Liberty Prairie Reserve
Lake County, Illinois

by Barbara Phillips

Liberty Prairie Reserve in Lake County is large — 2,500 acres — so the opportunities for recreation, exploration, learning, and getting lost in wild nature are abundant.

An emerald oasis of prairie, wetlands, and savannas punctuated by 300-year old oaks, the Reserve includes a 47-acre dedicated Nature Preserve containing a small virgin prairie that was only lightly grazed. (Most of the preserve was never even plowed.) As a result, the prairie and wetlands harbor more than 150 species of native flowering plants.

Visitors in early spring may observe blue-eyed grass and yellow star grass in blossom, and shooting stars, By mid-summer, marsh blazing star and marsh phlox are abundant. (Almost all the Reserve lies within the Bull Creek Watershed, a sub-watershed of the Des Plaines River.)

The nature preserve also harbors a rare graminoid fen, sedge meadow, and marsh. Here budding botanists can find Riddell’s goldenrod, bottlebrush sedge, and grass-of-Parnassus. Six species of butterflies and moths that survive only in high-quality remnant communities inhabit the Reserve, as does the lovely smooth green snake.

The Reserve connects to the 667-acre Prairie Crossing conservation community via 12.5 miles of crushed gravel trails. Pets on leashes, bikes, and horses are welcome (but you must bring your own as there are no nearby rental sources).

Both the Reserve — some of which is virgin land while other parcels are still farmed — and Prairie Crossing owe their existence to the foresight of the Donnelley family and a band of feisty conservationists who fought to preserve the natural communities for the benefit of nature and people. One of them, Victoria Post Ranney, edited the letters of pioneer landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. She became a defender of the Midwestern landscape through the study of Olmsted and Jensen. The Reserve is owned by a consortium of public and private entities. Liberty Prairie Conservancy manages the Reserve in its capacity as steward for the township open space district.

Restoration work, including controlled burns and reseeding, prepares the Reserve to take its place as a vital link in a chain of preserves stretching from the Wisconsin border to Joliet. Visitors are likely to see (or hear) woodcocks, great blue herons, northern harriers, bobolinks, and meadowlarks. When you spy a rare leopard frog among the wetland reeds, glimpse a red fox kit in the Indian grass, or gather seed on a workday, you join the chain.