Truitt Hoff

There are two things I love most about having written Force of Nature. The first is traveling around the state sharing George Fell’s story with a broader audience. The second is using these trips to explore more of the nature preserves that George helped to protect.

Today, I was invited to speak at the annual luncheon for The Conservation Foundation. There were about 100 people in attendance at Arrowhead Golf Club in Wheaton, DuPage County. Per usual, only a small handful of them had heard of George Fell. After the talk, a lot of folks bought books to learn more about him — George was as complex and fascinating a man as he was a hugely accomplished conservationist.

After the luncheon, I changed into my hiking gear and set out to explore a few nature preserves. There are eight dedicated nature preserves owned and managed by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. I decided to visit three of them, beginning with Truitt Hoff, located in West Chicago Prairie — #18 on my way to visiting 50 nature preserves this year.

A terrific online history of Truitt Hoff (would that every nature preserve had such a thing) confirmed what a long-time steward had told me at the annual luncheon. Namely, that Truitt Hoff was one of those forgotten places — former farmland turned to stockyards and eventually sold for development, when former West Chicago mayor Richard Truitt “discovered” the prairie remnant and shared the news with Ray Schulenberg, one of the early pioneers of prairie restoration.

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.

The work of stewarding our natural areas is never done. The West Chicago Stewardship Group remains active. It is guided by a detailed management plan developed by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, in accordance with the Illinois Natural Areas Preservation Act, which requires such plans for all dedicated Nature Preserves.

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.

George would have been much pleased by the trails at Truitt Hoff. They afforded a particularly up close and personal experience of the prairie. (Along with a few ticks and chiggers.) There may have been fewer wildflowers than usual, and most of the birds appeared to have taken a siesta to avoid the mid-day sun, but the preserve was teeming with all different kinds of dragonflies.

Thanks, George Fell. And Mayor Truitt and Mel Hoff. And all those who continue to steward this exceptional site, which “is different from other DuPage County forest preserves in that it contains no large picnic areas or fishing lakes. Instead, it offers visitors the unique opportunity to enjoy a tranquil walk through one of the state’s rarest — and richest — prairie ecosystems.”