motorized shovels, began in 1928. The miners left piles of tailings
in the southern section of the remaining prairie, further altering the landscape.
The area was further altered after World War II with the construction of two great electrical generating plants, the coal-burning Collins Station and the nuclear-powered Dresden Nuclear Power Plant
(1960). The Collins plant was constructed in conjunction with an adjacent 2000 acres (809.4 ha) artificial pond, Heidecke Lake
, dug to serve as a cooling pond for the generating plant. Heidecke Lake today serves as much of the northern boundary of Goose Lake Prairie. Ironically, the hand of man had destroyed one lake in the Illinois River bottomland, Goose Lake, and then created another, Heidecke Lake.
Unlike many of Illinois's state parks, Goose Lake Prairie is not primarily managed for hunting; visitors are encouraged to enjoy a tallgrass prairie ecosystem
, dominated by grass
es such as big bluestem
, Indian grass, and switchgrass
, and by flowering forbs such as compass plants, coneflower
s, goldenrod
, shooting star
s, and violet
s. The state park's workers and managers maintain a 7-mile (11 km) network of trail
s throughout the park. Some of the park's patches of mature grassland sprout blades up to 8 feet (2.4 m) in height.
The patches of old-growth tallgrass prairie that have survived to the present day serve as a biotic refuge for many species that can live nowhere else, especially prairie-endemic moths
and butterflies. Some rare prairie plants are especially adapted to feed and be fertilized by equally rare prairie insects. Lepidopterists have found the papaipema moth, previously thought to be extinct, fluttering about Goose Lake Prairie's forbs and flowers.
The Cragg Cabin, a c. 1838 log cabin originally built in nearby Mazon, Illinois
, has been relocated to Goose Lake Prairie as a tribute to the frontier heritage of the Prairie State.
Together with the nearby Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
, Goose Lake Prairie is a reminder of the tens of thousands of acres of tallgrass prairie that once lived in Illinois.
Goose Lake Prairie has been listed as an Important Bird Area of Illinois.
Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area is accessible from Exit 240 on Interstate 55
.
State park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the federated state level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational...
and listed state nature preserve. More than half of the state park is a tallgrass prairie
Tallgrass prairie
The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America, with fire as its primary periodic disturbance. In the past, tallgrass prairies covered a large portion of the American Midwest, just east of the Great Plains, and portions of the Canadian Prairies. They flourished in areas with...
maintained as a natural area of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. It is located in Grundy County near the town of Morris, approximately 50 miles (80.5 km) southwest of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Ecosystem
The Goose Lake region formed in the post-Wisconsin glaciationWisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
period as a flat, wet area dominated by layers of sand and silt laid down by postglacial outwash. The massive Des Plaines River
Des Plaines River
The Des Plaines River is a river that flows southward for through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois in the U.S. Midwest, eventually meeting the Kankakee River west of Channahon to form the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi River....
and Kankakee River
Kankakee River
The Kankakee River is a tributary of the Illinois River, approximately long, in northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois in the United States. At one time the river drained one of the largest wetlands in North America and furnished a significant portage between the Great Lakes and the...
come together here to form the Illinois River
Illinois River
The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long, in the State of Illinois. The river drains a large section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of . This river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route...
.
The Illinois River, with its massive valley downstream, began to drain this patch of land, although it remained flat and wet. During the time of the Native Americans, the Goose Lake area was a stable wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
, with swathes of prairie grass surrounding the shallow Goose Lake.
The region is in the Central forest-grasslands transition
Central forest-grasslands transition
The Central forest-grasslands transition are a prairie ecoregion of the central United States, part of the North American Great Plains.-Setting:...
ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...
.
The Goose Lake area was a favorite place for Native American hunting, fishing, and gathering, with geese, ducks, and other waterfowl; a wide variety of fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
and shellfish
Shellfish
Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...
; and wet-footed game such as beaver
Beaver
The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...
and muskrat
Muskrat
The muskrat , the only species in genus Ondatra, is a medium-sized semi-aquatic rodent native to North America, and introduced in parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. The muskrat is found in wetlands and is a very successful animal over a wide range of climates and habitats...
. However, there were also plenty of mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
es.
History
While the flat, alluvial soil of this riparian bottomland was intensely fertile, the lack of adequate drainage made the land of the Goose Lake country unsuitable for subdivision for agricultureAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. A different fate awaited much of it.
The poorly-drained sediment under and adjacent to Goose Lake was rich in clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
. Starting as early as the 1820s, the sticky clay was extensively dug by settlers. Some of them were trained potters
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
; they fired the clay in kilns to create pieces of earthenware
Earthenware
Earthenware is a common ceramic material, which is used extensively for pottery tableware and decorative objects.-Types of earthenware:Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15%...
for frontier farm and household needs. The potters' settlement was called Jugtown, and the road to the park's visitor center is called Jugtown Road to this day. A few pieces of Jugtown earthenware have been saved by collectors, and some of the larger claypits can be seen today. Frontiersmen also dug ditches through the clay to partly drain the wet prairie for pasture
Pasture
Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs...
land. Soil too damp for crops could be used for cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
.
Local drainage activity peaked in 1890, when local farmers formed a drainage district and cooperated to drain Goose Lake. The area's defining geographical feature disappeared and was replaced by damp farmland and wet pastureland. The drainage was a partial failure; if it had been a success, the remaining patches of prairie would have disappeared under the plow. Today, the park's Marsh Loop Trail passes over part of the bed of the vanished lake.
