What better way to celebrate receiving an award for my biography of George Fell than to visit Carpenter Park — one of more than 400 Illinois Nature Preserves for which he provided permanent protection.
But first things first. Receiving an Outstanding Achievement Award for scholarly publications from the Illinois State Historical Society was an exceptional honor — especially since the awards ceremony was held in Representatives Hall in the Old State Capitol. To stand where Lincoln stood when he delivered the “House divided against itself” speech, offering a few words about my own effort to chronicle a small but important sliver of our state’s history — well, that’s a moment I’m going to remember for a long time.
Afterward, my wife and I took advantage of the perfect spring weather and spent the afternoon in the only dedicated Illinois Nature Preserve in all of Sangamon County.
Carpenter Park is located along the Sangamon River, about 15 minutes from the Old State Capitol. It is owned and managed by the Springfield Park District, which acquired the site way back in 1922. Prior to that, it was owned by the Carpenter family, who used the river to power a sawmill and a flour mill. Prior to that — because no Springfield, IL history story is worth its salt unless it includes a tie to the 16th President — a young Abraham Lincoln canoed down the Sangamon River, past the modern-day Carpenter Park, on his way to establish his own homestead at New Salem. Prior to that, the Pottawatomie gave the river its name, Sain-guee-mon, meaning “where there is plenty to eat.”
Today, Carpenter Park is a popular place. Small wonder. Any one of the several trails quickly leads you through an exceptionally rich and varied landscape — from upland forest down to floodplain forest along the river, with seeps and intermittent streams, and scenic sandstone outcrops.
The forest floor was filled with spring ephemerals, including phlox, trillium and buttercup and may apples, to name a few. (The Park District might do well to engage a few Scout troops to pull up invasive garlic mustard, which is threatening to overrun some areas.)
Even more impressive was the number of birds we saw. Carpenter Park is home to at least 82 bird species. We didn’t see quite that many, but it was a joy to spy several red-head woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, many different kinds of warblers, and a rose-breasted grosbeak.
Heroes comes in all different shapes and sizes. Abraham Lincoln was a hero of epic proportions for many things, including keeping the country from being divided. George Fell was a hero in his own right, keeping the the last remnants of our ecological heritage — the prairies, woodlands and wetlands of the Prairie State — from being destroyed.
Come November, there’s not much color left in a prairie. A last splash of yellow, perhaps, in a few lingering coreopsis petals or a stubborn spring of goldenrod. Nonetheless, on my first visit to 
To learn just how special, all you have to do is read the signs. Of the nearly 50 nature preserves I’ve visited this year, perhaps only 
I also learned from the signage that in the 1980s, about a third of the site was ruined by illegal dumping. That’s how we’ve lost so much of our natural land. For some, the last vestiges of our native prairies, wetlands and woodlands are not oases of biodiversity and beauty, they are merely convenient places to dump garbage. But in this instance, someone cared enough to undo the damage, to remove the equivalent of a thousand dump trucks of trash. Someone cared enough to use seeds gathered from the rest of the site to begin restoring the dump site back to its prairie glory. Someone cared enough to work with the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission to get the site dedicated in 1994 as an official Illinois Nature Preserve, providing permanent protection for the site.
Today was a toss-up as to which was more fun — talking to folks about the George Fell biography or taking a guided tour of one of the natural areas that George protected first by buying it and then designating it as an Illinois Nature Preserve: 
This past March, Susan and I visited the site with Jerry Paulson, former executive director of NLI, who worked many years with George. We were too early see pasque flowers — one of the first bloomers on the gravel ridge prairie. And by the time I was able to return in July, the pasque flowers long since had gone to seed.
Fittingly, Liberty Prairie Reserve is anchored by 
So, too, am I OK with the fact that the main entrance to 
Susan and I recently enjoyed an Illinois Nature Preserve-alooza while getting a good workout. Pedaling our bikes along the Old Plank Road Trail, we cruised through Old Plank Road Prairie and Dewey Helmick Nature Preserves. The third site was the Butterfield Creek Headwaters Land and Water Reserve. A few weeks later, we returned to the trail and took the spur to Hickory Creek Barrens Nature Preserve.
It took more than 20 years to acquire the right of way, raise funds and overcome certain local opposition, but in 1997 the first segment of the Old Plank Road Trail was opened to the public. At the ribbon cutting in 1997, 
That same year, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission named one of the two new nature preserves in his honor. Dewey Helmick Nature Preserve and Old Plank Road Nature Preserve are prototypical railroad prairies. They survived because they remained relatively untouched since the rails were laid more than a century and a half ago — aside from periodic fires set by sparks from passing trains. But that was a good thing, since prairies are dependent upon fire to keep their soils healthy and to keep invasive trees and shrubs from encroaching.
preserve. More than a quarter of it — 575 acres — was dedicated in 1998 as the 
The online history also tells how the other man for whom the site is partly named — Mel Hoff — was appointed the Volunteer Steward in 1982 and formed the West Chicago Prairie Stewardship Group. It took 24 years of sweat equity to remove invasive species, abandoned cars and all kinds of other debris. But eventually, the diverse site — containing freshwater marsh, mesic silt loam savanna, and at least three different kinds of prairie communities — returned to health and was designated as the Truitt Hoff Nature Preserve in 2006.
At the trailhead, the stewardship group had posted its most recent newsletter, that helped me better see and understand the site. Out in the field, I found brush piles, evidence of the clearing reported in the newsletter. I also encountered lusher grasses yet fewer wildflowers than anticipated, which the newsletter chalked up to a wet spring.
The grasses were so dense and lush, in fact, that they all but obscured the narrow footpaths, which reminded me of a question raised at the annual luncheon — about public access to nature preserves. I acknowledged that George Fell was more of a nature-for-nature’s-sake kind of guy. Whereas most of his Illinois Nature Preserves Commissioners preferred wider, more inviting trails to encourage people to explore nature, George was adamant that trails be kept to a minimum, and that visitors should walk single file, like the “Indians” used to do.
Following The Conservation Foundation annual luncheon, I headed out to visit three Nature Preserves in DuPage County. My first stop was 
The 65-acre Churchill Prairie Nature Preserve actually consists of a “complex patchwork” of different kinds of natural area community types, including a couple different kinds of prairie, sedge meadow, mesic upland forest, dry mesic upland forest and savanna.
Earlier in the day, at Truitt Hoff, I was blown away by the diversity of dragonflies patrolling the site. At Churchill Prairie, it was all about birds. Adult bluebirds and Baltimore orioles — flashing blue and bright orange against the green canopy of the savanna — were far too busy gathering insects to feed their nestlings for me to get a good picture. But a downy woodpecker was a little more cooperative.
I had a great time talking to supporters of 
Like several of the Nature Preserves I’ve visited thus far, Belmont Prairie survived by accident, or because someone hadn’t yet gotten around to developing it before it was “discovered.”
In my quest to visit 50 Illinois Nature Preserves this year, I could almost make the case for adding a whole bunch more to my list from having spent this past weekend at a single site: 
My fellow writers offered books on a wide range of subjects — from historic bridges to presidential biographies, from Maxwell Street to labor history. My good friend Rich Cahan and his 
Also there was Mike MacDonald, whose exquisitely handsome 
Mike features 28 nature preserves in his book, from 