Underneath the clay were thin veins of coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, dug from the beginning by the farmers and potters for local use. In the second half of the 1800s, regional coal mining increased to supply fuel to the growing city of Chicago. The main line of the Santa Fe Railroad was built adjacent to the prairie land, and the mines built spur tracks into the coal field to haul the coal to customers. Industrial strip mining, with motorized shovels, began in 1928. The miners left piles of tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
in the southern section of the remaining prairie, further altering the landscape.
The area was further altered after World War II with the construction of two great electrical generating plants, the coal-burning Collins Station and the nuclear-powered Dresden Nuclear Power Plant
Dresden Nuclear Power Plant
Dresden Generating Station is the first privately financed nuclear power plant built in the United States. Dresden 1 was activated in 1960 and retired in 1978. Operating since 1970 are Dresden units 2 and 3, two General Electric boiling water reactors...
(1960). The Collins plant was constructed in conjunction with an adjacent 2000 acres (809.4 ha) artificial pond, Heidecke Lake
Heidecke Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area
Heidecke Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area is an Illinois state park on in Grundy County, Illinois, United States. It is an artificial cooling pond excavated to enable the operation of the adjacent Collins Generating Station, owned and operated by Midwest Generation.-External links:*...
, dug to serve as a cooling pond for the generating plant. Heidecke Lake today serves as much of the northern boundary of Goose Lake Prairie. Ironically, the hand of man had destroyed one lake in the Illinois River bottomland, Goose Lake, and then created another, Heidecke Lake.
Today
The first 250 acres (101.2 ha) of Goose Lake was purchased by Illinois for nature preservation purposes in 1969. The addition of additional parcels created the present-day Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area. The remaining patches of tallgrass prairie had been extensively altered by human activity during the preceding 150 years, but active management began to re-knit these patches into a unified swathe of natural grassland.Unlike many of Illinois's state parks, Goose Lake Prairie is not primarily managed for hunting; visitors are encouraged to enjoy a tallgrass prairie ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
, dominated by grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
es such as big bluestem
Big Bluestem
Andropogon gerardii, known also as Big bluestem, Turkey foot, Prairie tallgrass, or simply Tallgrass, is a tall grass native to much of the Great Plains and Prairie regions of central North America- Description :...
, Indian grass, and switchgrass
Switchgrass
Panicum virgatum, commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico...
, and by flowering forbs such as compass plants, coneflower
Coneflower
Coneflower is a common name of at least four genera of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae:*Dracopis*Echinacea*Rudbeckia*Ratibida...
s, goldenrod
Goldenrod
Solidago, commonly called goldenrods, is a genus of about 100 species of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Most are herbaceous perennial species found in the meadows and pastures, along roads, ditches and waste areas in North America. There are also a few species native to Mexico, South...
, shooting star
Shooting Star
Shooting star is a common name for the visible path of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere to become a meteor.Shooting star may also refer to:* Shooting Star Children's Hospice, a UK children's charity* The Shooting Star, a 1942 Tintin adventure...
s, and violet
Violet (plant)
Viola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with around 400–500 species distributed around the world. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere; however, viola species are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes in...
s. The state park's workers and managers maintain a 7-mile (11 km) network of trail
Trail
A trail is a path with a rough beaten or dirt/stone surface used for travel. Trails may be for use only by walkers and in some places are the main access route to remote settlements...
s throughout the park. Some of the park's patches of mature grassland sprout blades up to 8 feet (2.4 m) in height.
The patches of old-growth tallgrass prairie that have survived to the present day serve as a biotic refuge for many species that can live nowhere else, especially prairie-endemic moths
Moths
Moths may refer to:* Gustav Moths , German rower* The Moths!, an English indie rock band* MOTHS, members of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats...
and butterflies. Some rare prairie plants are especially adapted to feed and be fertilized by equally rare prairie insects. Lepidopterists have found the papaipema moth, previously thought to be extinct, fluttering about Goose Lake Prairie's forbs and flowers.
The Cragg Cabin, a c. 1838 log cabin originally built in nearby Mazon, Illinois
Mazon, Illinois
Mazon is a village in Mazon Township, Grundy County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,015 at the 2010 census. The center of population of Illinois is located in Mazon. Illinois' State Fossil, the unique and bizarre Tully Monster was first found in nearby Mazon Creek...
, has been relocated to Goose Lake Prairie as a tribute to the frontier heritage of the Prairie State.
Together with the nearby Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is a prairie reserve operated by the United States Forest Service. It is in the Central forest-grasslands transition ecoregion. It is located on the site of the former Joliet Army Ammunition Plant near Elwood, Illinois, and was established by federal law in 1996...
, Goose Lake Prairie is a reminder of the tens of thousands of acres of tallgrass prairie that once lived in Illinois.
Goose Lake Prairie has been listed as an Important Bird Area of Illinois.
Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area is accessible from Exit 240 on Interstate 55
Interstate 55
Interstate 55 is an Interstate Highway in the central United States. Its odd number indicates that it is a north–south Interstate Highway. I-55 goes from LaPlace, Louisiana at Interstate 10 to Chicago at U.S. Route 41 , at McCormick Place. A common nickname for the highway is "double...
.